A CD player that works via USB - finally!!!

[johnyoung1234]

After many years of searching with no luck I happened upon a CD player that actually works in my Model S via USB! It's Automotive Integrated Electronics UBSCDPLAY1 and it's available on Amazon for around $200. Just plug it in and insert a CD--it's that simple. The car recognizes all the tracks as WAV files via USB. You use the touchscreen to select tracks since the player is no frills and only has 1 button--eject. Until this point, I had tried numerous players, portable read/writers, etc and nothing worked. Before you ask...YES I know you can just burn CDs to an external drive and the car will recognize the files. However, I have around 15,000 flac files on a 1TB external drive that takes the car like 10+ minutes or more to index. Now I can just pop a CD in the player without waiting. The interface isn't 100% perfect at times. Every once in a while the CD has to be inserted again or reinserted but this is really a function of Tesla's crappy software interface rather than the player. Also, it does choke sometimes if you decide to skip to another song while in the middle of another. It works best when you just insert a disc and let it play. The link to the player is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHXY5X3?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

AIE also makes another version (USBCDPLAY2) which the car will not recognize so don't bother trying that one.

I hope this helps others since it's been a ridiculously long time finding a solution to this nagging problem.

 

[DerbyDave]

Congrats on taking the car technology back ten years! I do understand your need.

 

[Keeta29]

I am amazed at the length the people will take to stay in the 1990's.

 

[beatle]

Clearly you are happy with this discovery, but I have to ask - if indexing speed is the issue, why not just put a subset of of your media files on a separate USB drive? I do this (I have over 20,000 music files) and it works pretty well. I have about 1500-2000 songs on a drive at a time. It's not as convenient as having my entire library, but it's also kind of a chore to scroll through them. Even decent USB memory sticks are as cheap as a fast food meal these days.

If you haven't already upgraded to MCU2, that also improves indexing speed.

 

[BigNick]

I had a 2006 car that came with a Blaupunkt 6-disc changer from the factory. In the dash, not the trunk.
Carrying around CDs was more of a pain than having everything ripped to FLAC on a thumbnail-sized 128 GB USB drive.
Getting 300+ CDs ripped was a royal pain though!

 

[Marcust99]

After many years of searching with no luck I happened upon a CD player that actually works in my Model S via USB! It's Automotive Integrated Electronics UBSCDPLAY1 and it's available on Amazon for around $200. Just plug it in and insert a CD--it's that simple. The car recognizes all the tracks as WAV files via USB. You use the touchscreen to select tracks since the player is no frills and only has 1 button--eject. Until this point, I had tried numerous players, portable read/writers, etc and nothing worked. Before you ask...YES I know you can just burn CDs to an external drive and the car will recognize the files. However, I have around 15,000 flac files on a 1TB external drive that takes the car like 10+ minutes or more to index. Now I can just pop a CD in the player without waiting. The interface isn't 100% perfect at times. Every once in a while the CD has to be inserted again or reinserted but this is really a function of Tesla's crappy software interface rather than the player. Also, it does choke sometimes if you decide to skip to another song while in the middle of another. It works best when you just insert a disc and let it play. The link to the player is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHXY5X3?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

AIE also makes another version (USBCDPLAY2) which the car will not recognize so don't bother trying that one.

I hope this helps others since it's been a ridiculously long time finding a solution to this nagging problem.

Why not split up your external FLAC drives into smaller sizes so the indexing is faster? For me this would be 100x more convenient then dealing with a CD player and disks in my Tesla which is frankly, kinda silly. I wouldn’t need that many tracks anyways as there’s not much not on Spotify these days…..

 

[JustJohn]

Just be happy for the guy.

 

[2101Guy]

Do they make one to accommodate 8-track tapes?

 

[johnyoung1234]

How did I know there would be some asshats here that would comment about "taking the technology back 10 years" or some other dickhead response about "8 track tapes". I hope you got your rocks off with your response...

 

[DerbyDave]

How did I know there would be some asshats here that would comment about "taking the technology back 10 years" or some other dickhead response about "8 track tapes". I hope you got your rocks off with your response...

My response was of understanding his need, with a laugh at taking the technology back 10 years. Your comments seem offensive. Great work!

 

[beatle]

How did I know there would be some asshats here that would comment about "taking the technology back 10 years" or some other dickhead response about "8 track tapes". I hope you got your rocks off with your response...

You've highlighted that there's more than one way to skin a cat. However, most people would look for an easier, less expensive, less intrusive, more durable, more reliable solution such as a small USB drive, but hey, maybe the cat skinning process is about the journey, not the destination? You didn't mention your love for skinning cats in your opening post, so people will have to make some assumptions.

When you've chosen a solution with seemingly no upsides, don't be surprised if people question your motives. And if you were truly happy with your choice, you probably wouldn't be so defensive about these questions.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

How did I know there would be some asshats here that would comment about "taking the technology back 10 years" or some other dickhead response about "8 track tapes". I hope you got your rocks off with your response...

I can't understand
What makes a man hate another man?

(There, back to the 1980s).

Don't be discouraged by the responses.
I think your find is useful for anybody who has a bunch of CDs they haven't ripped.

But since you've already ripped to FLAC, I agree with others that you'd be better off copying your FLACs onto smaller collections.
You'd just need to categorize so you know which one to bring.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I listen to audio books that I get for free from the library, so a CD player is something I'll miss [1], especially as I'll only listen to something one time



[1] if I ever actually take delivery

 

[philtronics]

After many years of searching with no luck I happened upon a CD player that actually works in my Model S via USB! It's Automotive Integrated Electronics UBSCDPLAY1 and it's available on Amazon for around $200. Just plug it in and insert a CD--it's that simple. The car recognizes all the tracks as WAV files via USB. You use the touchscreen to select tracks since the player is no frills and only has 1 button--eject. Until this point, I had tried numerous players, portable read/writers, etc and nothing worked. Before you ask...YES I know you can just burn CDs to an external drive and the car will recognize the files. However, I have around 15,000 flac files on a 1TB external drive that takes the car like 10+ minutes or more to index. Now I can just pop a CD in the player without waiting. The interface isn't 100% perfect at times. Every once in a while the CD has to be inserted again or reinserted but this is really a function of Tesla's crappy software interface rather than the player. Also, it does choke sometimes if you decide to skip to another song while in the middle of another. It works best when you just insert a disc and let it play. The link to the player is here: Amazon.com

AIE also makes another version (USBCDPLAY2) which the car will not recognize so don't bother trying that one.

I hope this helps others since it's been a ridiculously long time finding a solution to this nagging problem.

I just ordered one to use with a 2020 Model Y. The customer support dept. could not confirm or deny it would work, but Amazon has a great return policy.

 

[WhiteWi]

Why not use Spotify?

 

[EVer Hopeful]

Why not use Spotify?

Well that's a good question, but it's $9.99 a month and I already have a Pandora subscription (for roughly half that amount). It's annoying that I can't use Pandora

...plus tbh, I listen mostly to audiobooks anyway

 

[MadsV]

Im thinking about this myself, been looking at this that i found in another forum:
NAV-TV - Interfacing the Future
Looks about the same.

for those asking why not spotify or why not ripp the cds, its more about putting on a cd. Its a feeling, i got two boxes in the car waiting to be played.

im also curious if i will hear better sound quality with a cd in a tesla, as i can do in a regular car with a cd player. The audio is good in the tesla, but i wont complain if its even better

 

[WhiteWi]

Im thinking about this myself, been looking at this that i found in another forum:
NAV-TV - Interfacing the Future
Looks about the same.

for those asking why not spotify or why not ripp the cds, its more about putting on a cd. Its a feeling, i got two boxes in the car waiting to be played.

im also curious if i will hear better sound quality with a cd in a tesla, as i can do in a regular car with a cd player. The audio is good in the tesla, but i wont complain if its even better

Well, I enjoy vinyl records at home but I don’t wish to enjoy it in the car

 

[beatle]

im also curious if i will hear better sound quality with a cd in a tesla, as i can do in a regular car with a cd player. The audio is good in the tesla, but i wont complain if its even better

For the best sound via CD, you'd want one with an optical output that goes to a DSP/amp with an optical input. (There are also portable digital music players that have optical outputs.) That way you can bypass the processing done by the factory stereo, or the lossy sources like Spotify or Slacker. A DSP is great, but it has to "work harder" to first fix the incoming signal, and if the range of frequencies are just plain missing, it can't recreate them so the source is important. Here are a number of portable CD players from Sony that have an optical output:

D-NE900
D-NE9
D-NE1
D-EJ1000
D-EJ2000
D-E706CK
D-E705
D-E556
D-E551
D-E555
D-E556
D-303
D-Z555
D-555

 

[philtronics]

After many years of searching with no luck I happened upon a CD player that actually works in my Model S via USB! It's Automotive Integrated Electronics UBSCDPLAY1 and it's available on Amazon for around $200. Just plug it in and insert a CD--it's that simple. The car recognizes all the tracks as WAV files via USB. You use the touchscreen to select tracks since the player is no frills and only has 1 button--eject. Until this point, I had tried numerous players, portable read/writers, etc and nothing worked. Before you ask...YES I know you can just burn CDs to an external drive and the car will recognize the files. However, I have around 15,000 flac files on a 1TB external drive that takes the car like 10+ minutes or more to index. Now I can just pop a CD in the player without waiting. The interface isn't 100% perfect at times. Every once in a while the CD has to be inserted again or reinserted but this is really a function of Tesla's crappy software interface rather than the player. Also, it does choke sometimes if you decide to skip to another song while in the middle of another. It works best when you just insert a disc and let it play. The link to the player is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHXY5X3?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

AIE also makes another version (USBCDPLAY2) which the car will not recognize so don't bother trying that one.

I hope this helps others since it's been a ridiculously long time finding a solution to this nagging problem.

Ordered a "new open box" unit from Ebay, just tried it out in my 2020 Model Y and it works great!! Glad I don't need to spend hours putting everything on a memory stick.