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

[vcor]

My old car had a Pioneer MP3 CD player. It had PHYSICAL BUTTONS. I could do things that I can't do in the Tesla (without crashing).
- Skip folder UP/DOWN with ONE button! - you can't do that without about 4 clicks on the touch screen.
- << and >> through tracks with DEDICATEDbuttons! - listening to a 1hour podcast / audiobook file, want to rewind a bit you missed. Easy. Try and do that on - a touchscreen where 5mm represents 1minute of audio - if you can even press the scroll line.
- display track remaining - now gone from V11.

Mostly true, but you can move through tracks with the left scroll wheel. Push to right or left. Varies a bit depending on how old your Tesla is. All have dedicated track buttons. Also, Tesla has buttons for random play, repeat last track/repeat at end. I suspect most CD players do not have these dedicated buttons or features. Also rare to see album art with a CD player like Tesla provides, but a CD might have art on the physical disk. Different features and options for different needs make it hard to please everyone. For those that like CDs, great - stick with them if you love them.

 

[archae86]

Different features and options for different needs make it hard to please everyone. For those that like CDs, great - stick with them if you love them.

I remain unaware of any option for me to play my 600-CD collection in either of my Teslas AT ALL. Not counting the non-option of ripping them laboriously offline. I mean I need a slot in my car into which I can place a standard commercial audio CD (not a data CD) and actually play it. I bought the one mentioned above, and failed to get that function out of it.

Does anyone have a currently functioning solution?

 

[EVer Hopeful]

I bought some batteries once - they weren't included so I had to buy them again



(only old people will get that joke)

 

[vcor]

I remain unaware of any option for me to play my 600-CD collection in either of my Teslas AT ALL. Not counting the non-option of ripping them laboriously offline. I mean I need a slot in my car into which I can place a standard commercial audio CD (not a data CD) and actually play it. I bought the one mentioned above, and failed to get that function out of it.

Does anyone have a currently functioning solution?

Well, if you really want to stay with CDs, one solution is to buy a couple of those old 300 CD changers (Sony?) along with a home receiver and speakers. Get a 120VAC inverter connected to the car's battery to power it all. Install all this in your trunk. You'll have full access to your 600 CDs. The changers even come with remote controls, although they may need to be in the line of sight of the changers.

It would be a lot cheaper and offer a well-integrated solution to rip the CDs, but you stated you have no interest in that. Yep, it is laborious, although I think there are companies that will do it for you if they still exist. I did the ripping myself. Doing 10 CDs a day would get it done in 2 months. Then you could get rid of the CDs. Your music would then be available in multiple cars and at home.

 

[EVer Hopeful]

...then you'd have to spend two more months listening to everything at least one time, just to amortize the process of ripping them

 

[Dameon]

I bought some batteries once - they weren't included so I had to buy them again



(only old people will get that joke)

Steven Wright would get it...

 

[LPEREZDANCER]

went with this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL718H36?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
hope it works... I hate streaming and I dont have the time to rip 3,000 CDs to MP3 or FLAC

 

[archae86]

went with this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL718H36?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
hope it works... I hate streaming and I dont have the time to rip 3,000 CDs to MP3 or FLAC

please report your experience.
My own experience and one product pushed for Teslas on Facebook gives hope that you might be able to place tracks burned to recordable CDs in data mode where the music is in .wav files or some other formats. But true Audio CDs (the kind you buy music on in a store) would not play in the Tesla on the same player.
If your choice actually plays audio CDs over the Tesla's system, I'll be overjoyed and buy one the next day.

 

[Laddcruzer]

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.

If I’m not mistaken, the refreshed S’s and X’s only have USB-c inputs. So will an adapter work as far as data transfer?

 

[RichardL]

There is a usb-a in the glovebox. That is used for Sentry and dash cam usually though

 

[Laddcruzer]

There is a usb-a in the glovebox. That is used for Sentry and dash cam usually though

I just don’t want to lose Sentry and Dash Cam. I could try a usb-a splitter I guess.

 

[archae86]

I just don’t want to lose Sentry and Dash Cam. I could try a usb-a splitter I guess.

Yes. Unless you are lucky enough to have a Tesla for which the console USB-C ports are actually active for data, and you have a player you can get to work on them (takes both) then a hub is what you need. The one I tried seemed to work--more accurately, the player had the same partial function (did data CDs, but not audio CDs) when working through the hub as it had when connected directly to the glove box port.

The one I tried was this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FH7XJCD

 

[Laddcruzer]

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.

Are you a shrink by chance?

 

[Sambub]

In the Y, where are you plugging it in? Isn’t the glove box the only usb that still allows for data? And, does usb also power the CDP?

 

[archae86]

In the Y, where are you plugging it in? Isn’t the glove box the only usb that still allows for data? And, does usb also power the CDP?

In my model year 2022 model Y, build about February 2022 in Fremont, the glove box USB is indeed the only one that I believe has any data support.
Yes, in my attempts to get a CD player to work with the model Y I plugged it into the glove box USB--both directly and through a hub.

I don't know what you mean by "the CDP".

 

[Laddcruzer]

So, since the refreshed S’s and X’s have usb-c inputs only, other than the Dash cam one in the glovebox, I just got an adapter and plugged my CD player into the usb-c inputs in the center console. The player that johnyyoung1234 recommended works perfectly. It doesn’t show Album cover art or individual song names but the audio is excellent.
As you can see I’m a bit old school and have a few CD’s to play with. In any case, thank you, Johnyyoung.

 

[LPEREZDANCER]

Does the MCU need to be upgraded to read WAV files? I have MCU1 and the player I got is not being read by the car.

 

[Altes]

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

Best of ALL worlds Brennan B2 Pi based CD based, autorip with internet radio capability and optical out - Im working on a Bin replacement mount for the S

B2 Overview

The Brennan B2 is a CD Ripper, Hard disk Jukebox and Complete Audio system. This short video takes you through many of the features. B2 rips CDs and stores them losslessly using FLAC. There is an internal 15W+15W RMS power amplifier to drive external speakers. There is an optical output so B2...

thebrennan.com

You could even replace the Brennan logo with a tesla logo!!!!

 

[kt2062]

Is there no portable CD player that can connect to my Tesla via Bluetooth?

 

[Oldguy68]

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...

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...