CD changer placement

Thanks. They removed the aux port in later years so mine doesn't have one, only a USB. I guess I'll trial and error try to figure out if the stock HU will recognize the old mp3 files. Cheers.

 

If it's on or near the radio, bet it does read it.

I use a flash drive on my (aftermarket) stereo and it works.

 

That said I definitely relate to you. I have about 1500 CDs and still use them constantly

 

Only the USB input on the dash by the heater controls goes to the head unit. I don't know if it has the suds to power an external hard drive (maybe an SSD will work, but I doubt anything with a spinning disk will). It will play songs from a USB thumb drive, though, as long as it is formatted to FAT 16 or 32 file system (at least that's what the manual for my 2016 says, not sure if the newer models can read NTFS formatted devices. Probably not). The owner's manual gives info on folder and file limits. It'll show up on the music source screen as USB when you have something plugged into it and will show you on screen what you're listening to.

 

Hey Taylor, I'm just not a Spotify guy either. I put all my CDs into my iTunes and sold them off. And it's not like I stayed up for 6 days straight to put all my CDs in iTunes.

Now I can put my music on my iPhone, my iPad (both Bluetooth), and my Classic iPod. No more carrying CDs around.

P.S. I do keep one burnt CD in my head unit, just so it's always there. (Beatles white album CD)

 

And the good part is new technology can play old music.

 

I feel you.

I still rock my Creative Labs Zen through a cassette tape adapter.

 

To the original question, my first choice would be behind the driver side rear seat mounted to the cubby with bolts and lock washers in a vertical position. Good access to reload and protected / out of the way. Not a terrible use of space that’s not particularly great to begin with anyway. Save the other side for a stealth box.

With that said, I still have a bunch of cd’s but I am only keeping them for my kids to play with. I’m over the hassle of dealing with that. Searching in Spotify is significantly faster than finding the disc I want, plus way more options like live tracks and covers or acoustic that I like as much or more than the original.

Also, Big Sur is awesome.

 

Forget Spotify. Get LiveX (formerly slacker.)

I'm with you, I hate building playlists. Slacker will either let you tune into a specific genre, or it will build its own custom "station" based on a few parameters you set. You start a station by entering a couple of favorite bands or songs, select how far you want to deviate from those favorites, and it does the rest. And then here's the cool part, you can download it to your phone for offline play. Or...if you are really trying to impress your date with that perfectly curated playlist, it will let you do that too.

That's what I use on road trips. On a single download I usually get a good 12 hours of play time per station before it starts to feel repeat-ey. And then all I have to do is hook into wifi and refresh it, and it loads up with something completely different.


I went from CDs to a year of satellite radio, and then I picked up slacker in 2007. I will occasionally try all of the others like spotify, Iheart, Pandora, Bezosmusic, etc.. LiveX is still the best of them, in my opiniooon.

 

Who?

 

I know it's not what you want to hear, but this is another vote for digitizing your CD collection, and you don't have to do it all at once, and stream from your phone to the truck with bluetooth. It just works, it sounds great and you can have your entire collection on your phone if you want. I'm an Apple guy all the way but I'm sure it works the same on a PC - I digitize my CD's into one of my MacBook Pro laptops and manage it all from Apple Music (the App on the computer, not Apple's streaming service of the same name) and use that app to control what does and does not get transferred to the phone. I think I used the built-in CD player on my '18 Off Road once and then used the data USB 3 port a few times with a cable a few times and once I made the move to bluetooth, I never looked back. It just works and it picks up right where you left off automatically, and just as importantly, your phone calls mute the music and are routed to through the truck's speakers. Mostly I listen to whole albums but other times I'll set the phone to play randomly and I basically get my own personal radio station with about 10,000 songs of music that I picked, and it's never the same twice.

Big Sur is tough for any kind of reception although there is pretty decent cell service from Pt. Sur to south of the state park. Maybe you just need to hang out at Hurricane Point or on the last ridge of the Old Coast Road, going south, of course. And I think, but I'm not sure that stations like KAZU and KPIG might have Big Sur translators and KPIG was one of the first stations to broadcast live over their website.

 

My Sports Clip is years old, purchased before I had a cellphone. Internal storage is only 8 GB but the Sport Clip could use an external storage microSD (swap 64 GB cards at will). And unlike other devices can browse any directory structure instead of the Apple-forced-hinky-tiered system.

But my Sport Clip acts in a frustrating fashion. Plugged into my Tacoma it only accessed internal memory directly. Damn. I tried a USB disk but apparently used the wrong format ... FAT32 on that USB stick works fine and I just tested it.

CDs turned to MP3s works great for me. Just need to accept that CDs had a limited range of frequencies to begin with (extreme upper and lower bands). CDs turned to MP3s cut down that even further. If my centuries-old ears could pick up the difference I just might desperately need HD-radio range from XM or other sources.

I'm an old hippy and I don't know what to do ... Should I hang on to the old, should I grab on to the new?

 

And just tryin' real hard to adjust?

 

Not sure where you've come across the idea that CD's limit the frequency response. Yes, there IS an upper hard limit of 22,050 with the standard 44.1 sampling rate for CD output, but there is little or anything or musical value above the generally accepted human upper limit of around 20,000 hz. And being an aging hippie, your upper range is likely half of that, just like mine. As far as the low frequency goes, I'm not aware of a limit for the medium itself, but again, most people cannot hear anything below 18 or 19 hz and most people's speaker systems don't go that low anyway, and even less so in most vehicles. OTOH, I have run a tone generator and scoured YouTube for pipe organ demos which do test the limits of my little ol' Genelec 7030A Sub which measures flat down to about 16hz and at that it's really feeling it rather than hearing it. And as far as MP3's go, as long as you generate them at 256-320 kbs, you really cannot hear the difference particularly when you're driving.

 

Thanks for that detail. I quoted what little I had heard from people who maybe know. Not sure what MP3 range I used ... do not know how to look into the MP3s to find out. I just wanted my CDs in a format I could carry to the office to drown out phones/talking/etc. and the SportsClip with browsable-directory swappable microSDs ... current models do not have that ... not sure if people stopped caring or if they invested in other features like BT.

 

you can search the ads and DM the seller if you see something of interest.

 

dug out an old internal spin disc hard drive with ancient mp3s. transfered to USB and worked on the way to work at the hospital today. Throwback to the early 2000s music. I just need to get some better software for conversion I guess, my current setup does not recognize any of the HAM audio classes or language learning CDs to download or backup on hard drive or USB then play in the truck. baby steps I guess.

 

Thanks, I figured that was part of the "attempts to get around this will get you banned". Hit 50 yesterday. woo. Just in time for the only DCLB shell i could find to have been sold that day. Figures.
My search queries must suck too. I cant get stuff I know is there to pop up. When I just put 3rd gen cap or something its not specific enough, and when I put 3rd DCLB shell or something pulls back no results. Guess I have to line by line search.

 

No, not the Who, the Beatles...

 

I hope your contributions include a few jokes and maybe some advice/help for others ... something more than "I have things to sell".