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CD player for Bolt EV?

39K views 113 replies 36 participants last post by  allsmiles277 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Our brand new loaded Bolt was just delivered a few minutes ago.
Turns out "fully loaded" for Chevrolet doesn't include a CD player. We were not previously aware of this.

My husband has a 15,000+ CD collection at home that is still on physical disks and which he wants to be able to play in the Bolt. The Bolt is his car.

What would be the best option for him to play the physical disks in the car, in terms of both ease of use and audio quality ?

We have already tried to plug in a portable USB CD drive, but unfortunately, it is not supported by the car.

Please, no jokes about using 1981 technology in a 2017 car - transferring all the disks to USB flash drive/hard drive is not under consideration.
 
#2 · (Edited)
Yes, you don't want to hear this.

There is software for free called "CD ripping software". It will copy the contents of CD's onto a thumb drive (USB). Then plug the thumb drive into the car.

I put about 30 albums on one with tons of room left.

I love it. Way better than a CD changer. And you can back up your music and use it anywhere.

You could put a CD changer in it, but the USB system is better.
 
#3 ·
I am not the one you need to convince here. My own 1000 CD collection has been ripped to a hard drive a long time ago, and I use a thumb drive in my Gen1 Volt even though it has a CD player. I have been trying to convince my husband to rip his own collection for years. This is not a battle I can win. In fact, we just spent thousands on Ikea bookcases to neatly store all of his CDs in the garage a few months ago. It covers all walls of a 3 car garage, floor to ceiling, if you can picture it. It would take an incredible amount of time to transfer them all, even if he were open to it. At 3 minutes ripping time per audio CD (which is best case, in my experience), we are talking about 750 hours or 31.25 days ripping time, doing nothing but ripping CDs 24/7. The inconvenience factor is very large, compared to just picking up a CD on the shelf and putting it in the car.

So, where could one put a CD changer in the Bolt ? And are there any specific models that integrate well with it ?
 
#6 · (Edited)
Unfortunately, CD players are going obsolete. Have to actually check the spec sheet for them these days.

Another option would be to check with Spotify, a monthly subscription service, but they allow streaming and offline playback (for paid subscriptions), and have a huge music collection available. One of the benefits of Spotify is they have higher bit per second streams than most (320 kbps) if you are a premium subscriber.

My personal choice would be to rip the few CDs I listened to most often (I imagine he doesn't drive around with all 15000 CDs)

However, I think you might have an auxiliary (AUX) 3.5mm jack? If so, any normal portable CD player will work, like an old Discman or something.
 
#9 ·
Another option would be to check with Spotify, a monthly subscription service, but they allow streaming and offline playback (for paid subscriptions), and have a huge music collection available. One of the benefits of Spotify is they have higher bit per second streams than most (320 kbps) if you are a premium subscriber.
99% of his music collection is Vietnamese music that is not on Spotify. The CDs are already paid for and don't need a subscription. They are in lossless 1440 kbps format, also, not 320 kbps compressed. In any case, streaming is simply not an option here.

My personal choice would be to rip the few CDs I listened to most often (I imagine he doesn't drive around with all 15000 CDs)
Of course he doesn't drive around with all 15,000, but he changes CDs frequently, and he keeps buying new ones, too.

However, I think you might have an auxiliary (AUX) 3.5mm jack? If so, any normal portable CD player will work, like an old Discman or something.
Yes, there is a 3.5mm jack. There is also the matter of powering the player. I don't know if there is a player that takes USB power. A hardwired option would be much better to avoid dangling wires and having a portable player get in the way of the passenger seat.
 
#10 ·
I plug an ancient (from 2005) Teac CD player into the Aux jack in the center console of my ELR. I too have a massive CD collection, and a boatload of mp3 files. About 1200 tunes on a thumb drive. Don't have the time to rip my entire library to hard disk, so the Teac is working fine, and is powered by USB. There are plenty of portable CD players out there, and most are battery powered. Looked around for a bluetooth option, but all I could locate were little boom boxes that are bluetooth capable.

Luxury vehicle Car Vehicle Auto part Personal luxury car
 
#13 ·
I plug an ancient (from 2005) Teac CD player into the Aux jack in the center console of my ELR. I too have a massive CD collection, and a boatload of mp3 files. About 1200 tunes on a thumb drive. Don't have the time to rip my entire library to hard disk, so the Teac is working fine, and is powered by USB. There are plenty of portable CD players out there, and most are battery powered. Looked around for a bluetooth option, but all I could locate were little boom boxes that are bluetooth capable.

View attachment 128265
This approach seems like the most practical option. I'm sure there's a way to place it in the Bolt that minimizes cable visibility and risk to damaging the cables.
 
#17 ·
When I buy a Bolt, I'll post my shock and surprise that it doesn't have a cassette player or an 8-track system for my huge 1970's collection. :)


That said, my 2011 Volt did come with a DVD player, another format you won't find on newer Volts or a Bolt EV.
 
#25 · (Edited)
When I buy a Bolt, I'll post my shock and surprise that it doesn't have a cassette player or an 8-track system for my huge 1970's collection. :)
We are not talking 8 tracks here, we're talking a medium that is still widely distributed, even though CD sales are well off their peak.
I still purchase plenty of CDs of classical music myself . I added about 80 new ones to my collection 2 weeks ago - couple of boxed sets, brand new. It is actually much, much cheaper for me to purchase classical music on CD physical format, rather to purchase downloads. And the downloads are usually compressed lossily and inferior quality vs CDs when listening at home - though the compression doesn't make much difference in a noisy car. CDs continue to be my preferred format for purchasing music. I do also purchase SACDs, when available, a nice format that I don't expect to see in a car, but most SACDs still being released are hybrid and have a CD layer on them too.

That said, my 2011 Volt did come with a DVD player, another format you won't find on newer Volts or a Bolt EV.
I hope those movies can't play in view of the driver while driving. If the use case is for when the car is when parked, a portable DVD would be an acceptable alternative. However, music is something to listen to while driving, provided there are safe user interface controls to do so, no dangling wires, and continuous power availability. Apples and oranges.

I'm frankly tired of all the snarky responses. I thought this was a forum for users to help. It should be patently obvious that it is impractical to convert the CD collection to another format. The amounts we are talking about don't fit on an SDXC card which maxes out at 2TB per spec. There are no 2TB microSD cards yet, and no smartphones exist that advertise support for 2TB microSD.

Without compression, the CD collection would be about 11TB. If we were ever to undertake the effort of converting it to a different medium, it would be compressed losslessly, which usually averages a 2:1 compression ratio at best. So, we are talking about 5-6TB of storage required.

As I stated before, it takes about 3mins to rip a CD best case. That can be sped up with multiple drives. When I ripped my own CD collection in the past, I used 4 drives simultaneously. It took me a couple of weeks the first time, and then I added each CD over time as I purchased them. But I had the advantage of having the track information automatically downloaded from CDDB for my music. For the discs that didn't have that info, it took me much longer than the ripping time. Automatic title/track info download wouldn't happen for most of my husband's music. He would have to title it all, at least the album names, all in Vietnamese. But he already has the CD cases with all that info on the back. We are talking 750 hours of ripping time with 1 disc at a time, and maybe another 750 hours of titling. That's 1500 hours of labor. As soon as you have to title things, the process becomes serialized on one human being. 1500 hours of labor at minimum wage is $11,250, and 37.5 weeks of work . Unless you are personally offering to do this work, please stop suggesting conversion to another format. It is simply not in the realms of possibilty.

I have got to believe that a suitable CD player solution for the Bolt exists that costs far less than $11,250, and will take less than 37.5 weeks to resolve. I hope someone who knows more about car audio than we do can actually help.
 
#18 ·
You can rip a helluva lot of music to a smartphone too, if you have, say, a 32 gig sd card in it. I ripped my entire library to my wife's phone with lots of room to spare. Then you can listen via bluetooth, no wires. My Volt syncs automatically with my phone and starts playing it's music if I select bluetooth as the source. I prefer my thumb drive though as it interacts nicely with the car's display screen.
MP3's can't compare to a well-produced CD and good player. But that's for the home system.
 
#19 ·
15k CDs? Holy cow. You'd need an entire bedroom with floor to ceiling, wall to wall shelves to store them.

The solution. Buy a huge server, a robot library cd loader, load all 15K CDs onto several petabytes uncompressed, then make his own personal streaming server that he pulls through a smartphone or the car's 5g network (does the bolt come with 5G?).
 
#27 · (Edited)
15k CDs? Holy cow. You'd need an entire bedroom with floor to ceiling, wall to wall shelves to store them.
Think 3 car garage with wall to ceiling shelves - and we have that.

The solution. Buy a huge server, a robot library cd loader, load all 15K CDs onto several petabytes uncompressed, then make his own personal streaming server that he pulls through a smartphone or the car's 5g network (does the bolt come with 5G?).
I do have a huge server at home with enough storage for all the CDs. It's not portable, though. The hard drives are not shock proof, and thus not suitable for fitting it in the car. The server could not be powered by the DC 12v power plug, either.
While it may be possible to build a low power portable server with 3x2TB SSDs, the cost would be quite high.

There would be no need for a high speed network, all that's required is 1440 kbps which would work fine on Wifi or blueooth.
I don't know if it's possible to stream music to the car through the Wifi hotspot, however. The server could be fitted with a bluetooth interface, though, which should be adequate. Except that you would have to choose between listening to music and taking phone calls - car can only connect to one Bluetooth device at a time. Not really practical. Even the stereo 3.5mm AUX + dangling portable CD player doesn't have that problem - we took a phone call through Bluetooth while listening to music, and the music stopped (though of course, it didn't pause the music on the portable CD ...).

In any case, as mentioned in a previous post, the problem with a server is the labor needed to convert the huge CD collection onto the server. That cost would be additional to the server itself.

That said, maybe a USB CD-ROM drive could work with a USB on-the-go interface plugged in to a smartphone, and then play the physical CD and stream it to the car via Bluetooth. Then it would be purely a software problem solvable with a smartphone app to play CDs. But there is only one USB plug on the smartphone, so one would probably have to choose between using Android auto for GPS to hook up the phone to the car, or playing a CD by hooking up the phone to the CD drive - again, less than ideal compromise. Unless a USB hub could be made to work in this situation, but this seems unlikely. IMO, it would be infinitely better if Chevy could update the firmware on the Bolt to support a USB CD-ROM drive to play CDs directly. Unfortunately, I tested that already, and it does not work.

I'm going to look for that USB OTG interface I bought in Hong Kong now, and try to see if it can work with the USB CD-ROM drive on my Galaxy Note 4. I don't know if there is even enough juice out of the smartphone battery to power up a CD-ROM drive. I have some data/power USB splitter cable if it doesn't, though, might allow charging the phone with the CD drive plugged in too, but then again, maybe not. Audio CD from USB might even be built-in to Android.

My husband's older Galaxy S5 phone has a broken microUSB connector. He charges it via wireless charging exclusively these days, with a wireless back purchased from Ikea. He has a separate battery charging case and a spare battery, too. No Android auto for him with the broken microUSB connector, and it is not possible to plug in a USB CD drive to it either, even if the CD playing smartphone app exists. We tried to get his phone repaired in Vietnam a year ago. The connector was replaced, but it still won't charge from USB due to a short that the store couldn't fix. We haven't gotten the wireless charging to work with his S5 phone yet in the Bolt, either, but that's a separate issue, we have yet to RTFM. My 2.5 year-old Galaxy Note 4, with its 5.7in screen, and a wireless back added on to it, does not physically fit in the wireless charging compartment of the Bolt, or at least, what I think is the wireless charging compartment of the Bolt (again, need to RTFM).
 
#20 ·
As noted, most new cars now do not come with a CD player (not even available as an option). They have basically gone the way of the cassette tape as far as car audio goes.

The suggestion of a portable CD player plugged into the AUX input jack is a solid one and will work well. You can find them on eBay new for under $20.00 and should easily fit in the console.
 
#29 ·
looks as though you aren't the only person to have this issue but searching the inter web I haven't found anyone that has come up with a solution. I know it doesn't make you feel any better but I believe all manufacturers are no longer supporting CD playback just as they no longer support cassette tapes and 8 tracks before them. It's unfortunate but perhaps ripping them would be the best solution as they are digital anyway and using a lossless format you won't lose any quality. Time on the other hand to rip such a large collection will be be another story I suspect.

https://forums.tesla.com/en_CA/forum/forums/cd-players
 
#31 ·
looks as though you aren't the only person to have this issue but searching the inter web I haven't found anyone that has come up with a solution.
:-(
I have been looking as well and not finding anything either.

I know it doesn't make you feel any better but I believe all manufacturers are no longer supporting CD playback just as they no longer support cassette tapes and 8 tracks before them.
New music is not still being released and sold on cassette tape and 8 tracks, though, while there are still large amounts of new audio CDs being released, pressed, and sold. According to Wikipedia, sales of CDs in 2014 were only 50% off from their peak. And 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide !

It's unfortunate but perhaps ripping them would be the best solution as they are digital anyway and using a lossless format you won't lose any quality. Time on the other hand to rip such a large collection will be be another story I suspect.
Quality is not as much of an issue when playing in the car, as it is a noisy environment, even in a quiet EV.
But the cost to rip the collection is prohibitive.

The ability to simply pick any of the thousands of CD from the shelves in the garage, and play it in the car, is not something that can be easily replaced.

Thanks for the link, will read.
 
#30 · (Edited)
I used my PC to create a very small MP4 video file that contains just mono audio at low bitrate. I copied it on a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy using a Teac USB floppy drive that was on my desk.

The phone can power the same USB floppy drive just fine through USB OTG.

It took a long while to read, but using an app called "USB player" from the play store, the phone can read the the MP4 file I put on it, and it can then be opened with another app. I didn't try to stream it through Bluetooth to the car, but there is no reason it wouldn't work since it plays through the standard Android video player.

I suppose 3.5" 1.44MB floppies are 1986 technology, while audio CD came out in 1982. But arguably, CD is a superior format for music. Audio was never delivered on 1.44MB floppies. Surely there has to be a way to play CDs on Android and stream it to the car ...
 
#33 · (Edited)
I think the best solution is to give you my Gen 1 volt in exchange for your husband's Bolt. The gen 1 has a CD player in it. The only used my CD player gets is that the CD slot is used to hold a CD slot phone mount for my iPhone. It's a perfect trade.

The earlier idea wasn''t to put your server in the car, but to stream everything from your home server to the car as needed. There are plenty of folks who have rigged up contraptions to take a large stack of CD and automatically feed it to a CD reader using robotic parts.
 
#35 · (Edited)
I think the best solution is to give you my Gen 1 volt in exchange for your husband's Bolt. The gen 1 has a CD player in it. The only used my CD player gets is that the CD slot is used to hold a CD slot phone mount for my iPhone. It's a perfect trade.
LOL. I have a Gen1 Volt as well, with a CD player, so I could indeed trade with him. It's just that the Bolt was supposed to be his new car :)

The earlier idea wasn''t to put your server in the car, but to stream everything from your home server to the car as needed.
Oh, you mean over the internet ? Yeah, I suppose that is a possibility. I don't keep my server up 24/7 with the electricity rates we have here. I power it only as needed using WOL, even in an automated fashion for backups. It goes back to sleep as soon as all backups from all the computers are over. The backups are scheduled during off-peak power hours only currently. I could change that, though. But this would be much less reliable than we want it to be. In theory, it would be possible to remotely WOL start the server from the internet, but my router does not support that feature, at least not in an authenticated fashion. There may be other routers that do, I think.

We live in a very spotty area in the hills though, cell signal wise. The 4G drops out a lot. Often only at 2G indoors. Usually, we can't even make calls from the car until we are back at sea level. We can start calls , but they invariably get cut off as we go down hill after about 1-2 mins, so there is just no point. This is true for pretty much all the cell operators - just the terrain. Even Onstar calls drop off as they often start on 4G instead of satellite but then get cut off as the cell signal drops. There is no way that I know to force Onstar to start the call on satellite instead of 4G - I guess that would cost the company a lot more. I have made successful sat calls with Onstar in empty signal areas, though. There are sometimes 20-30 miles stretches in the bay area with no signal at all on any cell operator (look at CA 84 & 1 for example).

Very often I don't get charge notifications from my Volt even though it's always parked and charging in the same spot in the garage. I'm not quite sure if this is due to some problem on the Onstar side, signal or the car.

Bottom line is, I wouldn't rely on internet for streaming music in the car, I just don't think it's going to be reliable enough because of the cell signal available to the car. The server itself has a cable connection with Comcast, which does sometimes dropout and require manual reboot of the modem, which would be inconvenient if it happens while we're on a road trip. I do have an XM subscription in my Volt which works great over satellite, though. I mostly listen to news & comedy channels, occasionally classical channels. XM wouldn't help my husband's situation in the Bolt, though.

There are plenty of folks who have rigged up contraptions to take a large stack of CD and automatically feed it to a CD reader using robotic parts.
Does that include feeding the CD cases and booklets with all album and track names as well at the same time ;) ?

Anyway, I RTFM a little bit for the Bolt. Looks like it supports Windows Media Lossless - I will have to try it.
Lossless WAV is also supported.

No mention of volume size limit for USB storage devices. File systems are listed as FAT16/32, NTFS or HFS+. I reformatted my 256GB USB stick to NTFS - it was in exFAT, and the Bolt doeson't support it. Now it works in the Bolt. I only tried with 2 albums on it, in MP3.

No mention of which version of Bluetooth is supported by the Bolt, also, which may affect audio quality.

On another note, Qi wireless charging works with both our phones. Just had to orient them a certain way. And for my Note4, I had to remove the protective case, or it can't be physically inserted. It barely fits without the case. Removing the case is pretty much a requirement for wireless charging anyway since the rate of charge is too low with the case on on a tabletop Qi charger. I normally charge it through Quickcharge 2.0. That doesn't seem to be provided in the Bolt, unfortunately, so it would take space in the one 12V outlet under the center console. There is no additional 12V outlet inside the center storage unlike the Gen1 Volt.
 
#34 ·
Way back (I know) in the 90's, there was a company that made what they called a 'backpack' external CD-ROM drive that had USB for connection to PC, but also had batteries and on-board redbook audio decoding and a headphone out jack. You need something like that, but instead of just 3.5mm audio out, it needs to have Bluetooth streaming audio out.

I'm not having any luck finding anything like that. The next thought that occurred to me was to 'build' a solution using a CD-ROM drive and a RasPi or similar so that you can Bluetooth stream the audio to the car; power requirements would be super low but mounting it in the car could be difficult to solve.

P.S. - I think when most people started suggesting ripping you hadn't said they would all need titled in Vietnamese. :)
 
#36 ·
Way back (I know) in the 90's, there was a company that made what they called a 'backpack' external CD-ROM drive that had USB for connection to PC, but also had batteries and on-board redbook audio decoding and a headphone out jack. You need something like that, but instead of just 3.5mm audio out, it needs to have Bluetooth streaming audio out.
Yes, agree. Seems there are some boomboxes that can play CD over bluetooth. But they are pretty large form factor, and not USB or battery powered.

I'm not having any luck finding anything like that. The next thought that occurred to me was to 'build' a solution using a CD-ROM drive and a RasPi or similar so that you can Bluetooth stream the audio to the car; power requirements would be super low but mounting it in the car could be difficult to solve.
Sounds like an interesting project indeed. Power would probably have to come from DC 12V . Don't think USB would provide enough for the Pi + drive. Maybe if it was USB 3.0. But of course, it isn't.

Agree mounting would be an issue still, but if it's really thin and doesn't open to the sides, just ejects to the front, like the Volt CD player, it could probably be mounting vertically right next to the DC power output.

P.S. - I think when most people started suggesting ripping you hadn't said they would all need titled in Vietnamese. :)
I hadn't said that, but any digital collection needs to be titled, regardless of the language. Even if it was already all ripped and titled, I think there are still a lot of obstacles to making a collection of this size work in the car. My Volt struggles for 10 mins to read a 64GB stick every day. It's not smart enough to notice that it was never unplugged and reindexes each time. I don't know how long it would take for a 1TB collection (lossily compressed) or 5-6 TB (losslessly) if those drive sizes are supported. I have a USB enclosure case with a 5TB backup HDD that I can try. It's not USB powered but I can plug in an inverter to the DC 12V, just to see if the drive is recognized at least.
The number of files (tracks) would be the same regardless of lossy or lossless, though, and I think that's where the limitations with indexing speed/volume size come in.

For technology that came out in 1982, physical CDs still offer advantages over alternatives, in terms of availability of lossless audio, ease of switching to another album (just eject/plug another disc), and no out of control single point of failure as with internet streaming, where the internet connection for the car and the server need to stay up, as well as the server itself. Comcast has recently put a stupid data cap on my home connection too. I think we will likely exceed it already without streaming anything.
 
#39 · (Edited)
I bought my first (and only) portable CD player for my car in 1985. It was expensive, skipped even on level ground, and was stolen 6 months later.....

I just converted 19 hours of family history from fragile long play cassette tapes to mp3's for an elderly woman. Since the OP is in a highly populated tech area, I think it's very possible in finding a company or a small group of hungry entrepreneurs that could do the conversions but it sounds like (pun not intended) that the CD owner is resistant to ripping quality.

So, I think I would get with a talented and creative professional audio installation store (they're getting rare around here) and look into the possibility of installing a used GM in-dash multi-CD stereo (double DIN) UNDER the central dash section (with a custom cover) as a stand alone second unit. It would be the primary sound source that taps into the speaker harness. You wouldn't have steering wheel controls but it would be close enough to reach the controls/volume.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Savana-Sier...ash=item2cb8bd4427:g:rrQAAOSwnHZYeZpI&vxp=mtr

Looking further at Bolt interior pictures, I would further suggest just using the entire area underneath the center dash up to and level with the drink holder area totally closing off that center cubby storage section (red). This would give the installers enough room to install both the double DIN stereo (green) and high quality speakers (yellow zone) in the custom enclosure to make this a complete stand alone system (only need power/ground connections to car). The is very similar to the concept of custom powered sub boxes.
 

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#46 ·
I
I just converted 19 hours of family history from fragile long play cassette tapes to mp3's for an elderly woman. Since the OP is in a highly populated tech area, I think it's very possible in finding a company or a small group of hungry entrepreneurs that could do the conversions but it sounds like (pun not intended) that the CD owner is resistant to ripping quality.
I'm sure the conversion is possible, but it is impractical in terms of cost due to the size of the collection. And even once it is done, there is still the question of whether the car's software could even handle a collection this large.

So, I think I would get with a talented and creative professional audio installation store (they're getting rare around here) and look into the possibility of installing a used GM in-dash multi-CD stereo (double DIN) UNDER the central dash section (with a custom cover) as a stand alone second unit. It would be the primary sound source that taps into the speaker harness. You wouldn't have steering wheel controls but it would be close enough to reach the controls/volume.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Savana-Sier...ash=item2cb8bd4427:g:rrQAAOSwnHZYeZpI&vxp=mtr

Looking further at Bolt interior pictures, I would further suggest just using the entire area underneath the center dash up to and level with the drink holder area totally closing off that center cubby storage section (red). This would give the installers enough room to install both the double DIN stereo (green) and high quality speakers (yellow zone) in the custom enclosure to make this a complete stand alone system (only need power/ground connections to car). The is very similar to the concept of custom powered sub boxes.
Thanks. I have looked at that space under the center dash, and I don't believe such a unit would physically fit there.
The car has the infotainment package with 7 Bose speakers, and I don't think we would want any additional speakers.
If there was a way to physically fit this type of unit fit somehow, I would hope that an installer might be able to run the audio & power wires internally so they are not exposed, maybe disconnecting the car's built-in 3.5mm audio input jack in the process. I think many of these units have an input of their own on the front if it was ever needed, so it wouldn't be a big loss.
 
#40 · (Edited)
Your best bet is really to talk with some professionals. Go to some pro car audio places and see what they can do. I'm guessing they can find a way to incorporate a drive somewhere in the car that is accessible to the driver (e.g. glove box, under a seat).

Back in the 90's when I was a poor college student, I had a Sony Discman mounted to a gooseneck arm that was bolted to the passenger seat rail. The neck was flexible so I could position the discman fairly close to the actual radio. Audio was routed to the car's stereo via cassette adapter, and I had aux power going to the discman. Lots of wires and fiddly controls, but workable as a college student. If you want to avoid a kludge like that, you'll need a pro, they can do some impressive things, but it will cost you.

Is your garage climate controlled? I'd be worried about storing such an extensive collection in a hot/humid California garage... CDs can and do degrade and that is not an ideal environment for them. Longevity was another reason I ripped all mine, but yes it is a pain, especially for your non-CDDB titles. I used to do it while I was studying, though, so it barely took time out of my day, but my collection was small. Maybe every time your husband listens to a disc, when he takes it out of the car again, he can put it in the "rip this" pile? There's no way you can even listen to a fraction of 15k discs in a given year, but I can see how even ripping a few hundred per year is tedious/endless. It really sounds like getting a pro to install a real CD player will fit your needs the best, so I would definitely explore that first.

Edit: I like fotomoto's idea above, that's better than stashing something under a seat. I wasn't familiar with the Bolt interior, but that looks like a good space, and there are custom shops that can do stuff like that (for $$$). I wouldn't make it separate from the main stereo, though, I would want it tied into the aux jack so it uses the car's speakers, but that's just my preference.
 
#47 ·
Your best bet is really to talk with some professionals. Go to some pro car audio places and see what they can do. I'm guessing they can find a way to incorporate a drive somewhere in the car that is accessible to the driver (e.g. glove box, under a seat).
Yes, it looks like this is the only choice here. I'm open to referrals to installers in the Silicon valley/south bay area if anyone can provide them.

If you want to avoid a kludge like that, you'll need a pro, they can do some impressive things, but it will cost you.
Yes, definitely want to avoid a kludge like that, we already have a portable CD player that works with lots of wires, but it is very unsightly, runs out of power, has tiny playback controls, etc. Obviously there is always a limit in terms of cost, I have to see what's possible to evaluate whether it's worth it.

Is your garage climate controlled? I'd be worried about storing such an extensive collection in a hot/humid California garage... CDs can and do degrade and that is not an ideal environment for them. Longevity was another reason I ripped all mine, but yes it is a pain, especially for your non-CDDB titles. I used to do it while I was studying, though, so it barely took time out of my day, but my collection was small. Maybe every time your husband listens to a disc, when he takes it out of the car again, he can put it in the "rip this" pile? There's no way you can even listen to a fraction of 15k discs in a given year, but I can see how even ripping a few hundred per year is tedious/endless. It really sounds like getting a pro to install a real CD player will fit your needs the best, so I would definitely explore that first.
It isn't climate controlled. I will mention it to him. It would certainly be great if I can convince him to start ripping & archiving.
I agree that no one can listen to a significant fraction of the 15k discs in any given year - that's over 2 years worth of uninterrupted music playing 24/7.

Edit: I like fotomoto's idea above, that's better than stashing something under a seat. I wasn't familiar with the Bolt interior, but that looks like a good space, and there are custom shops that can do stuff like that (for $$$). I wouldn't make it separate from the main stereo, though, I would want it tied into the aux jack so it uses the car's speakers, but that's just my preference.
I don't think it'll physically fit there, unfortunately. Agree that I wouldn't want to make it a separate audio system.
 
#49 · (Edited)
This is similar to my 15 year old Panasonic portable CD player we already have.
It doesn't have external power for the car, it is battery powered.
The controls are tiny and not really suitable for operating in the car.
And it opens upwards, as opposed to typical CD car units which swallow the disc and eject it back. This significantly interferes with a permanent mount.

That's helpful, I will have to investigate. But I think this will prevent the driver from taking a phone call through Bluetooth if he is listening to music. Which is 100% of the time when my husband drives.
 
#43 · (Edited)
I ripped my ~450 discs over a long time, so it wasn't too bad. I later did my GF's 200+ disks for her BD all at once, and that took most of the weekend, but I was doing other things at the same time.
So y'a, I wouldn't consider taking on 15k! And the CDDB, is useless unless you just listen to English pop. Any indy bands, French, and imports are usually MIA or they've stripped accents, etc.

Regarding the a pro install, if you search the threads someone mentioned a company that specializes in modifying GM head units. They may already have a way to get line-level in. Although the Bolt is so new it might take a year or so. And they wouldn't be able to modify the SW for control.

I think your best bet is the Android app. That would probably be able to receive start/stop/pause from the steering through the AA API.
I don't know much about Android but the modern Linux kernels they use allows writing USB drivers completely in userland (i.e. from within apps). So as long as Android made the calls available through their Java wrappers it should be doable.
If you can convince an Android developer there is a market, you might be able to get the app at a fraction of the development cost.
 
#44 ·
I haven't played a CD in a car for at least 10 years. So, I'm no help here. I did a minor search for the devices needed and saw some interesting stuff on Crutchfield.

This can't be the only person in the world that needs a CD interface for a GM car. Come on guys, be nice about it at least.
 
#55 ·
Thank you ! I went to Crutchfield and checked for car audio options for the 2017 Bolt. They say that they haven't researched this vehicle and are unable to offer any option yet. There is an option to take measurements. I sent Crutchfield an email requesting assistance.

Just for kicks, I tried to select a 2016 Volt (Gen 2) instead which may be similar in terms of audio electronics, but not measurements.
Crutchfield says that none of their Auxiliary input adapters, factory system adapters, dash kits, or wiring harnesses, are compatible with the Gen2 Volt. Not a good sign.
 
#52 ·
The Cadillac ELR has a CD unit that could be installed in the glove box and connected directly to the CUE head unit. Not sure about the Chevy Mylink interface/head unit in the bolt. Does it have the connections in the back to support a GM CD drive installed in the glove box?
 
#53 ·
I'm not aware of this type of connection in the glove box. Didn't see a mention of it in the manual yet, but I have mostly glanced through the PDF so far, not read every line. As far as I'm aware, the 3.5mm stereo input jack referred to as AUX is the main means of making a physical audio connection, but that only passes the audio signal and no control commands. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. Maybe a service manual would reveal hidden features ...
 
#54 · (Edited)
LOL CDs. (Are you sure you don't want a BOLT with a record player in it?)

I know I'm not being helpful, but this made me chuckle a bit. I'd be curious to see what solution to settle on though.
 
#58 ·
Despite the explanation given to you by an OnStar operator, I believe that OnStar does not use satellite telephony for voice calls. Your experience could be attributed to the following:

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?274218-Bolt-EV-OnStar-Service-Emergency-Calls

hellsop post #8:

“Every reference I can find says the OnStar module uses a 3-watt transmitter. Every reference I can find of similar credibility says a handheld cellphone runs at about 0.5 watts. So other things being equal, the OnStar should be able to make towers hear it from twice as far as a typical cell phone. [closer to 2.4 times as far by my calculation – a quibble]

That does presuppose, however, that your barrier is just distance, not (for example) a big honkin' mountain in the way or something.”

…and:

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/services/coveragemaps.html

“As illustrated by this map, OnStar service can’t work unless your car is in a place where we have an agreement with a wireless service provider for service in that area. OnStar service also can’t work unless you’re in a place where the wireless service provider we’ve hired for that area has coverage, network capacity, and reception when the service is needed, and technology that’s compatible with the OnStar service. OnStar service that involves location information about your car cannot work unless GPS satellite signals are unobstructed and available in that place as well.”

Unless I’ve missed it, you don’t say how many CDs your husband will take with him to listen to while driving. Would it be sufficient to be able to play only one CD at a time, or is a CD changer more ideal? Judging from what you have written, I would think a single CD player is what is wanted.

When I make my cross-country vacation trips in my 2014, I find that the dynamic range of the recorded music in a lot of my classical music CDs requires me to manually adjust the volume to prevent blasting the sound on suddenly loud passages, something that is less than ideal (Mahler quickly comes to mind). Having a subscription to SeriusXM would be an answer to that problem, at least it seemed to be when I was fortunate enough to make a trip during the time that I had a complementary subscription. I’ll not pay their exorbitant fees on general principles, but I do support my local station, WMNR, with an annual donation.

Although I plan to keep my 2014 for many more years, one-day I will be faced with your problem. So, I am keenly interested in how you resolve your problem. Good luck!
 
#61 ·
Despite the explanation given to you by an OnStar operator, I believe that OnStar does not use satellite telephony for voice calls. Your experience could be attributed to the following:

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?274218-Bolt-EV-OnStar-Service-Emergency-Calls

hellsop post #8:

“Every reference I can find says the OnStar module uses a 3-watt transmitter. Every reference I can find of similar credibility says a handheld cellphone runs at about 0.5 watts. So other things being equal, the OnStar should be able to make towers hear it from twice as far as a typical cell phone. [closer to 2.4 times as far by my calculation – a quibble]

That does presuppose, however, that your barrier is just distance, not (for example) a big honkin' mountain in the way or something.”

…and:

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/services/coveragemaps.html

“As illustrated by this map, OnStar service can’t work unless your car is in a place where we have an agreement with a wireless service provider for service in that area. OnStar service also can’t work unless you’re in a place where the wireless service provider we’ve hired for that area has coverage, network capacity, and reception when the service is needed, and technology that’s compatible with the OnStar service. OnStar service that involves location information about your car cannot work unless GPS satellite signals are unobstructed and available in that place as well.”
Thanks, very interesting. When I made that specific call to the Onstar operator (which was to check on traffic conditions) , I was near the beach on highway 1 at San Gregorio. Cell phone signal is spotty around there but not non-existent. It could be that the higher power transmitter made things work. Same reason our alarm panel at home with cell signal works indoor, but smartphones mostly don't.

The cell phone signal around highway 84 is completely non-existent, for miles around, though. Maybe I will try again there next time.

Unless I’ve missed it, you don’t say how many CDs your husband will take with him to listen to while driving. Would it be sufficient to be able to play only one CD at a time, or is a CD changer more ideal? Judging from what you have written, I would think a single CD player is what is wanted.
He said he listens to a different one every day mostly. I don't think having more than one is critical.
When we are on road trips, we would want to take more than one. As long as we can change the disc while driving, it would be fine.
I know from experience that the mechanisms on car CD changers is much less reliable than single disc CD players.

When I make my cross-country vacation trips in my 2014, I find that the dynamic range of the recorded music in a lot of my classical music CDs requires me to manually adjust the volume to prevent blasting the sound on suddenly loud passages, something that is less than ideal (Mahler quickly comes to mind). Having a subscription to SeriusXM would be an answer to that problem, at least it seemed to be when I was fortunate enough to make a trip during the time that I had a complementary subscription. I’ll not pay their exorbitant fees on general principles, but I do support my local station, WMNR, with an annual donation.
I am paying $5-6/month for SiriusXM in my Volt which I find acceptable. I did $25 for 5 months trial before and recently $30 for 6 months I think plus taxes. I put the subscription on a one-time virtual credit card number generated from Citibank, with a short expiration date. When Sirius tries to auto-renew, it fails. Then I get to call them again to bargain for the right price. I have never even been cut off yet, just get bombarded with emails about impeding disconnection.

Although I plan to keep my 2014 for many more years, one-day I will be faced with your problem. So, I am keenly interested in how you resolve your problem. Good luck!
Thanks, hoping we will find a solution - have not yet.
 
#59 ·
Our brand new loaded Bolt was just delivered a few minutes ago.
Turns out "fully loaded" for Chevrolet doesn't include a CD player. We were not previously aware of this.

My husband has a 15,000+ CD collection at home that is still on physical disks and which he wants to be able to play in the Bolt. The Bolt is his car.

What would be the best option for him to play the physical disks in the car, in terms of both ease of use and audio quality ?

We have already tried to plug in a portable USB CD drive, but unfortunately, it is not supported by the car.

Please, no jokes about using 1981 technology in a 2017 car - transferring all the disks to USB flash drive/hard drive is not under consideration.
Many vehicles haven't include a CD player for a few years now.

You have three options;

1. Do not listen to those songs.
2. Rip them to a mobile device or USB drive (as posted above) - My 1K+ CDs are on the micro SD card in my phone to listen to anywhere :)
3. Look for Bluetooth CD player, if such an animal exists
4. Use a portable CD player and connect the audio cord to the Bolt. If there is no audio cable jack, use a Bluetooth adapter.
 
#60 ·
Many vehicles haven't include a CD player for a few years now.

You have three options;

1. Do not listen to those songs.
Won't fly with my husband who was a DJ in a past life and listens to a different CD every day.

2. Rip them to a mobile device or USB drive (as posted above) - My 1K+ CDs are on the micro SD card in my phone to listen to anywhere :)
Read the thread, please. 15,000 CDs don't fit on any microSD that exists today.

3. Look for Bluetooth CD player, if such an animal exists
We have been looking.

4. Use a portable CD player and connect the audio cord to the Bolt. If there is no audio cable jack, use a Bluetooth adapter.
There is an audio jack, but the wiring is not safe, and buttons and portable CD player are too small.
Bluetooth CD player would prevent safe Bluetooth phone operation for phone calls.
 
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