CDs galore but no CD player

[Baggers]

My brand new pride and joy Takumi had a cd player listed as part of the Mark Levison audio system when I ordered it 18 months ago but it’s not included when it was delivered last month. Has anyone found a good quality aftermarket cd player that’s compatible and can plug into the ML audio?

[peniole]

I feel your pain. Nothing quite like a cd, especially when compared to your run of the mill mp3 files. Good news is our head unit can read lossless audio files. I would recommend ripping your cds to FLAC files.

[peniole]

I would recommend audacity (freeware) to copy all your cds to flac. See here

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/flac_export_options.html

[Baggers]

Thanks, I’ll give it a try.

[SH20]

Dave pretty sure a retro fit CD unit would not be possible. The wring harness alone would be different to cars with CD players already fitted.   Of course transferring a lifetime's collection of CD's to a large capacity flash drive is possible but what a task that would be.   The current model range of car's can see USB devices if they are plugged in and are fully compatible with the steering wheel controls.  I use a flash drive for music even though the car has a CD player but it is nice just to pop one in for the odd occasion when it's a favorite band etc.  

[Baggers]

I have put some music onto a flash drive using “media player” and it sounds okay but the Mark Levison sound system is supposed to be a highlight of the Takumi and streaming music from a phone or a usb stick must diminish the sound quality. I don’t know why Lexus thought it was a good idea really.I intend to try the lossless system recommended above to see if the difference is noticeable. 

[Moleman]

3 hours ago, SH20 said:

  Of course transferring a lifetime's collection of CD's to a large capacity flash drive is possible but what a task that would be.   

Takes time but it is worth it.

Have about 200 on a drive currently, add a few when I have some spare time.

Works really well.

[Baggers]

Maurice, do you use the lossless "flac" system?

[Moleman]

Windows 10, windows media player, rip the CD into music library. Transfer to flash drive.

It is supposed to be flac compatible, but not perfect.

Sound quality is pretty good.

You will need to convert the flash drive to FAT 32, which windows cannot do. 

[peniole]

20 minutes ago, Baggers said:

I have put some music onto a flash drive using “media player” and it sounds okay but the Mark Levison sound system is supposed to be a highlight of the Takumi and streaming music from a phone or a usb stick must diminish the sound quality. I don’t know why Lexus thought it was a good idea really.I intend to try the lossless system recommended above to see if the difference is noticeable. 

Depends on which format "media player" ripped the songs to. If, WAV files, then it should be no different than popping in the CD. On the other hand if it's to MP3, you will be disappointed. The third format that windows media does is WMA, which is somewhere in between WAV and MP3.

[Moleman]

3 minutes ago, Moleman said:

Windows 10, windows media player, rip the CD into music library. Transfer to flash drive.

It is supposed to be flac compatible, but not perfect.

Sound quality is pretty good.

You will need to convert the flash drive to FAT 32, which windows cannot do. 

The Lexus system needs FAT 32, does not recognise Ext FAT or NTFS.

Anything over 32GB with need a converter software to make it FAT 32

[Moleman]

8 minutes ago, peniole said:

Depends on which format "media player" ripped the songs to. If, WAV files, then it should be no different than popping in the CD. On the other hand if it's to MP3, you will be disappointed. The third format that windows media does is WMA, which is somewhere in between WAV and MP3.

As stated use WAV.

[peniole]

Only problem with WAV is size. There used to be a problem with not being able to tag the metadata (artist, album, genre...etc.) to it, but now you can. I would go for FLAC if you have tons of CDs, saves you about 1/2 and in a car environment you won't notice the difference. As for MP3s, you will notice the difference especially if it's being ripped to 128kbps. Although in a car environment a high quality VBR rip or 320kbps CBR may be ok.

[Moleman]

7 minutes ago, peniole said:

Only problem with WAV is size. There used to be a problem with not being able to tag the metadata (artist, album, genre...etc.) to it, but now you can. I would go for FLAC if you have tons of CDs, saves you about 1/2 and in a car environment you won't notice the difference. As for MP3s, you will notice the difference especially if it's being ripped to 128kbps. Although in a car environment a high quality VBR rip or 320kbps CBR may be ok.

Good advice.

[Baggers]

My media player appears to have a default setting of "M4A" but one of the options is "FLAC" so I have used FLAC to try it out on "Dark Side of the Moon". The files are very big - 512mbyte for a 18 track cd so I guess it's favourites on Flac and the others on M4A.

[peniole]

If I understand m4a correctly, it's just a container file. The quality of the music inside depends on the codec used. Could be lossy aac or lossless ALAC...etc.

500mb is about right for an 18 track full cd that has complex music. Don't expect much lower than 400mb per full cd for FLAC. From experience car can take 64gb stick. Not sure of the format, used it as is out of box. If I'm not mistaken it was exFAT32. That would hold around 130ish full cds.

[Baggers]

I tried flac on Dark Side of the Moon and it sounded very good, similar in quality to a cd as far as I can tell. So I think that’s the answer to the lack of cd player conundrum. I’m also considering buying a Bluetooth cd player that links to the car’s Bluetooth system and perhaps this can be used for cds not recorded on the stick - just for occasional use. If that’s a success I will report back on here.

 

Many thanks to those who helped me with this, I really appreciate your support. 
 

David

[Spacewagon52]

I like my music but you guys are speaking a different language. I have Audacity but no idea how to convert CD's to FLAC?

 

Do you import the CD into Audacity (not used it for some time!) I think my present audio files are MP3. I am going a bit deaf so maybe I would not be able to tell the difference?

[Spacewagon52]

On 7/30/2023 at 7:49 PM, peniole said:

I would recommend audacity (freeware) to copy all your cds to flac. See here

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/flac_export_options.html

I see! Thank you ! Will give it a go!

[DTR]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:45 PM, Moleman said:

Takes time but it is worth it.

Have about 200 on a drive currently, add a few when I have some spare time.

Works really well.

Agreed, it takes a while to do, but worth the effort. When my indoor CD player gave up the ghost, I invested in a streamer (Linn DS). Amazingly, the files (FLAC) sounded better on this than the CD player (The highly praised Linn Karik). I ripped all my CDs to a hard drive. All you basically do is pop the CD into a CD drive, sit back and wait until the drive spits out the disc. Job done! You will need some software to do the job. The dreaded iTunes (if it still is available) will do the job. If you use this, make sure that you do not leave setting to default as this will convert to mp3. I don't know if any form of FLAC file is available on this, but WAV is OK.

I only use Audible for mp3 so can't comment much. Again it is OK.

I would recommend dBpoweramp converter. A small charge initially, but it is very good for Tabs (you get a choice of providers). Classical Music is always difficult to get the correct info. Have to admit that I haven't used it for a while though. I stream all my music from Qobuz indoors and they allow you to download tracks to phone etc. I suspect that the music will disappear if the subscription stops. Pay the subscription annually and it is probably equivalent to 1 CD per month. I doubt that any car system will do justice to the HiRes files which can be accessed.

VERY IMPORTANT- when you have ripped all your CDs, keep a copy in a very safe place!

As far as I am aware, there is little difference between FLAC and WAV files sound wise. FLAC is more convenient (Less disc space and Tabs).

[DavidCM]

I have set my laptop to rip all CDs to FLAC (on Windows Media Player and then to my phone).That then gives really good sound to the ML in the car through wireless Android Auto.I did buy one download album in 24 bit but it took ages to download.I also tried to burn it onto a blank cd but it wouldn't work probably insufficient capacity on the cd.

 

 

[Baggers]

I have now ripped a lot of CDs onto a 128gb stick. It’s been a long job but I have done it while working so it is only been a minor distraction. Overall it has worked very well. The “hey Lexus” feature allows the music catalogue to be accessed and searched easily and the sound quality on Flac is very good. I am considering buying a cd player that is linked by Bluetooth to the system for occasional use but I think the large capacity stick represents a good compromise. Thanks for your help everyone!