2018 Civic Hacthbk Touring - No CD Player - possible aftermarket solution?

[CinemaDude]

Yah the 20-something sneer that I'm old school," but let's be practical, I have a few HUNDRED CDs. Does Honda seriously think I am going to sit down and copy them all to my cellphone or to external thumb/flash drives? Not a chance. And not for nothing, if Honda designers didn't think the car should have a CD player, why did they design the center console to have a compartment which is the EXACT size to hold CDs..huh? I call that a real CD-tease, as opposed to, you know, the other tease, but equally as nasty.

So I am thinking, I love the car sooo much, I'll just do a run-around fix. How hard could that be? How about getting one of those little portable CD players that can plug into the car's 3.5mm audio input jack. That would do it for sure. Oh, wait. The Civic designers decided, let's put in a good sounding audio system, but let's NOT put in a 98 cent jack so other devices could have access to it. Yah, that makes sense!

Next I found an interesting portable DC, MP3, CD-R player with Bluetooth (HOTT CD611T -https://www.amazon.com/DeeFec-Bluetooth-Headphone-Protection-Anti-Shock/dp/B07G99164F ). Turns out, It's a small, compact unit that could easily fit in the compartment under the Display Panel. And of course the CIvic audio system is bluetooth compatible, so I think Geronimo...problem solved! Not by a long-shot. The Civic audio system pairs with my cellphone via bluetooth all the time, so it certainly will pair with other bluetooth transmitters, like this CD player. I am thinking, Geronimo, I've found the solution! Oh contraire mon frère!

For some inexplicable reason, the bluetooth receiver in the CIvic will NOT pair with this bluetooth CD player device. And I can verify that the problem is not with the CD player because that pairs immediately and every time with three other bluetooth receivers -- a boom box, a bluetooth stereo receiver and a bluetooth amp transceiver that my friend brought over. Now while common knowledge seems to be that bluetooth transceivers are standarized and will universally pair with each other, apparently our unfriendly Honda Civic engineers decided that the bluetooth chip in the Civic audio system should NOT be able to pair with anything but cellphones. WHY?!

So the question: Has anyone found a workaround this idiocy? Is there a portable CD player out there that will in some way feed audio into the audio system? or is there a hack that can be done to the Civic bluetooth circuitry that will force it to pair with devices other than cellphones? Or am I doomed to hate this aspect of my car forever. And it will be forever because it seems the trend by car manufacturers now is to move away from including CD players. But taking out the stereo input jack too? That's folly.

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[Sil98]

If all else fails you can go old school. Pioneer CDX-FM45 or equivalent which transmits CD data to your FM receiver. Downside is it's bulky.

 

[JT Si]

What year is it?

You should be ripping your entire CD collection to lossless archival media (preferrably FLAC) then generating MP3's to put on a thumb drive.

How is literally any conceivable CD player (even a fancy 12 disk set) sufficient for your "few HUNDRED CDs"?

Get with it, man.

Edit: Also wrong forum.

 

[KYRGYZ]

You can easily install single din cd head unit in your car and feed your music through it while keeping your OEM head unit for other stuff, it is been done many times, especially popular among SPL community

 

[rwsmith123]

Give in, rip your CDs and put them on a thumb drive. Even with a few hundred it wouldn't take that much effort, probably less work than what you've already invested looking for a work around. And the effort you put in wouldn't have to be all at once, do 10 at first and while you are listening to those in the car do some more, repeat for next batch etc.

 

[NorrinRadd]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0829S6K1X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf_t1_Y-BDFbQCXA364

I guess you might be able to use that with a portable player... but really dude, it's time to move on! And I'm not a 20-something, I'm a 40-something ?

 

[bcrichster]

40yo here and yes I agree with several ppl here: it's time to rip them CD's and put them on something like a flash drive or micro SD card to your phone. That way you can listen to anything ya want via BT and control everything from the head unit. I have like 2500 MP3's taking only 16GB total space, so a 32GB Flashdrive or whatever size micro SD card (I use a 256GB) to your phone, you'll be set AF. TBH, it's getting harder to find PC's and laptops with any kind of disk drive these days so I'd jump on it quickly before all options get lost. A CPU shop will do it quite cheaply for you as well. worth considering, I promise..

 

[JJreal]

Man, I thought I had it rough trying to go or switch from my old 5th Gen I-Pod that has over 6,500+ purchased & owned MP3 songs From the Apple Itunes store with various custom playlists via USB connection in my car to an updated High-End High Rez NW-WM1A Sony Walkman via USB-C connection, and I'm a 57 year old guy. I don't think My Walkman is compatible with my i-Mid screen in the Honda Civic Si. So now I have to come up with some type of gooseneck mount, where I can access the screen easily and also remove when I park the car. Did I mention the need to see what is actually available in High Rez Bandwidth in my collection and then repurchase that music again? What a pain, all in the name of high-end car stereo.

 

[BoostinIX]

Another point towards go digital- CDs are a medium that will degrade over time. Not just from use and scratches, but the physical medium degrades like any physical media. Go digital while you have all your discs working.

You could swap headunits sure. But...why. You can keep the CDs for nostalgia/old school cool, doesn't mean you have to carry them around everywhere. How crushed will you be when someone breaks in and steals your 200 disc binder too.

Put them on a thumbdrive and rock and roll.

 

[CinemaDude]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0829S6K1X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_btf_t1_Y-BDFbQCXA364

I guess you might be able to use that with a portable player... but really dude, it's time to move on! And I'm not a 20-something, I'm a 40-something ?

You are right -- time to move ahead. I looked last night and realized I have WAY more CDs that I thought, but of course, I only take about 20 of them when going on a trip so like you folks suggest, I can just copy what I want as I need them an before I know it, I'll have the bulk of my favorites at least on thumbs.


And thanks for the link Mark... appreciated.

 

[BoostinIX]

IDK since I'm just on my phone; can you play USB media from the USB in the center console? I've left the one with all my wallpapers on it in there for months. In any case, would just get a large-gb size single USB since they're silly cheap nowadays and just leave it in. Make your life simpler.

 

[CinemaDude]

Thanks all for the replies. Yah, time to make the leap. Although I still think Honda could have at least put in an input jack -- that is a no cost-added item that would really be quite useful.

BTW, If you think dropping old tech requires an adjustment, I am a cinema director and a projectionist/restorationist. For literally all my working life I have been involved with motion picture film -- 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, IMAX and within two or three years, thousands of projectors were ripped out of movie theatre across the country and film almost instantly became obsolete. Unlike CD technology which has only been around a few decades, film, which has been the way human beings have been viewing all the greatest movies for over a century, all of a sudden in the blink of an eye, film was gone. And for HALF a century, movies were the ONLY way people could see moving pictures. Now THAT, my friends, was an adjustment.

 

[hobby-man]

I wonder if this is how people felt when they stopped putting record players in cars

 

[eze714]

Welcome to the future

 

[rwsmith123]

A few tips:

If your car model has a USB port in the center console under the cup holder use that one so you can use the other one for your phone and android auto/car play.

Songs and folders will show up in the order they were written to the thumb drive. Use a utility such as mp3DirSorter to resort them. I put the .exe on the thumb drive itself so I can run it whenever I put new stuff on it.

Get a good quality thumb drive (or a few), the system scans it every time you start the car and a sketchy drive can cause the head unit to slow way down if it has trouble reading it.

I don’t know the limit of the number of files and folders but because the system reads it every time you start the car you might want to stay way below the limit and spread your collection over a couple thumb drives. Right now mine has about 1800 files in 133 folders with no issues.

I’m not a fan of talking to a computer, but using voice command is a pretty handy way of getting to the music you want to play with a thumb drive full of music. It’s the only thing I use voice command for.

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