Installing a physical CD player in a new 2024 Honda Civic Touring Sedan?

[arcuda35]

Hi, Recently, my 2017 Honda Accord was totaled. I was just about to purchase a new 2024 Honda Civic Touring Sedan.
I just discovered & saw in-person, 2 cars that had a factory-installed CD player: 2023 Nissan Maxima SV & 2024 Lexus IS 300 &/or 350.
While I prefer the Civic, I have decided that a CD Player is a must! I do enjoy Sirius XM, I do much driving, 20-25,000 miles per year, & have almost 20,000 CDs.
While the Civic has: Wireless / Apple CarPlay & Android Auto Compatibility (none of which I have any knowledge of) I do Not & will Not do downloads or anything like that. Sorry for being a prehistoric dinosaur.
Without getting invasive & also affecting the factory-installed Navigation, Sound System, Computer, Wiring & possibly ruining my car or nullifying warranties...is there a way to sync up or simply connect some kind of small good-excellent physical CD player to the existing: Bose Premium Sound System with 12 Speakers, including Subwoofer.
Help, Please! Thank You Very Much, G!

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[eob2000]

The 2024 civic is an 11th gen so you'll probably have better help over at civicxi.com. nonetheless I'll add my comments here.

There is a very slim possibility that a USB CD drive designed for a laptop might work and be detected as a flash drive. But it is very unlikely.

Your best option is going to be to rip your CDs to a flash drive and play them that way.

It's just an unfortunate fact that CDs just aren't popular enough anymore for a lot of automakers to consider. Cars that do still have them are likely using carryover infotainment systems from older cars.

 

[dt10g]

You're gonna have hunt down some oddball device like this I think...

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Bluetooth-Rechargeable-Anti-Shock-Protection/dp/B07XY9GX3W

It will have to be Bluetooth, as these cars do not have an Aux in cable.

Do not go with anything doing FM transmit.

PS.
Respectfully I also recommend seriously considering either

1. Music subscription (e.g. Apple Music, Spotify, others )

you can just try them for a month and see if you like this, it's not a huge commitment.

2. Use a CD-ripping service to give you a copy of all your CD's

if you have a lot unique albums that are not in the catalog of these music services, then this may be an option.. then you have all your 20,000 CDs on your smart phone in your Apple Music or Android-equivalent music library, accessible via your nice new modern in-car infotainment screen and via voice command. No need for a network connection if the files are on your device, and no need for an ongoing monthly charge.

"Hey Siri, play The Boss..."

CD's don't have great quality, and Bluetooth typically also does not have great quality unless you maybe have something supporting AptX ... which I bet neither the device nor your headunit support... so you are going to get same or better quality with some of the different music services.

Also CD's are prone to rot or scratching, and you don't want to find that 20% of your library is toast every year. Esp. if you leave them in a hot car etc.

Now if you said you wanted to get your Record Player in the car ... ;-)

 

[eob2000]

These cheap Bluetooth ones probably won't do the audio system or your CDs any justice. They tend to use absolute bottom of the barrel Bluetooth hardware and codecs.

 

[MoodySara]

Your best option is going to be to rip your CDs to a flash drive and play them that way.

Another vote for this ^^^.

All your CDs will fit on a postage stamp sized memory card. Well, on about 500(!) of them.

I did it myself, but there are many services to do it for a fee.

 

[eob2000]

You're gonna have hunt down some oddball device like this I think...

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Bluetooth-Rechargeable-Anti-Shock-Protection/dp/B07XY9GX3W

It will have to be Bluetooth, as these cars do not have an Aux in cable.

Do not go with anything doing FM transmit.

PS.
Respectfully I also recommend seriously considering either

1. Music subscription (e.g. Apple Music, Spotify, others )

you can just try them for a month and see if you like this, it's not a huge commitment.

2. Use a CD-ripping service to give you a copy of all your CD's

if you have a lot unique albums that are not in the catalog of these music services, then this may be an option.. then you have all your 20,000 CDs on your smart phone in your Apple Music or Android-equivalent music library, accessible via your nice new modern in-car infotainment screen and via voice command. No need for a network connection if the files are on your device, and no need for an ongoing monthly charge.

"Hey Siri, play The Boss..."

CD's don't have great quality, and Bluetooth typically also does not have great quality unless you maybe have something supporting AptX ... which I bet neither the device nor your headunit support... so you are going to get same or better quality with some of the different music services.

Also CD's are prone to rot or scratching, and you don't want to find that 20% of your library is toast every year. Esp. if you leave them in a hot car etc.

Now if you said you wanted to get your Record Player in the car ... ;-)

My only quibble with this is that CDs actually do have very good quality, "CD Quality" is kinda the benchmark for indistinguishable quality audio and is far above any of the current streaming service offerings. A CD ripped losslessly to a flash drive using a tool such as EAC (which checks the files against a known good database to ensure they rip correctly) and playing directly plugged into the car is going to provide the best quality. (Now if that matters in an OEM car audio setup is up for debate). This of course depends on if the 11th gen infotainment can play from flash drives. Second best would be storing those files on a phone and playing wirelessly but that incurs wireless losses and will quickly eat up storage. Flash drives are cheap and easy to keep a handful in the car. A 128GB flash drive can store ~150 full quality CDs.

 

[dt10g]

My only quibble with this is that CDs actually do have very good quality, "CD Quality" is kinda the benchmark for indistinguishable quality audio and is far above any of the current streaming service offerings. A CD ripped losslessly to a flash drive using a tool such as EAC (which checks the files against a known good database to ensure they rip correctly) and playing directly plugged into the car is going to provide the best quality. (Now if that matters in an OEM car audio setup is up for debate). This of course depends on if the 11th gen infotainment can play from flash drives. Second best would be storing those files on a phone and playing wirelessly but that incurs wireless losses and will quickly eat up storage. Flash drives are cheap and easy to keep a handful in the car. A 128GB flash drive can store ~150 full quality CDs.

Yes I ripped my own CD's as lossless years ago with EAC
Now have an iTunes library of 100% ALAC encoded files for what that's worth lol

It is not true lossless though, as the rip can only be as good as the CD audio source...

Typically, “CD-quality” means audio encoded with 16-bit depth and a 44.1kHz sampling rate.
You'll see below that the latest service offerings are better than this.

The audiophile community will pitchfork anyone suggesting CD's are the reference/benchmark. But yes it is good enough for 99% of people in 99% of circumstances...

Also probably not relevant in car audio as you say unless you're in a Bentley. People were happy with crappy 128Kbps MP3 and thought it was good enough. MiniDisc before that also crushed the audio. CD's are better but still sampling the audio.

Streaming services and their best audio quality options at this time

Apple Music - lossless audio

You can listen to lossless audio with CarPlay using a USB connection.

Apple has its own lossless audio compression ~ Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC)... the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295

Settings shows some useful data

Tidal

"Max" is up to 24-bit, 192 kHz,

"High" is up to CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz))

https://tidal.com/sound-quality

Spotify

Isn't Lossless yet, maybe never... google Spotify Hi-Fi

Very high = Equivalent to approximately 320kbit/s

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/audio-quality/


Obviously streaming such high quality is going to use a lot of bandwidth, but a number of the apps should let you download (e.g. cache) your audio playlists for times you are in a cellular dead zone.

I don't know if everyone realizes that you can have a local Apple Music library, and that you don't just have to use their Apple Music streaming service.

Also phone storage is at all all time high,
soon we will probably have petabytes in our pocket

e.g. currently

The iPhone 13, 14, 15 - available up to 512 GB and the 15 Pro - up to 1 TB

I cannot imagine the pain in accessing 20,000 CD's via the Honda flash drive interface, it seems to make more sense to use an app ~ say Apple's Music app (with your local library, not the streaming service) or whatever music app is best these days for media management. But people obviously can use whatever suits them best, if they like the USB browser thing God bless.

 

[eob2000]

Yes I ripped my own CD's as lossless years ago with EAC
Now have an iTunes library of 100% ALAC encoded files for what that's worth lol

It is not true lossless though, as the rip can only be as good as the CD audio source...

Typically, “CD-quality” means audio encoded with 16-bit depth and a 44.1kHz sampling rate.
You'll see below that the latest service offerings are better than this.

The audiophile community will pitchfork anyone suggesting CD's are the reference/benchmark. But yes it is good enough for 99% of people in 99% of circumstances...

Also probably not relevant in car audio as you say unless you're in a Bentley. People were happy with crappy 128Kbps MP3 and thought it was good enough. MiniDisc before that also crushed the audio. CD's are better but still sampling the audio.

Streaming services and their best audio quality options at this time

Apple Music - lossless audio

You can listen to lossless audio with CarPlay using a USB connection.

Apple has its own lossless audio compression ~ Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC)... the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/118295

Settings shows some useful data

Tidal

"Max" is up to 24-bit, 192 kHz,

"High" is up to CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz))

https://tidal.com/sound-quality

Spotify

Isn't Lossless yet, maybe never... google Spotify Hi-Fi

Very high = Equivalent to approximately 320kbit/s

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/audio-quality/


Obviously streaming such high quality is going to use a lot of bandwidth, but a number of the apps should let you download (e.g. cache) your audio playlists for times you are in a cellular dead zone.

I don't know if everyone realizes that you can have a local Apple Music library, and that you don't just have to use their Apple Music streaming service.

Also phone storage is at all all time high,
soon we will probably have petabytes in our pocket

e.g. currently

The iPhone 13, 14, 15 - available up to 512 GB and the 15 Pro - up to 1 TB

I cannot imagine the pain in accessing 20,000 CD's via the Honda flash drive interface, it seems to make more sense to use an app ~ say Apple's Music app (with your local library, not the streaming service) or whatever music app is best these days for media management. But people obviously can use whatever suits them best, if they like the USB browser thing God bless.

Huh these streaming services have come on a bit since I last looked. I'm with you on the USB browser lol, but I can't imagine it's any worse than trying to navigate through 20,000 physical CDs. Apple also charge a small fortune for iPhone storage upgrades. A midrange android phone is gonna get you a headphone jack and an SD card slot that usually supports up to 2TB comfortably. I also haven't checked but you may be able to connect an android phone in USB Mass Storage mode to the head unit and navigate it like a USB flash drive anyway. On the 10th gen you can even hook up an iPod and navigate it. Though I'd be willing to bet the 11th gen won't support that lol

 

[MadMage]

I will 3rd or 5th the idea of burning your CDs to a USB drive. You don't have to worry about the discs getting scratched or loss, no need to carry around folders of CDs. You can make a copy for each car. And as said, you can put it all on your phone if you want.
Yes it will take you an hour or so to learn how to use it and get comfortable doing it, but once there, you will love it.

 

[arcuda35]

Hi, Recently, my 2017 Honda Accord was totaled. I was just about to purchase a new 2024 Honda Civic Touring Sedan.
I just discovered & saw in-person, 2 cars that had a factory-installed CD player: 2023 Nissan Maxima SV & 2024 Lexus IS 300 &/or 350.
While I prefer the Civic, I have decided that a CD Player is a must! I do enjoy Sirius XM, I do much driving, 20-25,000 miles per year, & have almost 20,000 CDs.
While the Civic has: Wireless / Apple CarPlay & Android Auto Compatibility (none of which I have any knowledge of) I do Not & will Not do downloads or anything like that. Sorry for being a prehistoric dinosaur.
Without getting invasive & also affecting the factory-installed Navigation, Sound System, Computer, Wiring & possibly ruining my car or nullifying warranties...is there a way to sync up or simply connect some kind of small good-excellent physical CD player to the existing: Bose Premium Sound System with 12 Speakers, including Subwoofer.
Help, Please! Thank You Very Much, G!

Hi, THANK U VERY MUCH to U & ALL who have replied so quickly & with detail to my Inquiry re: adding a CD Player to a 2024 Honda Civic Touring Sedan!
I very much appreciate all of your suggestions, as many of U took the time & patience to go into detail & explanation as well as post links to purchase potential products to solve my "foolish" dilemma.

The CD player that is a "Must Have" is Not 4 my collection of 20k or so CDs. I want to have the ability & option to keep in the car & rotate every couple of weeks, ~ 1/2 dozen CDs, mainly recently purchased new releases &/or live "bootlegs" CDs.
Yes, I understand, I am a stubborn prehistoric dinosaur, & refuse to get with the times.
However, I do Not want to burn, download, rip, stream, use Apple, Spotify, an iPod, iPad, a smart phone or anything like that.

I am 66 years, & my lasdt vehicle was a 2017 Accord 2 DOOR, EXLN SENS V6, which I purchased new in March 2017 & was totaled late last year. I hit 100,000 miles the day be4 my accident.
Before that I had an Infiniti G-35 Sports Coupe 4 almost 10 years which made it to almost 200k miles with a factory-installed CD player, which had to replaced twice over the years at no cost to me, by the dealer.
I have an Android T-Mobile mobile phone which I do Not keep turned on & use sparingly, only to make occasional phone calls or take photos. I had a sturdy sports flip phone, 4 almost 30 years, & the only reason I had to switch, was because Sprint finally did away with the 3G network that my phone was on, by 3/31/22...
My Accord was a Still Night Pearl (purple-ish blue) 2-Door with a V6 Automatic & I had built it with almost every option Honda offered. I Had great luck with it mechanically & with reliability as opposed to the $thousands I $pent & problems I had w/my Infiniti.
I do Not want a Honda Hybrid & do Not want a Sports Model & want a Blue-ish Color. That leaves me with The Aegean Blue Civic Touring, which I like a lot, but do Not love. Unfortunately it has 4 Doors, is a 4 Cylinder, does Not have Lumbar seats, has a much smaller rear window than the Accord & of course does Not have a CD player!

I work in the music business, do a lot of driving up & down the East coast, & my hearing is Not 100%. I don't care how bad or so-so the music is going to sound thru some kind of CD player.
Note: I am willing to $pend $money to get a top-of-the-line CD player. This Touring Civic seems to have a decent sound system, so I want to hopefully via A UBS cable run the CD player thru the car's sound system. I'm sure I can find somewhere near me in the car to place this small player or attach it nearby me so I have some kind of access to it.

Ladies & Gents, Forgive Me, Pleaz, I want the ability to play physical CDs, in a Brand New, Not previously owned vehicle. I'll drive the car to the ground, myself!

Thanks to your suggestions & links as well as other links that I have discovered, there seems to be various relatively inexpensive products on Amazon & elsewhere. I have watched several U-Tube videos which make it seem Too Simple & easy even 4 a technologically challeged person like me!
I was going to paste some of the item links I have found or were forwarded to me by a sibling, on here, but I've aleady tortured you All & written way too much.

Does the 2024 Civic Touring Sedan have a:
USB Port, USB Data Port, USB Media Port, USB Interface, (I think all those are the same thing)???

According to several dealer salespeple, I have spoken to, it does.

However is there an AUX port somewhere in the car's system or screen, because I was just told by a Honda salesman by phone that there may Not be an AUX setting???
dt10g also noted that there was Not!

Today, I called & spoke to several different NY & NJ Honda dealerships & some said it was possible & others said it was Not!

Here is an email quote from 1 of the better salepersons who I have met with & kept in contact with:
"I suppose there is something that could be done but I also think there would be consequences.
I am told it could be done but the functionality of the player isn't always dependable and it would most definitely affect your warranty. I understand The desire. Wish I could do more."

I looked at the Lexus IS in-person & it will cost me $20k+ more than the Civic as well as additional $money 4 Insurance, Maintenance, & Service. If it was "only" a $10k difference, I think I would do it but I don't think it's worth the $25k difference, unless it was my very last car & would last me the rest of my lifetime.

Some, like eob2000, have suggested that I go onto civicXI.com bec my potential new car is an 11th Generation?
I signed up for civicxi.com, so later this evening I'll post a similar message on there, however I wanted to Thank ALL of U first.
Forgive me, please, 4 my vanity, ignorance, & stubborness.
THANX MUCH AGAIN, G!

 

[dt10g]

AUX: no

https://owners.honda.com/vehicle-information/information/2024/Civic Sedan/manuals

"About Your Audio System

The audio system features AM/FM radio and SiriusXM® Radio service*. It can also play USB flash drives, iPod, iPhone and Bluetooth® devices."

Full stop.
There is no Aux port on the 10th generation.
There is no Aux port on the 11th generation.
There will probably never be another Aux port.

AUX as in typical 1/8 analog mini-jack ...

Feel free to download and peruse the 2024 manual to verify.
I have already done this, but don't take my word for it.

The car should have a USB input...
The manual says it can play USB flash drives - mass storage devices like a USB key or USB hard disk that have a specific format filesystem on it with a bunch of files, again in certain file formats like MP3 maybe a few others (WAV?). It can also recognize iPod and iPhones, because Apple presents a certain interface over USB. I don't think it's exactly mimicking a USB mass storage device, but if you remember the old iPod's with the click wheel, it's kind of exporting the files and playlists it has on it (iirc)

I am not aware of any CD that can connect via USB, because it would have to present itself as a USB mass storage device (e.g. USB key, USB hard disk) or as a USB connected iPhone. That seems incredibly unlikely.

You probably want the Lexus...
( I was surprised to learn it still had a CD!!)

You could probably swap the Civic headunit with some generic audio system with a CD, but I think you would lose so much functionality that it would not be worth it. The headunit does so much more than just the sound system these days. You seemed to have ruled that out already, good

In theory someone could rig up something, some automotive CD-ROM audio system that taps into the Civic audio system in some way, but that is also totally unsupported and dodgy. e.g. I'm thinking like a 6-pack CD changer type setup, but you'd have to tap into the audio cables somehow in the back of the head unit ? Not sure if that would even be possible, given there is no analog inputs of any form that I know about. An automotive audio place might be able to advise you on that.

Another thought, and this another wild idea... is you could probably install a separate audio system in the car and connect it up to all the existing speakers. Leave one speaker (say the front dash one) for the Civic headunit audio... which I guess in your case would just be the beeps and boops and navigation, and leave the rest of the audio system to this separate deck. An audio store could advise, it's crazy, but it could be done. Maybe into the glovebox space.

You could do something with a computer or Arduino or Raspberry Pi or something that is essentially a computer in the car that rips any CD you put in it, and then presents itself as a USB mass storage device. But that sounds super mad scientist and well beyond my skills and I presume yours.

If you cannot find a CD drive with a built-in Bluetooth output, then what if you had some analog CD-ROM system (heck you could have a full size McIntosh deck on a DC converter strapped to the passenger seat haha) ... and put a generic analog-Bluetooth transceiver on the output side. Or more realistically something like an old Sony DiscMan portable player that has some shock resistance.

I'm curious to see what devices you found in your search, post some URLs if you like

 

[dt10g]

see page 249 in the manual

There appear to be some ports in the car that can connect devices, and other ports that are ONLY for charging.

Recommend you have your dealer demonstrate the car you are interested in and verify it has what you need. (I'm not familiar with the 7 vs. 9" touchscreens referred to in this 11th gen manual... the CivicXI forum can tell you for sure.

 

[arcuda35]

Hi dt10g,
THANK U so VERY MUCH 4 all your Detailed Work, Input & Information. U r amazing+awesome! IOU a Consultation Fee/Bonus! -G!

 

[vtecr]

I'd also vote for ripping your CDs, but there are loads of USB CD players that can be simply plugged into the car without any additional messing around. I did a quick Google and here's one example.

 

[dt10g]

Can't see what USB device you were referring to, but yes I found some on Amazon too

Not sure how they work, but ...
read the comments, some people love it, some people say

Customer Reviews

Not working on my Civic Honda
By dgl in the United States on December 13, 2022
Reported not working on my Civic Honda 2020.
customer service sucks, took them a while to respond on email...

Did not work in my Honda Civic though it stated it would in the write up.

By Elayne in the United States on February 19, 2023
Ordered it for my Honda Civic hatchback sport.
Writeup indicated it would work.
Does not.


These guys claim to have something that works...

https://www.autopartstoys.com/collections/apt-usb

https://www.autopartstoys.com/pages/product-result?rq=yr_2024~mk_honda~md_civic~wz_cd-player

It must be presenting itself as USB mass storage or as an iPod or something, whatever as long as it works. The 20-30 seconds suggests what it must be doing behind the scenes to make it work

"VERY IMPORTANT: Allow 20-30 seconds for the CD to finish indexing to insure complete installation and avoid set-up issues. If the process is interrupted before completion, insert a different CD and follow all installation instructions again, beginning with Step 1."

I would probably buy one of these type of products and then take it down the dealer before buying and make SURE it works.

Good luck!

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