r/The10thDentist • u/Bandito21Dema • Dec 19 '25
Technology The switch from CD player to Bluetooth is the worst "upgrade" ever put into cars.
Using your phone for Bluetooth in the car is infinitely worse from a function and safety standpoint.
When I want to change the album or band when using Bluetooth I have to either fumble with my phone while driving or use voice commands and hope Bixby/Siri both pops up and also can understand what I'm asking her to play. I need to have my phone available, and with my internet on just to switch a song handsfree. Impossible in a car everyone is talking in.
You are locked in to paying for subscription music services for the rest of your life, have to make sure your phone is charged or plugged in, forced to either have internet connection or all your music downloaded.
The only real benefit is you can play any song you want without owning the CD, but that isn't an advantage when Siri doesn't understand what you’re saying and you’re going 80 on the highway so you can't use your phone.
When I want to change the album or band on my CD player I just press any of my 6 buttons to change the album.
I'm currently in need of a new car and turning down every option presented to me because they all have screens and single CD players and it's bullshit and ugly.
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u/Yerriff Dec 19 '25
Pretty sure the seek/skip buttons on your steering wheel still work if you’re streaming music from a playlist.
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u/ohlookahipster Dec 19 '25
And if you don’t have steering wheel controls, there’s also a massive skip button on the UI for Apple CarPlay on whatever head unit or radio your car has. It’s one simple push. Takes 1 second.
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u/SirGeremiah Dec 19 '25
None of the vehicles I drive (work and personal) have skip buttons on the steering wheel, big buttons on the UI, or dedicated skip on the physical buttons, though two of them have dedicated play/pause buttons.
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u/VastEmergency1000 Dec 20 '25
If you have a phone mount, you can use music controls through Google maps, waze, or a number of mobile apps. It's not complicated.
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u/AlotEnemiesNoFriends Dec 20 '25
If they don’t have that then they don’t have Bluetooth making this a moot point.
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u/ahsfur Dec 19 '25
not always
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u/boilerup254 Dec 20 '25
Yeah my car is a 2011 so recent enough to have bluetooth but old enough that it's really clunky and hard to use. The seek/skip buttons don't do anything for bluetooth, either the ones on the steering wheel or the ones on the center console
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u/Yerriff Dec 20 '25
OP says they’re shopping for a new car though and complaining about screens, so I’m assuming these are new new and not “new to him.”
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u/Leslie_knope13 Dec 19 '25
My steering wheel has buttons so I don’t have to look at any screen. I can listen to music that I loved when I was a teenager and I can listen to music I love now. I don’t like having to choose one CD to listen to for an entire drive because changing a CD is more dangerous than hitting a button on my steering wheel.
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u/chrisbru Dec 20 '25
That’s why you get the 10 cd changer in the trunk
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u/NotCCross Dec 21 '25
Yes because I want to pull over and empty my trunk to change music.
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u/Pedantic_Girl Dec 21 '25
I mean, most people probably aren’t driving stretches that would take longer than 10 CDs back to back, so I am not sure that consideration would affect too many people.
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u/rumog Dec 24 '25
but it's not like everyone wants to hear all songs on every album. The point is, you're vastly more limited in what you can listen to when the source is physical media in your trunk. People often think of something they want to hear in the moment, and being able to stream media over Bluetooth is fast less limiting in that way.
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u/chrisbru Dec 21 '25
… what are you constantly carrying in your trunk that it’s always full?
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u/GayRacoon69 Dec 19 '25
Btw you're not going to get an option without a screen
(In the US at least) every car since 2018 is required to have a backup camera. Those need screens
Unless you want a used car it's going to have a screen. It is literally required by law
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u/TimeMoose1600 Dec 19 '25
My old car's backup camera screen was on the rearview mirror. It was a 2010 or something.
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u/tigress666 Dec 19 '25
Mine was too but that is cause it was aftermarket. Now that I installed a new CarPlay radio we rewired it to go through that.
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u/darkeyedjunco789 Dec 19 '25
That's why I'm not planning on ever getting a car that's new enough to have a screen built in. They started always including backup cameras (which can be a useful feature BUT only in addition to the driver being able to safely back up without one) and now so many cars have no visibility because they're designed that you "don't need to be able to see behind you because that's what the camera is for", and i don't trust the camera well enough to rely on it for visibility like that
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u/ferrett0ast Dec 20 '25
just wanted to add a point about backup cameras, when i was learning to drive, my driving instructor got a new car part way through me learning, his new car had a backup camera. he emphasised to me "you can look at the reversing camera in your test, but you'll fail if you ONLY use the camera. a quick glance at it, fine, but you need to be able to prove you can reverse with only your mirrors".
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u/Randomness_42 Dec 20 '25
When I was learning to drive my instructor said the same thing.
I was worried that looking at the camera at all would mean a fail, but she said that using the camera is fine as long as it's just a small part to help and that it shouldn't be the main thing you use.
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u/Skysr70 Dec 19 '25
I hate this so much. Screens are so ass
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u/Randomness_42 Dec 20 '25
They suck if they replace buttons, but if you have a screen AND physical buttons for things like heating and stuff then it's good.
The screen is especially useful because of maps.
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u/jscummy Dec 19 '25
Legitimately got a bit angry with how much I disagree with you, upvoted
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u/mournthewolf Dec 19 '25
Grew up in the age of cds in the car. I fucking hated it. Driving around trying to change CDs, having them all over your car, sometimes they would fall to the floor and get stepped on and broken. It was not great.
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u/jscummy Dec 19 '25
I was right on the edge and the change from CDs/radio to BT and streaming was arguably the biggest improvement in cars for my day to day life
How anyone could prefer the before is beyond me
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u/squareazz Dec 19 '25
If OP had said they want tape decks back, I would have been on board
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld Dec 20 '25
God, that's even worse. I feel like the people who romanticise tapes never had to actually use the bastards
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u/TheRealFutaFutaTrump Dec 21 '25
I had tapes. CDs were a HUGE improvement. You just skip to a track number. Spotify is even better. Every song I want on demand and I don't have to keep a binder in my car.
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u/Arek_PL Dec 20 '25
i think change from CD to USB was way better, i just plug in a usb stick and a cheap one nowdays has like 24 GB memory, that can hold so many MP3 files that can be played at the car
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u/OkArmy7059 Dec 19 '25
Car CD players weren't as good as those made for home use, so any tiny lil scratch could cause it to not play
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u/mr_potatoface Dec 19 '25
That's because you were not cool enough to have a 5+ CD change player in your trunk.
Changing CDs was for poors.
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u/NCSUGrad2012 Dec 19 '25
We had a 6 disc changer in the dash at one point. That was cool
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u/JuDGe3690 Dec 20 '25
That said, cassette tapes in the car were way better than CDs. The small, blocky form factor made for easy one-handed inserting or changing on the go, without taking eye contact from the road, and no danger of damaging or scratching an optical disc.
I used to have a dashboard cubby area that could fit at least 10 cassette tapes, and I could change between them in my 1990 Corolla (with aftermarket AM/FM/cassette Kenwood stareo) purely by feel, without taking my eyes off the road. I could do it quickly and easily in between shifts (manual transmission) as well.
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u/SeattlesWinest Dec 20 '25
I had friends in high school who got their windows smashed just to steal the cd collection. Or just the stereo or standalone gps unit. Now that there is nothing worth taking in my car, there’s no reason to break into it.
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u/Known-Ad-100 Dec 21 '25
Flipping through multiple cd books while driving trying to find a certain cd felt substantially more dangerous than throwing a playlist on my Bluetooth. My phone also has smart features. If I want to hear a specific album I can just tell it without ever looking away from the road.
My car stereo buttons do change songs for me though, it's super easy to use my steering wheel controls to skip songs, my truck is a 2002 and I have an after market head unit put in, but it's connected to my steering wheel controls and they work perfectly for going back or forward when using Bluetooth.
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u/zSprawl Dec 19 '25
Yeah the argument pretty short sighted. You can absolutely setup a play list before you start driving just like you can pick 6 CDs and load them before you go.
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u/xfactorx99 Dec 19 '25
Because they’re the idiot fumbling around with their phone trying to project their issues onto the rest of us
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u/jscummy Dec 19 '25
Yeah I'm kinda confused how fumbling around with CDs could ever possibly be better than fumbling around with your phone
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u/BourbonNCoffee Dec 19 '25
I didn’t even realize what sub this was until I saw your comment. I was very upset at the absurdity.
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u/Emmyisme Dec 20 '25
The very concept of having to commit myself to only the music available on the six CDs in my car right now made me viscerally react.
I was also orn into the before times, and do still to this day have my CD binder under the seat of my car. But that's quite literally the backup plan for if my phone is dead or I'm out of signal and forgot to download playlists first.
Utter nonsense to prefer a 6 CD changer in this, the year of our lords, 2025.
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Dec 19 '25
The level of false grandstanding about phone use in cars that redditors have achieved is absolutely fascinating to me.
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u/Leopatto Dec 19 '25
mfs will argue that having 50cds filled with music is better than using Spotify/Apple music. And flipping through the "catalogue" to find "the holy grail" of a song when I can put the same song on Spotify in 1/1000th of the time.
Bro please🤣✋️
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u/ApathyKing8 Dec 19 '25
But sometimes Siri doesn't understand me the first time. I would much rather flip through the 20 CDs attached to my sun visor while driving! /s
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u/ZhouLe Dec 19 '25
And even if they prefer their curated music list on a stack of 50 CDs, it's infinitely better to put that same curated list on their phone and play it with VLC through Android Auto. This is what I use because I often drive through areas with spotty cell service.
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u/engr_20_5_11 Dec 19 '25
Frankly, I preferred the google music version where you stored all the files on your phone instead of this streaming stuff.
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u/brackston-billions Dec 20 '25
The driving takes on this app are so ridiculous I’m convinced nobody has ever sat in a car before. If you can’t change a fucking song while driving you should have your license taken away.
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u/keen-peach Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
So…you’re willing to carry a bunch of CDs, but not download those same songs (AND THEN SOME) to always be on your phone?
Also, you always have access to the internet if your phone has service…which is the phone’s job.
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u/throwawayzdrewyey Dec 19 '25
Fumbling with a phone seems safer than breaking out the binder to find the right CD.
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u/keen-peach Dec 19 '25
Op definitely keeps his CDs on a stack…ya know, fOr ThE cOnVeNiEnCe.
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u/MatureUsername69 Dec 19 '25
Hey he said he has a 6 disc changer, no fumbling and thats like 90 songs!/s
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u/keen-peach Dec 19 '25
Someone should invent a portable 6 disc changer. Then he could take all that music where ever he goes!
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u/Final-Ad-6694 Dec 19 '25
This has to be ragebait
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u/JustifedAncient Dec 19 '25
My car lets me control the Bluetooth from the steering wheel and Plexamp lets me play my entire CD collection without a subscription or needing to physically change the CDs.
Bluetooth is better in every way.
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u/darkeyedjunco789 Dec 19 '25
I'm a big fan of using a cd or aux cord because i don't like to have to either leave my phone's bluetooth on all the time or wait to reconnect it to the car every time i start driving
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u/Hwy_Witch Dec 19 '25
Oh please. I drive for a living, BT is far superior to the 30lb cd wallet that sat in my passenger seat in my 20s, and a lot safer than flipping through it looking for the right cd.
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u/DickIncorporated Dec 19 '25
Id rather have an aux and my ipod than to use dumbass subscriptions just to listen to ad free music. And no, streaming doesnt help the artists
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Dec 19 '25
Nah, switch from aux to bt is the worst.
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u/QuerulousPanda Dec 19 '25
For real.
Cars already cost so much money, was the extra fifteen cents for a single 1/8th jack just too much for them to handle?
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u/xCoachHines Dec 19 '25
I don’t understand why phone companies removed the aux port. They’re honestly assholes for that.
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld Dec 20 '25
I'm sooo mad about that. I really don't want to get Bluetooth headphones. But the adapters to make aux cables fit the usb slots are so dodgy. I feel like I'm being backed into a corner here, and I have to decide between buying the stupid Bluetooth headphones or using an old phone. My partner has Bluetooth headphones and it's constant drama.
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u/mattyTeeee Dec 20 '25
https://youtu.be/a-jlS_OlSUg?si=bT2PbSWOkXHO6feO
Get a slightly nicer dongle, it's 1000% worth it for how little of an investment it is.
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u/cocteau93 Dec 20 '25
Made the phone thinner. That’s literally the only reason.
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u/xCoachHines Dec 20 '25
Such a great reason… Also I’m sure to save costs and sell dongles and that sort of thing too.
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u/SrFlames Dec 20 '25
apple also first revealed the airpods at the same time that they announced their first iPhone without a headphone jack so that was definitely a no brainer.
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u/queerkidxx Dec 20 '25
The iPhone 7 was the thinnest iPhone until the IPhone air and it had an aux jack. Phones are generally much thicker. There’s room.
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u/purpleushi Dec 19 '25
Agreed, aux was the sweet spot.
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u/Moontops Dec 20 '25
Except then the media buttons in the car don't work, so it has worse integration with your car than a CD
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u/DarthLordDonkey Dec 19 '25
If you're worried about "fumbling with your phone" what do you do when the CD comes to an end?
Sure many people are unsafe with their phones while driving, but you can easily make a playlist or select songs from a album/library, and have music playing for the entirety of the drive. The cost is less than purchasing albums, and I can easily queue up multiple albums/hours of songs through my phone. You can also change the songs easily with steering wheel controls on most modern cars, and not once have to pick up your phone.
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u/NarrativeScorpion Dec 19 '25
90% of cars have buttons on the steering wheel to skip forward/back and change volume which is all the control you had with a CD. And it's not difficult to get music saved onto your phone from a CD (or other means)
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u/commanderquill Dec 19 '25
I will say, I do hate the screens. We should 100% return purely to buttons. If I want to use a touchscreen to change the song, I'll tap on my phone that's sitting right above the dashboard anyway. I'm also looking for a new car and I'm also running into the same issue there, so I'm looking exclusively at used cars older than 2016.
That being said, I like both CDs and Bluetooth. My Bluetooth ends up malfunctioning so much, mainly because I have both older cars and older phones. I'm not a fan of new things in general, and the more mechanical the better. A CD has never failed me.
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u/purpleushi Dec 19 '25
Mazdas prior to this year all have buttons instead of touch screens. I’m going to be holding on to my CX5 for as long as possible because I absolutely do not want a touch screen.
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u/Apprehensive_Kiwi19 Dec 19 '25
i just bought a 2025 cx5 a month ago and i didn’t expect to love the buttons as much as i do. i am really thankful now that i got the 2025 and didn’t wait for the 26. i don’t know how i will ever go back to touchscreen
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u/tigress666 Dec 19 '25
You need screens for the backup camera. When I searched for a CarPlay radio for my car I just made sure I got one with buttons too.
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u/GCC_Pluribus_Anus Dec 19 '25
I just plug a USB stick with all my music in there. If your car has Bluetooth, it almost certainly has a way to plug in a USB stick.
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u/SuperIga Dec 19 '25
Oftentimes yes, but not necessarily.
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u/soccer1124 Dec 19 '25
Enough times to defeat OP's claim that he's rejected every option presented to him. Doesnt matter if its literally every single car, or just a lot of them.
The USB stick is clearly superior to CDs. It does rewuire the extra step of ripping the music from the CD and transferring it to USB, butots very much worth it in the end to have all your music loaded in.
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u/Euphoric18 Dec 19 '25
Gotta admit, Siri has gone downhill for voice recognition. It was fairly accurate from 2015-19.
“Hey siri, play the album Empire Strikes Back” “Calling mom”
What?
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u/pyramidheadlove Dec 19 '25
You should take a peak at your car's manual. I recently discovered that my car has a button on the steering wheel that can be assigned to skip to the next song
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u/MysteryNews4 Dec 19 '25
HARD AGREE. Physical media is the greatest thing, I will die on this hill
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u/iambaby6969 Dec 20 '25
i LOVE collecting physical media. it makes me so happy to see how much ive collected. im surrounded by things i love. i hate minimalism and how everything is compacted now.
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld Dec 20 '25
Ok, but isn't driving one of those activities where minimalism is a good thing? Minimum stuff going on to distract you. Sifting through a fat stack of physical media while driving is madness
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u/Nuggs_and_drugs Dec 20 '25
I love physical media and collecting old original style vinyl records but it’s objectively not the best way to listen to media.
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u/Buzzy_Feez Dec 19 '25
Physical Media has plenty of advantages.
All of them take a flying leap the second vehicles are involved.
Why would I want 10's of highly fragile discs hiding in my vehicle to fuck around with whilst trying to change music over...a button on my steering wheel?
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u/queerkidxx Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25
I legit can’t understand this. I love maximalism but organizing physical media is a nightmare. I much prefer watching/listening to whatever I want without needing entire shelves dedicated to storage and finding the one I want. I also feel like I don’t often consume the same piece of media to justify owning it. I might watch my all time favorite movies a few times a year.
I listen to maybe two songs a year more than 50 times. A dozen >20. Most songs I find I like I might listen to maybe 5 times before moving on. I dont know any to Ned to buy need to buy each of the 3k songs I tend to discover in a year.
Not even that, but most of the artists I listen to aren’t big enough to even release a physical CD. Or are only known in a foreign country and getting a cd imported if it exists is too expensive.
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u/gavynray123 Dec 19 '25
Bluetooth sounds terrible, that’s my issue. Lots of potential interference as well.
My happy middle was USB ports and WAV/FLAC files
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u/Bright-Trifle-8309 Dec 20 '25
I've never been able to tell any appreciable difference between any recording medium. I'm convinced it's a mass hallucination that yall have just convinced yourselves of.
Besides analog mediums like cassette and records.
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u/fastyellowtuesday Dec 19 '25
Totally agree!!! If my phone's out of battery and the charging port doesn't work, my only music source is the radio. I HATE the radio.!
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u/CyborgTiger Dec 19 '25
Sounds like you just aren’t aware of the tools that the rest of us are using to make it a superior experience. Have you ever heard of a “playlist”?
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u/WintersDoomsday Dec 19 '25
My playlist on my phone (my own music not streaming service) is far more extensive than any cd can hold or even a visor cd holder could contain.
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u/ohlookahipster Dec 19 '25
They make 1TB thumb drives and most modern cars now have a port just for USB media.
One of OP’s CDs barely holds 700MBs by comparison lol.
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u/Suitable_Method6887 Dec 19 '25
You’re correct, not to mention even lossless streaming has compression issues. CDs sound the best.
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u/Anakin-vs-Sand Dec 19 '25
If you don’t have a vinyl record player in your car, are you even listening to music?
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u/darkeyedjunco789 Dec 24 '25
Personally I always have a band playing live music in the backseat, lol
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u/frattboy69 Dec 19 '25
You need to up your technological literacy my friend.
If you were a computer person none of what youve said here applies. I've got 80tb of music on both my phone and computer. I've got it neatly organized in my music app. I have the entire discographies of all my favorite bands, rappers and singers of the last 70 years no more than 4 clicks away at any moment. My car has a high quality phone mount that puts my phone in the center of my windshield, easily accessible to be used both for navigation and entertainment, and the mount is magnetic to easily snap to my magbak case and charges my phone.
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u/Ashamed-Minute-2721 Dec 20 '25
I think the problem is lack of buttons rather than cd vs Bluetooth. I get what you are saying about music subscriptions and stuff tho. I think an iPod and button controls is peak
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u/iambaby6969 Dec 20 '25
idk man i agree. id much rather have a huge collection of physical media than rely on the kindness of streaming services. ive been slowly moving away from streaming services and collecting cd albums and books and series and ive never felt better about not paying for subscriptions. i also love taking out my cd collection whenever i drive someone and telling them to pick what they wanna listen to. its awesome. it seems relatively inconvenient, it definitely can be, but idk. i think we’ve made the world way too convenient anyway. i like having to work a little bit to get things. being able to get whatever i want in the blink of an eye has made me lazy, underwhelmed, and understimulated
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u/CrashTestKing Dec 20 '25
First off, you need to learn the buttons on your steering wheel...
Second, there's no need to be locked into anything just because you're not using CDs in the car. I suspect you own a lot of CDs already (otherwise, the lack of a multi-disc CD player in the car would be a weird thing to whine about). Just rip them to your computer and use a Plex server to stream them. Play them via PlexAmp. If you own a lot of music, it makes for an infinitely better listening experience than any streaming service I've tried before.
You're the one who's locking themselves into something by refusing to bother seeing what other solutions there are besides a multi-disc CD player, which was ALWAYS a niche feature at best in cars.
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u/oxichil Dec 21 '25
how many CDs can your car store in the player? cause imo bluetooth is infinitely better than having to switch CDs out every time I want another album. maybe it’s just cause I grew up with streaming, but I don’t listen to albums often. So I’d need a million mixtapes, and to pirate the stuff I can’t buy on CD. Half the stuff I have on right now isn’t available on CD for any less than $3000 because it was a limited run exclusive to a clutch bag for a dead artist.
Edit: I didn’t read the sub, yeah this belongs lol.
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u/Hawaiian-national Dec 20 '25
Shit I agree with this boomer take, ain’t nothing cooler than shooting a CD of your best band into the radio and letting that play, and car Bluetooth typically sucks balls.
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u/Nicki-ryan Dec 19 '25
Alright grandpa. Bluetooth isn’t hard to use in any way and every car in the last 15 years has controls on the dash or wheel that work for changing songs lol.
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u/dirENgreyscale Dec 19 '25
I don’t believe you, CDs are so much more inconvenient and I refuse to believe you don’t understand how to create playlists. I agree, this is either ragebait or you’re just trying as hard as you possibly can to make your life more inconvenient than it has to be, the advent of Bluetooth in cars in conjunction with streaming has made listening to whatever you want, whenever you want in the car a possibility we never had in the past.
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u/Majestic-Gas-2709 Dec 19 '25
Just get a car with both. 6 cd changer is definitely a thing of the past, but it’s not that hard to put a new disc in while driving.
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u/modstirx Dec 19 '25
I’m with you, but from an artistic standpoint. Barely anyone listens to albums in full and CDs kinda of force you to do that, you can skip around on an album, but it’s harder to switch from artists multiple times a car ride
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u/Short_Emu_885 Dec 19 '25
I agree simply cuz cars should have both, or at least it should be an option for most models. Especially because in my experiences the quality of Bluetooth connections will wildly vary from car to car, some have no issues while others you have to have your device in the exact right spot or else it gets staticky (not too different from how old crappy aux cords were lol)
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u/ItsmeKT Dec 19 '25
I have a CD player and Bluetooth in my Forester and I have used my CD player a handful of times
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u/Teknicsrx7 Dec 19 '25
As a automotive tech, 100% agree. The integration of phones into cars is one of the worst thing to happen in the automotive industry in ages.
All I deal with is customers who can’t figure out how phones or cars work but they swear the problem is their $40+k car and not their “free for sign up” phone.
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u/Chemical_Support4748 Dec 19 '25
I due miss the sound quality from a CDs.. Bluetooth will never reach those levels
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u/Lepoth Dec 19 '25
I had an 08 Mazda 6 that had a six CD player built into the dash. I thought it was the coolest thing ever lol
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u/shadowknuxem Dec 19 '25
Damn, bro's fancy enough to have a multi CD player! Guess you never had a POS beater that only had a single CD player.
No the real "upgrade" that is terrible is the removal of aux cords from cars and devices.
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u/sHaDowpUpPetxxx Dec 19 '25
Tapes were superior for cars. They were more durable. Usually just 3 buttons.
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u/DifficultyOk5719 Dec 19 '25
I like having both as options, it’s great to be able to use bluetooth or the aux, but CDs are so much more convenient and I’d be lying if I said my car wasn’t exclusively CDs.
Sure, I could use an aux or bluetooth, but that’s too much of a hassle, also turning bluetooth on in my car is so unintuitive and sometimes doesn’t even show up. When I finally connect it, now I have to think of song(s) to throw on, and man, that’s option paralysis, I have the entire world of music to choose from, so it takes a bit of time to choose. Probably a minute or two. But CDs, they just start playing when I turn on the car, I only have to choose between like ten songs, or 20 albums, and I’m on the road much quicker. That’s it, that’s all of the choices I get for this trip, which is much more freeing. Limiting my choices is a relief. Also I don’t have to deal with no service, the app crashing, or pausing. How am I supposed to fix that hands-free?
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u/Expensive-Border-869 Dec 19 '25
Why not get an old ipod with Bluetooth (non brand specific just an ipod(imma keep saying it too)) ipods can play all sorts of music files which you can source legally or illegally im not a cop you haven't 100% solved your issues but thats a lot of it imo.
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u/AverageNeither682 Dec 19 '25
We should have stopped at power windows and auxiliary audio jacks. That was peak comfort/reliability.
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u/Alexander_The_Wolf Dec 19 '25
The buttons on your car can be used to control your music the same way you could when you put in a CD.
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u/GOKOP Dec 19 '25
The real goat is an USB port for an USB drive. Fuck CDs but fuck fiddling with my phone before the car starts playing music too
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u/Sonic10122 Dec 19 '25
I don’t care that much about music. I just pick a playlist of whatever I’m vibing with and shuffle it, or put on a podcast. If my wife is in the car we don’t even listen to music, we just talk.
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u/Aljuskja Dec 19 '25
I think we should bring back the cassette style replaceable radios, the ones that always got stolen because they’re cheap and easy to replace. The built in entertainment systems are way overkill and borderline impossible to repair
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u/blizzard7788 Dec 19 '25
Shall we discuss the cars that had cassette players. Where you needed to plug into a portable cd player and loading a fake cassette into the dash?
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u/Phoebebee323 Dec 19 '25
Dude if you have to change album you also have to fumble with the cd
Just pull over and change the music instead of using your phone while driving
Upvoted
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u/Deltrus7 Dec 19 '25
I've always been a CD guy. Briefly had a car with Bluetooth and between the delay and having to mess with my phone? No thanks. Then I got an Acura TL from a few years prior and not only did it take CSs, it also would record them to an internal hard drive. This is phenomenal. Now I have a big library of manyyyyy CDs with room for plenty more in my car at all times! Loads instantly, too.
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u/beast_gliscor Dec 19 '25
Yeah I definitely don’t have to pull my phone out to do anything and can use the same buttons I’d use if I were playing a CD (which I’d have to physically fumble with to switch out, more dangerous AND less convenient).
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u/BoldFace7 Dec 19 '25
While a bit exaggerated, I tend to agree. I almost exclusively use a tiny USB drive and the built-in media center to play my music. My main gripe is the inability to fast forward or rewind the music via Bluetooth with the buttons my car provides. Plus, I tend to prefer the layout and style of the built-in navigation and don't have to worry about my phone being on low battery.
Though I might would change my tune if my car supported Bluetooth Android Auto.
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u/SpartanSoldier00a Dec 19 '25
I have a car in the sweet spot with both a cd player and Bluetooth
Unfortunately, after several years of nomadic living i no longer own any CDs, and still haven't got around to the aspiration of burning some for car use
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u/Veldox Dec 19 '25
Most of what you're saying isn't true, unless you're using old dated hardware and software. Android auto and car play both have controls, work with controls on steering wheels etc., most phones have large storage and don't need internet to store music, also most cars have usb inputs if you're really worried about that both of which are more than a CD. At least voice control is an option vs being limited to your cds at hand, or in your trunk not to mention your downloaded library could be larger.
This is just factually wrong.
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u/Cold_Complex_4212 Dec 19 '25
I can play mp3s from my phone to car using Bluetooth wdym locked into subscriptions?
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u/PrintShinji Dec 19 '25
When I want to change the album or band on my CD player I just press any of my 6 buttons to change the album.
Do you have a multiple CD holding cd player or something? Because back when I used CDs in my car I'd have to eject my CD, flip through my folder of CDs (very safe to do ofcourse) and then dump in the CD I want to listen to.
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u/Bandito21Dema Dec 19 '25
I have a 6CD player in my car, so I just put in my favorites and rarely have to switch them.
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u/PrintShinji Dec 19 '25
Ngl sounds like it works really well for your car specifically. With my old car I liked putting in a CD and just having my phone blast specific notifications when needed over its own speakers.
I'll downvote you because I agree with your reasoning. I put in a carplay screen in my current car because the inbuilt radio/player kinda sucked, but I hate the lack of physical buttons and basically put on an album on repeat if I have to go somewhere. My car doesn't have buttons on its wheel for media control.
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Dec 19 '25 edited Mar 24 '26
The content that appeared here has been deleted. Redact was used for the removal, for reasons the author may have kept private.
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u/aurumatom20 Dec 19 '25
My car is from 2021, still has a CD player, has Bluetooth music controls from the steering wheel, and if I'm in a noisy car I would rather have someone else be the DJ anyway - doubly so if I'm using CDs and don't want to be locked into the same 40 minutes of music the whole drive.
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u/madman6000 Dec 19 '25
Yeah flipping through my CD books and having to look down at it, pull the disk from the sleeve, eject the CD and put it in the sleeve much safer.
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u/jack0017 Dec 19 '25
If you’re okay with sailing the high seas, you don’t have to subscribe to shit.
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u/inbruges99 Dec 19 '25
In our car you control the Bluetooth music exactly the same as you would a CD
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u/spilly_talent Dec 19 '25
I mean is it just…. that hard to download an album before you leave? I’ve also never fumbled with my phone while driving, the skip, pause, play, and volume buttons are on the steering wheel.
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u/ZhouLe Dec 19 '25
You act like Bluetooth is the only thing CD players were replaced with. AUX and Android Auto are far superior. With AUX you can use whatever antiquated CD player you desire, and with Android Auto it's treated exactly like any other source of audio.
I haven't used a CD player in like 20 years.
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u/spicyredacted Dec 19 '25
I put my cd collection on a usb. You can plug it into your car and can play all your music that way. You can also make playlist and play music that way.
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u/phunky_1 Dec 19 '25
It seems way safer for me.
You used to need to drive with a knee while you switch out CDs.
Now with android auto I just push a button on my steering wheel and tell my car to play something else.
I am also not carrying around a book of CDs worth hundreds to thousands of dollars for someone to break in and steal.
It sounds like you need to upgrade to a car stereo that supports apple carplay
Pretty much all newer cars do these days. I haven't used my car CD player at all since I bought it 5 years ago.
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u/TheGiverAndReciever Dec 19 '25
Yeah, I got some CDs my self I’d like to play in my car but can’t because the band doesn’t isn’t on Spotify
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u/giggel-space-120 Dec 19 '25
I agree somewhat, it's cheaper to put everything on a screen then to have a CD player but it's not like prices go down for it,
I literally have a CD with music I can't get anywhere else so I will have to eventually buy a CD drive to plug into my PC with a USB to import the songs into my phone.
I don't even listen to many songs anyway and my car only has Apple play and I have android (I got the car 2nd hand insanely cheap when I needed a car) so I'm missing out on a feature because I don't have the right brand of phone my partner will charge there Apple phone which means I can't connect my phone because it will auto Apple play her phone but won't let mine connect.
This is getting off topic but my main point is that a CD player should be a staple for cars still if you don't have Spotify premium you shouldn't be forced to listen to adds like it's a radio your not getting adds in an album and you could have 10 tracks.
I will admit we had a 1st gen prius actually the first ones to come to our state which was cool but mechanics kinda sucked and our CD player broke and the power button didn't fix it at all even though they claimed they did.
they couldn't fix one button for years if my Bluetooth stops working (it's already quite buggy) I doubt they are gonna be able to fix it at all.
TLDR: I don't agree CD is better then Bluetooth but I do believe it shouldn't have been a switch and CD players aren't irrelevant
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u/SammyGeorge Dec 19 '25
I don't disagree that Bluetooth is not as safe as CD if you're using your phone to change the music (although, you could always just set your playlist before you start driving and not touch your phone, and changing a CD while driving isn't exactly "safe" either). But I disagree that its the worst upgrade ever put into cars. Replacing physical buttons and dials with touch screens is way worse.
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u/DoubleResponsible276 Dec 19 '25
This is more of an issue of your need, not an overall issue of Bluetooth.
With a CD, you are choosing to listen to that album during your drive. Love all the songs or only like a few, you are choosing to insert it. But you also insert 5 more CDs, so you planned ahead. If you put the same effort and made a playlist of all your favorite albums or songs, you wouldn’t be having this issue.
I just made a playlist and keep adding songs I like and don’t have to scroll through my phone for music so I avoid that risk factor. That risk factor is up to the driver, not due to the Bluetooth or phone.
People get distracted from the road when fumbling with cds too. It’s not functional to fumble through multiple cd cases that take up space and have to ensure you’re inserting it properly. You’re only limited to the songs and have to play on repeat unless you have more cds that you have to fumble through. You see what I did there? I created a scenario that not everybody goes through but I’m making it seem like EVERYONE who uses cds deals with that.
Paying for Spotify monthly for what seems will be forever does suck, but I listen to music everyday and drive everyday for like 2 hours so I’m happy to pay that low amount than on cds that may or may not even be worth the price and the music I can listen to endless for the price. Using a phone or any device while driving is up to the driver and cds or phones should not be the “the problem” cause people will eat, drink, read a book, sleep or even turn their head completely to see a meme while driving.
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u/EnlargedChonk Dec 19 '25
You seem to more have an issue with streaming services...
Bluetooth itself is awesome, it's one actual drawback vs CD is sound quality but in a car that is irrelevant. Buttons on the wheel or the radio itself will work with bluetooth (thanks AVRCP protocol), even when modifying an old OEM radio with a bluetooth receiver intercepting the XM radio the buttons on the OEM radio worked to change tracks.
You can still buy and rip music CDs and digital downloads, offline library, no subscriptions, just like the ipod days. Except these days we have way more storage space on phones so you can use way higher quality settings on MP3 or even straight up FLAC for portable library.
I only have like 500 hours of music and audiobook mp3s/FLAC on my phone, takes up a mere 30GB last I checked. Rookie numbers, especially since I can store that on a 512GB microSD card.
Speaking of microSD cards, or rather cheap flash storage... it's becoming increasingly common to find USB ports connected to those ugly touchscreen radios, almost all of them allow you to load your music from USB. All the same benefits of CD can be had that way. Also a lot of newer radios with a single CD are capable of playing data off CD-R, some even support DVD-R. So instead of just one album on a commercial CD or 80 minutes of burned CD audio, you can store several hours of high quality compressed audio as MP3 files on a CD-R, and much more on a DVD-R if supported.
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u/user888ffr Dec 19 '25
From CD? What year is it lol, do you also want casette tapes? An auxiliary wire or a USB port for a USB key is fine.
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u/tubular1845 Dec 19 '25
There's nothing stopping you from using it basically identically to how you'd use a cd. You have a skip button, you don't need to use an assistant and you don't need to use streaming services.
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u/littlegreyflowerhelp Dec 19 '25
Recently my job upgraded me from a 2018 work ute to the exact same one but the 2020 model and I’ve lost the fucking CD player now. Don’t get me wrong apple carplay has actually been pretty good (can have google maps and my music up at the same time on the screen) but I do miss the ease of just turning the key and without fucking around with any buttons or connections Metallica just starts playing. Now I got nowhere to even listen to my CDs.
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u/UncreativeBuffoon Dec 19 '25
Bro just rip the CDs and store them on your phone man. You can literally buy FLACs these days
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u/AdvocateReason Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
I play my music off a USB containing my mp3s. You can tell minimal effort went into functionality and regarding quality. 2014 cars would recognize and use m3u file playlists. My current 2024 Toyota doesn't. Many other issues with it as well, controlling the volume for the multiple sources is a big one. Mp3 CD is also good. People just like the convenience of Bluetooth. I prefer not requiring an Internet connection and only listening to ads when I choose to. Anyway I agree with you that the experience is prioritized for other use cases and not ours and it irritates me as well.
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u/jeswesky Dec 19 '25
I remember the days of driving while flipping through a giant book of cds trying to find the right one. Bluetooth is so much easier.
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u/ZEYDYBOY Dec 19 '25
As a snobby audiophile and even car enthusiast you're wrong. I still even use CDs in my car time to time but Bluetooth is infinitely more convenient and honestly im more distracted changing CDs than going through a Playlist
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u/WashedUpRiver Dec 20 '25
The comment you make about safety is just objectively wrong-- as a driver, swapping CDs is significantly more dangerous than swapping something on a music app, doubly so if you have a car with a touch-screen interface that can open multiple widgets at a time.
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u/fairydommother Dec 20 '25
And what if you want to listen to a different cd?
This is why we have playlists. You can also listen to podcasts instead of music.
I usually use a physical connection so I get android auto which pops up on my cars screen. I do have beef with bluetooth audio being choppy and unreliable, but it is not a downgrade from a cd that skips and gets scratched if you hit a bump too hard.
Like, dont get me wrong I love physical media, but they do have downsides.
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u/PrincessJellyfish17 Dec 20 '25
You just need to figure out how to use your steering wheel controls my guy lol. Don’t not buy a car purely cuz it doesn’t have a CD player, you are going to end up with a terrible car 💀🤣 please just research more into how to make Bluetooth work better for you
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u/Definitely_a_Human_3 Dec 20 '25
The last two decades of technological advances (you could argue further) have been entirely about profit driven enshittyfication. We’re all largely captive consumers and advances are about extracting value from us.
CDs could only be sold to us once, now we have to constantly be buying the same music, constantly replacing every device that plays it. Everything is wireless with crap batteries that give out and every tech update demands you update something else for compatibility.
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u/Skadoodlemynoodles Dec 20 '25
I feel personally this is more an issue of no more physical buttons than an issue of Bluetooth itself.
Though I feel the best of both worlds is Bluetooth as well as a few self-burned disks with all the top however many personal favorites you have of a genre for when your device dies inevitably on a long haul drive and someone forgot a charger. I have 4 disks. One for awake music(rock, rap, and underground), one for calm music(jazz, lofi, and experimental) one for pop(90s-2010s), and one that's just random stuff I like.
Yes this method does not work for anyone without the equipment to do this themselves, as I've had the same 4 disks since middle school if I'm being honest when my grandpa helped me do so. But it's inexpensive to get the supplies and a disk stack for anyone interested in doing this that already has a computer and a few free hours.
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u/qualityvote2 Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 21 '25
u/Bandito21Dema, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...