CD Player Question

[anesthete]

Prospective buyer here (of the 2015 SEL model).

I mentioned to the sales rep yesterday that I really really hated having the CD player in the glovebox, because it's basically impossible to reach across the car and change a disc while driving, and changing a disc while driving is something I do frequently in my current car.

He said it's a changer -- I can load six discs into it before I leave the curb and switch between them from the screen.

I said oh really. I think he's mistaken, but I only had one CD (my speaker evaluation disc) with me at the time, so I couldn't test that out. This would be a Really Big Deal for me. I've already excluded certain other cars from current consideration based on their lack of a CD player.

Can any owners out there give a definitive answer on this?

Thanks

 

[vetaldj]

I did check mine and this is one CD only for sure not a changer.

I have same 2015 SEL.

 

[BarryMW]

I've got 3 disks in mine right now.

However they won't play and I don't seem to be able to get them out again



Barry

 

[ckthorp]

Any reason you can't copy your CDs to an SD card? I have a 64GB SD card in mine that can hold a whole pile worth of CDs.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

You can rip the CD to MP3's, and play those from an SD card. It works best if you put all the MP3e files in the root directory on the SD card - subfolders just confuses the player, and really doesn't work for randomized play.

 

[ckthorp]

...subfolders just confuses the player, and really doesn't work for randomized play.

It seems to work alright on my player. Navigating between folders is a little cumbersome, but doable.

 

[anesthete]

Any reason you can't copy your CDs to an SD card?

I figured someone might ask this (the sales guys always do). I can think of three:

1. Frequently, I will grab something from my collection right as I go out the door, listen to it in the car (once), come home and put it away and maybe not listen to that particular thing again for, potentially, a few years. Been doing that for about a quarter of a century. Now you're telling me that I got to "pre-play" my discs in the computer at home before I can hear them in the car? And I got to make a trip down to the carport to get that damn SD every time? Blecch. I once tried to rip a book-on-CD set from the public library. It took so long (every chapter became sixteen little mp3s with generic names), I could have read the damn book myself.
   
2. I walk out of the record store with four new CDs. You're telling me I gotta wait until I get home to put any of them on? Oh hell no.
   
3. I have a big CD collection, probably closing in on four thousand titles at this point. About half of it is classical music, which often comes in sets of two or three or fifty-six discs. Even if I were willing to pre-rip all that, or pay someone to do it for me, actually organizing and navigating through that collection on SD flash media would be a byzantine nightmare, really really slow, and probably just about as much of a dangerous driving distraction as reaching over to the glovebox.

I'll concede my situation is exceptional and that the car companies aren't designing for people like me. When it comes down to it, I will probably have to carry a portable Discman-type player and hook it up via an aux cable. I won't be able to navigate tracks from the steering wheel of my $35K automobile, but at least I can change CDs without killing anybody.

I have a 64GB SD card in mine that can hold a whole pile worth of CDs.

Yeah, I have a 160GB iPod with the essentials on it, and that's very selectively curated. I use that in my Passat all the time, but I use the CD player more, because the sound quality is a couple steps up. The SD slot would probably supplant the iPod, because those are cheaper per-MB.

Another related question: is there a feature in the e-Golf where one can rip from the glove box CD player to the SD card while you're driving? My friend claims his BMW does this (although to a hard drive, not SD), but I'm guessing the VW doesn't or someone would have mentioned it.