All of the above. Had a ranger with a 6 disc changer under the seat. Had a Prius that I used the cassette adapter or the 6 disc in dash changer, and a tC with a single disc dash that broke and I switched to a FM transmitter, but at that point I didn’t use CDs anymore.
my old mustang had an after market changer in the trunk.
Then I got an Escape and it had a five disc player in the dash
The current ride has a single disc player but I rarely use it. Instead I have a 64 gb usb drive I’ve loaded road trip music. Everything ranging from the Hamilton soundtrack to Nine Inch Nails to Hank III
I had an 8-Track that gave you FM radio. The radio was in the tape body, I push it into the player & instant FM radio. I could buy my own music to play or use this for real FM. Amazing!
I actually used or burned CDs before I had any device to adapt a cassette deck to or transmit on the radio, but we used a lot of cassettes before we had cars with CD players.
Young scamp making up today’s poll never heard of a Sony Walkman CD player? That and some headphones made up my music machine, back in the day, including in the car. (At least until the battery discharged, unless I had the cigarette lighter adapter with me to recharge.).
@phendrick Ah yes, the Sony Diskman. I bought one of those - IIRC almost $300 at the time - tried it out, returned it, then bought a simpler Panasonic unit for ~1/3 the price. The Panasonic player still works, BTW, 30 years later. The few Sony products I have owned never lasted more than a year or two.
@phendrick
Your being serious? You’ve never herd of a Sony Walkman? What year were you born? Don’t they show pictures of this stuff in history books or something? I feel like the Walkman was around for a long time.
@Star2236 ?? Read my post again, a little closer this time.
“Sony Walkman CD player? That and some headphones made up my music machine” . In other words, that is what I used.
@macromeh About '85 I bought another brand CD player. I think it was maybe a Technics. It was pretty pricey – buying it from a boutique electronics mall store did not help. But it was very good. I only put it away on a shelf when the disk door got sprung a little and it would only register a CD if you held your mouth just right. Always intended to get it fixed, but about a dozen years ago a burglary took care of that (wondered if they just trashed it after they tried it).
Up until a few years ago, I held Sony products in awe. I had a very fine Sony Betamax HiFi stereo vcr. Also a VG Sony digital camcorder. It had very interesting infrared night vision.
Then they turned me away. First their movie and media licensing policies. Then their PSP had so much potential but was so locked-down. Then the Sony Dash fiasco made me never want to be their customer again.
I really can’t remember. I know I had some sort of cassette tape adapter that I stuck in the cassette slot, but I don’t know how it would have played cds. Maybe it had a cord and I plugged it into the headphone jack of my portable CD player?
I remember my parents had a van with a multi CD disk changer thing mounted under a seat, accessible from the middle row of seats.
I just left the CDs at home and listened to my extensive cassette collection until I bought a vehicle with a CD player installed. But don’t talk to me about being rich… I have a Bluetooth to cassette adapter so I could listen to my podcasts in my old vehicle.
(80s)
Records on my Dad’s HiFi
Hand held FM radio
Cassettes on my Dad’s HiFi
Cassettes on a WalkMan
Records recorded to cassettes on a Walkman
FM radio recorded to cassettes on a Walkman or boombox
CDs on a boombox
CDs on my Dad’s Mitsubishi 5 disc changer Stereo
CDs on my very own Record/Tape/CD Stereo unit
(90s)
CDs recorded to cassettes on a Walkman or in a car
CDs on my portable Discman
CDs on my Discman in a car through the cassette adapter
CDs copied to MiniDisc on a portable MiniDisc player
CDs in my Kenwood 12 disc changer in the trunk
CDs copied to MiniDisc in my Kenwood 6 MiniDisc changer also in my trunk.
(2000s)
MP3s from Napster on my computer via WinAmp
MP3s ripped from CDs on my computer via WinAmp
MP3s purchased from Amazon or Apple
MP3s burned to a CD in my portable DiscMan
MP3s burned to a CD in my DiscMan via a cassette adaper in my car
MP3s in a generic CD/MP3 player / cassette adaper / computer
MP3s copied to MiniDisc
MP3s on an iPod / cassette adapter / AUX cable
MP3s on my Droid / via AUX cable in my car
(2010s)
MP3s on my Droid via Bluetooth through AUX cable
Streaming audio (LastFM) via Droid over Bluetooth
Streaming audio (Google Play Music) on android devices via Bluetooth or AUX
(2020s)
Streaming audio (YouTube Music) on android devices via Bluetooth or AUX
Future (maybe):
Streaming audio (someone singing inside their head) via local area network through the neural implants from Elon Musk
I went through almost all of those stages but never had a MiniDisc or CD changer in the trunk. My last two cars have had in-dash CD players, but I eventually replaced the first one with an aftermarket unit with aux input since I’d gone over to MP3s and was tired of replacing dead cassette adapters. (Only time I’ve ever done an in-dash upgrade, which was mildly terrifying.)
We also had AM-only radio in the car for a long time, plus 8-tracks in the car and home stereo. And I’m old enough to have vinyl records of my own from the 70s.
Still haven’t bothered with Bluetooth in the car. Plugging my iPad mini into the stereo is more reliable and there’s no quality loss.
@TheFLP
I was living in Japan when I went through the MiniDisc phase of life. MDs were everywhere. I decked out my car with all the Kenwood audio bits and doodads that I could get my hands on and the MiniDisc changer was the last thing I got before I moved back to teh States. I installed the head unit and EQ, amps and subwoofers myself. (And only had 2 electrical fires!) I think I had a remote control for the head unit too. The 90s were weird. Before head units had AUX jacks, I made my own so I could play MDs before I got the changer. My amps took audio from the head unit/EQ over RCA cable. I had an RCA to mini jack cable that I wired into an input selector switch that by pass the EQ and go right into the amps.
I vaguely remember 8 Tracks. I don’t think my parents had any by the time I came along, but family and friends did. The album I bought myself was Chicago 16 on vinyl. Mostly because I liked the cover art and secondly because they played the crap out of “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” on the radio and I wanted to hear it some more I guess… Before that I would listen to a bunch of the 45s that my sister had bought.
Back to the AUX cables; My son has the iPhone XR and it doesn’t have an audio jack. When he first got it, I mildly teased him about Apple messing up good things by removing the audio jack. But I just upgraded my phone to the fancy new “Samsung Galaxy Z Fold” and it also has no audio jack. No wired headphone or AUX cables for me anymore I guess. My wife just got the Galaxy S21 Ultra and it too doesn’t have an audio jack. It looks like the good ol’ AUX jack might be phased out soon.
I have a lightning audio adapter for my iPhone — it works just fine when I want to watch a movie on it (it’s only thing I have that does HDR). I’m sure decent USB-C adapters exist too.
I’m in no hurry to give up on wired headphones, though I recognize the irony: I’m OK streaming an entire movie over Wi-Fi on a flipping phone, but insist on plugging headphones into it because wireless audio sucks.
I remember being a teenager and I couldn’t wait until I could afford my first brand new car because I was going to get one with both a cassette player and a CD player. That’s how you knew someone was important!
I always had a wired cassette adapter, the wireless radio transmitter things were neat but prone to interference and bad quality. Even in the bluetooth era, it’s taken some time for me to trust the technology and get rid of the wired aux jack…
I’ve had 3 cars in my life. All used. It is a point of pride that I drive my cars into the ground, getting every last mile out of them before I invest in another one. I actually can’t remember if my first car had a built in CD player or if I just listened to the radio…that car had a lot of other fun problems that are foremost in my memory- it was a Daihatsu Charade. But the other 2 cars had built in CD players and I’m not young or rich, Meh.
@endi1276 Flashback! I spent a couple weeks driving a Charade around New Zealand in the mid 80’s. It was a low-end rental, kind of a beater, but it survived the primitive back roads of South Island.
(No CD Player - I can’t remember if it even had a radio.)
@macromeh I don’t think mine was intended to be a beater but it def was one, haha. I got it the year they stopped selling them in the U.S. The radio was broken but as a condition of sale the dealership replaced it for me. If I or my parents had known better we would’ve had them replace the radiator instead. That car was the epitome of “conditional use,” as in, oh yeah it works but you have to [xyz]. Luckily, I was the oldest of my friends group at the time so no one cared WHAT I drove, they only cared THAT I drove.
Incidentally, I did have a good friend who was older who had a mustang, but it was one of the mustangs that looked like a pinto, I don’t think it had a working radio, you could see the ground if you lifted up the carpet around the stick shift, and that thing broke down constantly. So we didn’t really judge anybody based on their car.
@DrWorm That’s the major complaint that my wife has about her new car - no CD player to listen to audio book CDs from the library. I’ve offered to rip them to a USB for her, but she feels it’s too much trouble.
From my first VW to my current VW almost all of them have had a CD player/changer in the dash. My VW Caddy doesn’t currently have any radio but that’s only because it is waiting for a donor Cabrio for an engine and electrical upgrade. My wagon only has a cassette but that will be upgraded once it get working A/C.
The '71 Challenger came with an AM only radio that I replaced with a third party AM/FM/Cassette deck (which I still have though its not installed) that I bought from a vendor at the CES show in Las Vegas, before they banned floor sales. Actually made in America with Japanese tape mechanism, so worth keeping to see if it can be brought back into service.
Tape adapter and a portable CD player much later. We tried the FM adapters but there was too much congestion in the bands available so it never sounded clean. I took that player and adapter and moved it to my new 1990 Dodge Ram and used it until we got our 2002 Jeep that actually had a CD player in it. The current 2017 Ford still has a CD player, and I still use it, with CD’s in a visor sleeve to keep them out of the sun.
The cassette player in my Acura Integra started playing backward when it got to the end of the tape. That was fun. My more recent cars have had CD players. I still buy CDs because I prefer having hard copy. The ones I like I’ll burn onto my computer and load on my beloved Sansa Clip.
All of the above. Had a ranger with a 6 disc changer under the seat. Had a Prius that I used the cassette adapter or the 6 disc in dash changer, and a tC with a single disc dash that broke and I switched to a FM transmitter, but at that point I didn’t use CDs anymore.
Hey, what happened to melted 8-track cassettes!
@Evansdoor Still stuck in the tape deck.
my old mustang had an after market changer in the trunk.
Then I got an Escape and it had a five disc player in the dash
The current ride has a single disc player but I rarely use it. Instead I have a 64 gb usb drive I’ve loaded road trip music. Everything ranging from the Hamilton soundtrack to Nine Inch Nails to Hank III
Blaupunkt cassette deck in dash, CD changer in the trunk.
What’s a CD? I heard about them in history class; didn’t they stop making them about ten years ago??
@eeterrific
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/the-latest-arrival
None of the above! I had a factory installed multi disc player in my dash. Could hold 6 discs at a time.
I once did have an adapter that went into my 8 track player so I could play casserres though.
@Faffs Likewise. Not sure where (or if) it is in the garage, though.
I have a RCA 8-track changer somewhere too. Looks similar to this:
@Faffs @narfcake That looks a lot like the Hipac player Techmoan just did a video on.
I had an 8-Track that gave you FM radio. The radio was in the tape body, I push it into the player & instant FM radio. I could buy my own music to play or use this for real FM. Amazing!
The first car radio was in a car brand no longer made today. I think it had a cassette tape, but my memory of high school is still mostly of fog.
All of the above at some point through the decades.
I actually used or burned CDs before I had any device to adapt a cassette deck to or transmit on the radio, but we used a lot of cassettes before we had cars with CD players.
Young scamp making up today’s poll never heard of a Sony Walkman CD player? That and some headphones made up my music machine, back in the day, including in the car. (At least until the battery discharged, unless I had the cigarette lighter adapter with me to recharge.).
@phendrick Ah yes, the Sony Diskman. I bought one of those - IIRC almost $300 at the time - tried it out, returned it, then bought a simpler Panasonic unit for ~1/3 the price. The Panasonic player still works, BTW, 30 years later. The few Sony products I have owned never lasted more than a year or two.
@phendrick
Your being serious? You’ve never herd of a Sony Walkman? What year were you born? Don’t they show pictures of this stuff in history books or something? I feel like the Walkman was around for a long time.
@Star2236 ?? Read my post again, a little closer this time.
“Sony Walkman CD player? That and some headphones made up my music machine” . In other words, that is what I used.
@macromeh About '85 I bought another brand CD player. I think it was maybe a Technics. It was pretty pricey – buying it from a boutique electronics mall store did not help. But it was very good. I only put it away on a shelf when the disk door got sprung a little and it would only register a CD if you held your mouth just right. Always intended to get it fixed, but about a dozen years ago a burglary took care of that (wondered if they just trashed it after they tried it).
Up until a few years ago, I held Sony products in awe. I had a very fine Sony Betamax HiFi stereo vcr. Also a VG Sony digital camcorder. It had very interesting infrared night vision.
Then they turned me away. First their movie and media licensing policies. Then their PSP had so much potential but was so locked-down. Then the Sony Dash fiasco made me never want to be their customer again.
@phendrick
I misread it.
/giphy ghetto blaster
I really can’t remember. I know I had some sort of cassette tape adapter that I stuck in the cassette slot, but I don’t know how it would have played cds. Maybe it had a cord and I plugged it into the headphone jack of my portable CD player?
I remember my parents had a van with a multi CD disk changer thing mounted under a seat, accessible from the middle row of seats.
I just left the CDs at home and listened to my extensive cassette collection until I bought a vehicle with a CD player installed. But don’t talk to me about being rich… I have a Bluetooth to cassette adapter so I could listen to my podcasts in my old vehicle.
Before I had an in-dash player, the cassette adapter was the fix. Before CDs, cassettes were the choice, and before that, the 8 tracks.
Get off my lawn.
Evolution of my listening habits.
(80s)
Records on my Dad’s HiFi
Hand held FM radio
Cassettes on my Dad’s HiFi
Cassettes on a WalkMan
Records recorded to cassettes on a Walkman
FM radio recorded to cassettes on a Walkman or boombox
CDs on a boombox
CDs on my Dad’s Mitsubishi 5 disc changer Stereo
CDs on my very own Record/Tape/CD Stereo unit
(90s)
CDs recorded to cassettes on a Walkman or in a car
CDs on my portable Discman
CDs on my Discman in a car through the cassette adapter
CDs copied to MiniDisc on a portable MiniDisc player
CDs in my Kenwood 12 disc changer in the trunk
CDs copied to MiniDisc in my Kenwood 6 MiniDisc changer also in my trunk.
(2000s)
MP3s from Napster on my computer via WinAmp
MP3s ripped from CDs on my computer via WinAmp
MP3s purchased from Amazon or Apple
MP3s burned to a CD in my portable DiscMan
MP3s burned to a CD in my DiscMan via a cassette adaper in my car
MP3s in a generic CD/MP3 player / cassette adaper / computer
MP3s copied to MiniDisc
MP3s on an iPod / cassette adapter / AUX cable
MP3s on my Droid / via AUX cable in my car
(2010s)
MP3s on my Droid via Bluetooth through AUX cable
Streaming audio (LastFM) via Droid over Bluetooth
Streaming audio (Google Play Music) on android devices via Bluetooth or AUX
(2020s)
Streaming audio (YouTube Music) on android devices via Bluetooth or AUX
Future (maybe):
Streaming audio (someone singing inside their head) via local area network through the neural implants from Elon Musk
@xenophod
I went through almost all of those stages but never had a MiniDisc or CD changer in the trunk. My last two cars have had in-dash CD players, but I eventually replaced the first one with an aftermarket unit with aux input since I’d gone over to MP3s and was tired of replacing dead cassette adapters. (Only time I’ve ever done an in-dash upgrade, which was mildly terrifying.)
We also had AM-only radio in the car for a long time, plus 8-tracks in the car and home stereo. And I’m old enough to have vinyl records of my own from the 70s.
Still haven’t bothered with Bluetooth in the car. Plugging my iPad mini into the stereo is more reliable and there’s no quality loss.
@TheFLP
I was living in Japan when I went through the MiniDisc phase of life. MDs were everywhere. I decked out my car with all the Kenwood audio bits and doodads that I could get my hands on and the MiniDisc changer was the last thing I got before I moved back to teh States. I installed the head unit and EQ, amps and subwoofers myself. (And only had 2 electrical fires!) I think I had a remote control for the head unit too. The 90s were weird. Before head units had AUX jacks, I made my own so I could play MDs before I got the changer. My amps took audio from the head unit/EQ over RCA cable. I had an RCA to mini jack cable that I wired into an input selector switch that by pass the EQ and go right into the amps.
I vaguely remember 8 Tracks. I don’t think my parents had any by the time I came along, but family and friends did. The album I bought myself was Chicago 16 on vinyl. Mostly because I liked the cover art and secondly because they played the crap out of “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” on the radio and I wanted to hear it some more I guess… Before that I would listen to a bunch of the 45s that my sister had bought.
Back to the AUX cables; My son has the iPhone XR and it doesn’t have an audio jack. When he first got it, I mildly teased him about Apple messing up good things by removing the audio jack. But I just upgraded my phone to the fancy new “Samsung Galaxy Z Fold” and it also has no audio jack. No wired headphone or AUX cables for me anymore I guess. My wife just got the Galaxy S21 Ultra and it too doesn’t have an audio jack. It looks like the good ol’ AUX jack might be phased out soon.
@xenophod My first music listening device
(1960s)
BTW, still have it (but don’t use it
).
@macromeh That’s beautiful!
@macromeh @xenophod
I had something like that but an 80’s version.
@xenophod
Did all that too, but never had the mini disc player. I don’t ever know anybody that did. They must not have been to big in my area.
@xenophod Thank you for supporting the world-wide music industry and making all those items cheaper for the rest of us!
@xenophod
I have a lightning audio adapter for my iPhone — it works just fine when I want to watch a movie on it (it’s only thing I have that does HDR). I’m sure decent USB-C adapters exist too.
I’m in no hurry to give up on wired headphones, though I recognize the irony: I’m OK streaming an entire movie over Wi-Fi on a flipping phone, but insist on plugging headphones into it because wireless audio sucks.
There’s wireless, and then there’s wireless.
@macromeh OMG! I loved Beany and Cecil! It was my favorite show when I was a kid.
@heartny Remember this one?
R-A-G-G M-O-P-P
Ragg Mopp
Doodlee Doo Doot-Doot-Doo.
I remember being a teenager and I couldn’t wait until I could afford my first brand new car because I was going to get one with both a cassette player and a CD player. That’s how you knew someone was important!
I always had a wired cassette adapter, the wireless radio transmitter things were neat but prone to interference and bad quality. Even in the bluetooth era, it’s taken some time for me to trust the technology and get rid of the wired aux jack…
Where’s that technology quiz where you have to write in the answers. It would be fun to take it again to see if I could do any better.
I’ve had 3 cars in my life. All used. It is a point of pride that I drive my cars into the ground, getting every last mile out of them before I invest in another one.
I actually can’t remember if my first car had a built in CD player or if I just listened to the radio…that car had a lot of other fun problems that are foremost in my memory- it was a Daihatsu Charade. But the other 2 cars had built in CD players and I’m not young or rich, Meh.
@endi1276 Flashback! I spent a couple weeks driving a Charade around New Zealand in the mid 80’s. It was a low-end rental, kind of a beater, but it survived the primitive back roads of South Island.
- I can’t remember if it even had a radio.)
(No CD Player
@macromeh I don’t think mine was intended to be a beater but it def was one, haha. I got it the year they stopped selling them in the U.S. The radio was broken but as a condition of sale the dealership replaced it for me. If I or my parents had known better we would’ve had them replace the radiator instead.
That car was the epitome of “conditional use,” as in, oh yeah it works but you have to [xyz]. Luckily, I was the oldest of my friends group at the time so no one cared WHAT I drove, they only cared THAT I drove.
Incidentally, I did have a good friend who was older who had a mustang, but it was one of the mustangs that looked like a pinto, I don’t think it had a working radio, you could see the ground if you lifted up the carpet around the stick shift, and that thing broke down constantly. So we didn’t really judge anybody based on their car.
@endi1276 @macromeh
I actually miss having a car with a CD player and borrowing books on CD from the library for long trips.
There are still ways to do this, but its one of those things where the low tech method was actually easier.
@DrWorm That’s the major complaint that my wife has about her new car - no CD player to listen to audio book CDs from the library. I’ve offered to rip them to a USB for her, but she feels it’s too much trouble.
From my first VW to my current VW almost all of them have had a CD player/changer in the dash. My VW Caddy doesn’t currently have any radio but that’s only because it is waiting for a donor Cabrio for an engine and electrical upgrade. My wagon only has a cassette but that will be upgraded once it get working A/C.
The '71 Challenger came with an AM only radio that I replaced with a third party AM/FM/Cassette deck (which I still have though its not installed) that I bought from a vendor at the CES show in Las Vegas, before they banned floor sales. Actually made in America with Japanese tape mechanism, so worth keeping to see if it can be brought back into service.
Tape adapter and a portable CD player much later. We tried the FM adapters but there was too much congestion in the bands available so it never sounded clean. I took that player and adapter and moved it to my new 1990 Dodge Ram and used it until we got our 2002 Jeep that actually had a CD player in it. The current 2017 Ford still has a CD player, and I still use it, with CD’s in a visor sleeve to keep them out of the sun.
I just watch DVDs on the car. Makes for a more enjoyable trip.
@ybmuG You have a chauffeur?
@Kyeh No, why do you ask?
The cassette player in my Acura Integra started playing backward when it got to the end of the tape. That was fun. My more recent cars have had CD players. I still buy CDs because I prefer having hard copy. The ones I like I’ll burn onto my computer and load on my beloved Sansa Clip.
My first four cars just had radios, but the $300 Audi had a factory Blaupunkt.
The next three had in-dash cassette, although the last one also had a ten-disc changer in the trunk.
The next one i put a sweet after-market Blaupunkt in it with CD. It would also play mp3s from CD.
The next one had in dash CD.
Then i went through a series of company cars, mostly Ford Escapes, with in-dash CD.
My last three cars haven’t had CD or cassette.