I've been playing CDs via a blu-ray disk player. But it's annoyingly slow. Slow to boot, slow to read disk, slow menus, etc.

I remember CD players (players that only played CDs) were much faster.

I'm looking for a decent CD player that will be hooked up to my receiver. Will settle for just a CD player (with digital output - I'll use the receiver to decode / uncompress).

But ideally, would like a CD player that can rip to a local SSD and/or can burn CDs (I like to use copies in the car rather than originals). Doesn't need to stream from the internet - I have streaming devices. Just playback from CD and/or SSD (ripped CDs).

Obviously, want quality and not chicom or even korea. US/Canada or Japan branded product.

Have you considered changing the way you think about the delivery methods? Maybe making the content (music) should be a digital file that is being served to different platforms (car or computer or home theater system) from a central repository (server).
Your PC can perform this function for a limited amount of information or you can create a dedicated home entertainment server to handle larger loads. Digital file access is very fast compared to spinning optical drives.
A lot of people use plex software to manage this type of situation. I use plex combined with a small home entertainment server to serve movies, photos, and music throughout the home via wifi and some ethernet.
The music options for the vehicles are taken care of through thumb drives. The music is loaded onto the server from cd via iTunes and it plays well with multiple different vehicles I have used it on. I even have an older 2006 truck with no usb or aux access that I use with an iPod going thru the satellite wiring. I have used this system with jeeps, fords, Chevys, ford motor homes, Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans. All family owned vehicles.
When there is new music available they just show up with their thumb drive and I dump the master file onto it and off they go. I have been doing it this way since 2010 and have yet to encounter a system that cannot be used with digital files.
If your not interested in changing anything I can recommend the Pioneer BDR-XS70S bluray player/burner to make copies of CD's.

Unfortunately the CD is already a thing of the past. Ripping to digital media is the current thing as laser readers degrade over time and mechanical players have limited life spans.

You are right wanting to rip your music to data and start thinking of SSD and pen drives and spinners as your sources.
Ripping your CDs can be done quite easily and fast once you get the hand of it. Even if we talk about hundreds of disks.

I’ve moved my stuff to a NAS and thanks to Plex I can have access to my media (music, audio and video from anywhere in the world with internet connection.

0-0

Are you looking for a device attached to a computer or something in an AV system?
This can all be handled easily in a computer.

I'm looking for a component that can be attached to my AV system.

At this point, I'm settling for just a plain CD player. Something that could also burn a copy of a CD would be nice (but worst case, I could use a PC). Something that could rip the CD (like my truck does) and store it on a local SSD would be very nice.

Priority:
1. CD player (no menus, no 'smart' capabilities)
2. Rip to local SSD
3. Burn copy

I'm just starting into the process of rebuilding my stereo setup after my old one gradually died piece by piece over time. I wanted to start with a CD player just because I have my collection of disks sitting around not doing anything. The only (mostly) working parts of the system I had left were the receiver/tuner and speakers, and I got tired of just listening to the radio.

I do have a BluRay player hooked up to the TV and it will play CDs, but the only UI on it is the TV itself, and I didn't want to have to mess with that just to listed to a CD. It does have a coax digital output in addition to HDMI, but my tuner doesn't have a digital input (yeah, it's that old). I thought about getting an external DAC, but found that most of the good ones are at least as expensive than a decent CD player. So I just ordered a new Yamaha CD player. It's supposed to arrive this week, looking forward to it. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be made in China.

The BluRay player does have a facility in it to rip a CD to a thumb drive. Or I can always do that on my laptop.

My first thought was a Discman will a 3.5mm male/male connector. I can't find my power adapter which irks me a little.

My old Pathfinder had a hard disk in the radio that would rip a CD to digital when you inserted it. If I were looking for a 'CD player for home a/v' I would look for something like this (which is currently unavailable):
https://www.amazon.com/2018-Br...-Black/dp/B07DFCHB32

I still say do your data manipulation with the computer.
So easy to rip, create FLAC (or other format) to USB drives or burn new CD.

Then get a CD player for the AV system ~ can be anything from something vintage to a new high end transport only.

There are also plenty of ways to stream locally to a computer, from a computer and to a Smart TV or AV system.

I would also add as mentioned before a streaming audio device with a subscription to a high res audio service (or a free standard service) such as Tidal, QoBuz or Amazon Music Unlimited - I don't recommend the Apple service.

But the simplest way is to just buy a stand alone CD player and then RIP, Burn and create USB drivers is on a computer.

Sent you an email.

--K

quote:

Originally posted by Kranky:
Sent you an email.

--K

Thanks again!!!!

I'm curious about your apparent solution.

But in case you're still searching: one component recorder still left on the market is from TEAC, called the Tascam CD-RW900SX. It plays CDs and records to CD-R and CD-RW media (from an outside source, like another CD player or a computer HD), has digital coax and optical output ports, but I don't think it's capable of ripping CDs to MP3 or other digital formats. Reviews on this unit are rather mixed; some love how well it does what it advertises, others lament over laser tracking and writing glitches with their particular units. Most reviews seem positive however, though no guarantees.

On the used market there's the Sony RDC-500C, a player/recorder that got a LOT of love from its fans. From what I understand there's still spare parts available for this one, particularly related to its laser. The nice thing about the Sony is that it's a 5-disc changer with a separate disc drawer for the burner media. Makes mixing your own CDs that much easier. I went a different route and bought a Denon CDR-W1500, a dual drawer setup for separate source playback and recording/playback. I preferred the sound of the Denon over the Sony and that alone guided my choice; they just did DACs better to my ear. I can only speak for certain on the Denon; it has digital outs so you can do the processing on your receiver, separate preamp or standalone DAC as desired, but it like the current production Tascam can't rip CDs to now common digital formats like MP3, FLAC or AAC. Marantz also had a unit on the market as well and there were probably a host of others, but the Sony and Denon are the two I knew the most about.

With the Denon there IS one big caveat: at least with my recorder, some of the CD-Rs I created didn't play well in some car audio systems and in certain home audio components as well. For instance I had an Eclipse-brand CD head unit in one of my cars at the time that worked well with those CDs right until some would-be thief destroyed the unit trying to unsuccessfully steal it, but the accompanying Sony changer that the thief missed would sometimes choke and puke on the same media. It seemed like the quality (or lack thereof) of the actual raw CD-R media might have been the main culprit. Similar problems with some factory CD players; Volkswagen Group stereos (VW, Audi) hated them, but Porsche stereos mostly did well with the media. My wife's Mazda exhibited the same sort of mixed results as the Sony changer. In the end it was all rather annoying given the hodgepodge of results.