CD player

[andrew lancaster]

Good afternoon

I have Apple HomePods which I really like - a pair of the original large ones and a pair of mini HomePods. I am very impressed with both.

At present I keep my old system as I play a lot of CDs - some recorded for me by a friend who has since died and othered which I’ve collected over many years. I listen to them a lot.

If I could find a CD player which I could use with my HomePods via my iPhone or apple tv I would be able to get rid of the other speakers, amplifier etc.

I don’t know if it is possible but has anyone done similar and could offer advice?

Many thanks

Andrew


Sent from my iPhone

[Jason Davies]

The only way I know to tackle this situation is to rip the CDs (as ALAC if you care about quality, or good AAC if you're not an audiophile).

DVD/CD drives are becoming harder to get as people stop manufacturing the parts. I bought this last year and it works out of the box on my Sequoia iMac https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FUIYMDC?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1.

You might want to think about this option anyway, since, as I say, DVD/CD drives are going to gradually vanish and you might find in a few years they are hard to get (slightly paranoid but it would be very annoying to end up there, and it's easy to solve now).

cheers,

J

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Cheers,

Jason

[andrew lancaster]

Thanks for this - I think your right, it’s the way to go. I shall order one. And see how I get on! 

Thanks again

Andrew.

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On Sep 28, 2026, at 12:40 PM, 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Stephen Watson]

Hello Andrew,

I was a vinyl/CD/HiFi person for decades and am now, due to space restrictions, an Apple Music and wireless speakers person. Sigh.

What I did was, as far as I could, recreate all my vinyl and CD library from Apple’s catalogue. I bought an external CD/DVD drive and ripped this to my Mac. I then bought a cheap audio converter which I could use rip my vinyl which Apple didn’t have. After that I uploaded my music to Apple Music and then could download it from the cloud.

That means all my music is now in Music until the copyright changes and they pull an album and then I’m stuffed - it’s happened. 😢

Cheers,
Stephen

"The best things in life aren't things" - Unknown via Leo

[andrew lancaster]

Thanks Stephen

My vinyl went years ago - I needed the space! It’s just the CDs (scores of them) and some not commercially available. I’m going to have to do the same. Then I shall have to get to grips with sorting them in Apple Music - which I do NOT find intuitive! I have tracks of Janacek interspersed with Vaughan Williams songs which I haven’t managed to separate out yet so goodness knows what sort of tangle I shall end up with. But I shall try!

Thanks for your input. Very helpful.

Andrew.
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> On Sep 28, 2026, at 5:52 PM, 'Stephen Watson' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Hello Andrew,

> To view this discussion, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/DEFBCC9B-831C-4AF0-86BB-D620D861252B%40icloud.com.

[Jason Davies]

On 28 Sep 2026, at 17:52, 'Stephen Watson' via Sussex Mac User Group wrote:

> That means all my music is now in Music until the copyright changes and they pull an album and then I’m stuffed - it’s happened. 😢

if you’ve got it downloaded, it shouldn’t remove the file?

[Stephen Watson]

If the original came from Apple Music, then if they remove it it’s gone!

This happened with an Ian Hunter album I had added to my library, then it vanished. If I try to play what remains in my library it says “This album is no longer available in your country” and you cannot find it in the UK Music store.

It sort of happened with Tangerine Dream too. They had Rubicon and Tangram and more on the store and all was well. I went to play Rubicon and it wasn’t there! What had happened in this case was that Virgin had removed the individual albums and they now appeared as tracks in the Early Years collection or something so I had to turn them all into playlists to “extract” individual albums from this monster collection. Very annoying.

Cheers,
Stephen

"The best things in life aren't things" - Unknown via Leo

> On 29 Sep 2026, at 10:03, 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> 

>
>> On 28 Sep 2026, at 17:52, 'Stephen Watson' via Sussex Mac User Group wrote:
>>
>> That means all my music is now in Music until the copyright changes and they pull an album and then I’m stuffed - it’s happened. 😢
>
> if you’ve got it downloaded, it shouldn’t remove the file?
>

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[Jason Davies]

ah, yes, Apple Music but not iTunes music store (ie if you buy it). My brief foray into AM confused everything badly as I have all these things I later bought and it can’t tell if I did or not…

I’ve given up with the whole ‘reissued and remastered’ swamp where one new version of something gets sneaked in as an excuse to make a whole new album…

[Toby Leighton]

When I went through this exercise it was with iTunes rather than Apple Music, but I’m pretty sure I was able to largely automate the process. It was something like set iTunes to automatically open when a cd is inserted. (the system prompt)

Then iTunes had a setting to automatically rip a Cd when inserted, and I recall there was also an option to eject the CD when it’s done. 

Essentially it meant I left a pile of “to do” CDs next to a Mac mini, and every time it had spat a disc out I put it back in its case and inserted the next one. Repeat each time you notice a disc pop out 

Each cd created its own playlist, so you can review the naming and tagging in those or the main library

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[Jason Davies]

lol I have fond memories of my enormous pile of CDs gradually disappearing...

though one or two got corrupted later (or during import) which led to the irritation of buying them again.

I've also found that migrating machines can inexplicably lead to tracks being dropped and even entire albums vanishing. I now have a back-up system that copies everything into a huge pile, duplicates and all, just in case I end up hunting for something I am convinced I once had. I'm usually right.

No perfect system...

Cheers,

Jason

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Cheers,

Jason