How to transfer my CD collection to CX-9?

[David]

Bought a slightly used 2023 CX-9 ("stage" 2) a few days ago. I traded-in my ancient CX-9 that had a built-in CD changer. But I don't understand how to transfer my CD collection to the 2023 CX-9, and playback using one (or both?) of the jacks in the center armrest. I understand it involves first copying the CD's to one or more very large capacity USB "sticks". And then plugging the USB sticks (one at a time!) into one of the jacks in the armrest when I want to listen to them. HOWEVER, what software do I need to use to write the CD "files" to the USB stick? (there seems to be several). And do I need to specify any "parameters" when I copy a CD to the memory stick (e.g., file type, etc.)? And do the needed parameters vary between "transfer software" products. I will be "burning" the sticks on a Win11 system, if that makes any difference. Thanks!!!

 

[theblooms]

This is how I do it:
Download a free program call Exact Audio Copy, or EAC for short
There are a lot of options that you have to go through to make sure it will rip correctly. There are guides out there that will help you with this.
Now, open up your Music Folder on your desktop, and inside make another folder with the artist's name.
Now inside of the artist's name, make one more folder with the title of the album

Now put the CD into a CD-Rom drive, and open EAC. Let EAC do it's thing, but make sure you tell EAC to save it to the file folder you created for that exact album.

When you're ripping, DO NOT USE MP3. MP3 sucks. That format should have died 20 years ago. Use FLAC or WAV. Personally I like FLAC better, because you can get album art and metadata with FLAC. WAV doesn't give you that option.

Finally, take the ripped files that you made and drag and drop to copy them to a USB thumb drive, and simply put the thumb drive in your center console. The car will recognize it.

I ripped my entire 900+ CD collection using EAC and two (sometimes three!) CD-Rom drives at a time a couple of years ago, and it took me 2 months. But it was well worth it.

 

[N7turbo]

+1 for EAC

I don't really agree with the above comments though: mp3 is fine with the right settings. There is a point where it becomes audibly indistinguishable from the original—and that's with headphones in a quiet setting, not to mention a car. The level where I've seen blind listening tests reliably fail is around 250 kbps VBR (Variable Bit Rate), 320 kbps CBR (Constant Bit Rate).

You will not be able to hear the difference in the car for sure.

I recommend the LAME MP3 codec.

Also: if you use the FLAC format, your files will be huge and take up 10x more space, leaving you with less room for music on the drive. Not a big deal if they still fit, but depending on how much you want to put on there, it may be an issue.

It's slightly technical setting this up, so ask if you'd like more information.

 

[theblooms]

+1 for EAC

You will not be able to hear the difference in the car for sure.

Also: if you use the FLAC format, your files will be huge and take up 10x more space, leaving you with less room for music on the drive. Not a big deal if they still fit, but depending on how much you want to put on there, it may be an issue.

I can hear the difference in my stereos, for absolute sure. BIG difference. Even if you have a factory stereo now, if you want to upgrade in the future, why limit yourself with an ancient Windows 3.1 era format MP3? If you're going to do it, do it right, especially starting fresh.

And as far as the storage question, a Sandisk 1TB thumb drive is under $85. A 512gb thumb drive is under $40. As cheap as storage is today, nobody cares about how much space files take up anymore. I have over 900 complete albums on a 512, all in FLAC, and there's still a bit of room left for some more.

This is the deal with MP3. It was made back in the Windows 3.1 days. Yup, even before Windows 95. "Fast" download speeds were via a 14.4kbps modem. Hard drives were $400 for a 540 meg drive. Not gig, and certainly not terabyte, but megabyte. Your average phone had probably 500x that amount of storage today! Heck, most computers back then had 386 processors and if you had 4 megs of ram, that was HUGE. 486's were around, but very expensive. And a Pentium processor in your home PC? That was almost unheard of, as they were *just* hitting the market.

Because of the limitations of the technology of the day, MP3 was doomed from the start. It should have never persisted after hard drives started being measured in scores of gigs, and internet speeds climbed over megabyte speeds. But somehow it did. Heck, even the original MS Word format, .doc, is dead and gone.

Here in 2025, especially if starting a new music collection from scratch, there is absolutely zero legitimate reason to keep using an ancient and just downright poorly implemented from the start lossy music format.

 

[N7turbo]

why limit yourself with an ancient Windows 3.1 era format MP3?

When something was made/how old it is is a red herring. Think how old CD audio is. Does that make it bad?

The reality is if you were set up in a proper blind test, you would not be able to reliably pick out which files were which between 320 kbps CBR MP3 and FLAC. That's all I wanted to point out. You may have other reasons you don't like it. I just don't think I would tell someone "MP3 sucks, don't use it". The fact is MP3 has zero compatibility issues, being the most widely known music format. Good luck listening to FLAC over Bluetooth and have fun with the crapshoot of compatibility with various devices.

Here in 2025, especially if starting a new music collection from scratch, there is absolutely zero legitimate reason to keep using an ancient and just downright poorly implemented from the start lossy music format.

No where did I say to keep your master collection in MP3 format. I am fine with FLAC masters, even though it's not actually lossless, despite being part of the acronym. It's "good enough" for me. WAV is an egregious use of disk space.

I have some music on my phone in addition to my streaming service. The local files are in MP3 format. I would never take up the space on my phone with FLAC files.

If you're not inclined to batch process some of your music collection to MP3 for mobile use, and your intended player can read FLAC files, and you don't have an issue with storage space, go ahead and use FLAC.