[NoThanks]

The CD player I linked is Bluetooth.

I don't get this. How come plugging it in isn't enough? What on earth does my phone have to do with it? I don't even know if my Galaxy has this feature or not (it is my first non-flip phone). My wife's phone charges when you place it on that tray under the controls, but mine doesn't.... so now I also need to get another **** phone to make this all work? Or after getting a new phone and CD player will I still have issues since I see discussion threads titled: "Kia Niro won't connect bluetooth MP3 player"?

 

[supermama38]

I bought the $99 one from Amazon with the following description:

Vehicle CD Player, Cidava OE Integrated Vehicle CD Player via USB Radio Connection – (See Vehicle Fit Chart Image)
3.6 out of 5 stars 176

I mounted it with the slot up to the side of the console with heavy duty double sided tape.

@Deadlytx posted a link to one that seems like it should plug into the USB port in the car and work with Android Auto. I'm curious about other options for a car CD player like the Bluetooth one @blue referenced just bc I primarily plug my phone into Android Auto for navigation.

Ah. Thanks @NoThanks for the link to the other thread about problems connecting the Bluetooth MP3 player.

 

[NoThanks]

Newer cars, including the Niro no longer have the Aux in connection so that player will not work.

Naturally. Way to go Kia for systematically weeding out any possible compatibility or workaround.

 

[Techy]

Unfortunately, this is the standard in the past 8 - 10 years and it is not just Kia - it is all manufacturers.
When I purchased my 2020 Niro, I was initially upset as it did not have a CD player or AUX in.
I adapted rather quickly and would not use a CD player or AUX in even if it was available.
The older generation (like me) might wish we still had CD's but I am actually liking this USB thing and I can take my music with me very easily to any car I might purchase or rent in the future.
My kids do everything with their phones or streaming and I am concerned that will be the future direction for car manufacturers.

 

[NoThanks]

Fine, if you want to play CDs, buy a CD player for a car.

I recognized the obsolescence of a built-in CD-player when I got my first car with USB drive support, a 2009 Honda Fit. Since 2009 USB flash drives have increased in capacity while decreasing in cost and size.

View attachment 9624​

I had always ripped CDs to iTunes, so all I had to do was copy them to a flash drive. Then, while driving a rental car in 2013, I realized that some cars (GM, in this case) would not play Apple's M4A files, so I converted them to MP3, for use in any car. Since I have always ripped CDs, no extra work was involved. Years ago, I also ripped about 20 LPs to MP3. That was tedious, as I had to go through each LP to edit out pops and scratches.

You chose not to, so you're stuck with playing CDs. That's not Kia's (or any other manufacturer's) fault.

20 LPs was tedious, try a thousand. Yes, there are people who love and value music that much, but not enough apparently to factor into Kia's market research establishing demand.

This shouldn't be about being "stuck." CDs were marketed as skip-proof (ha!) and eat-proof alternatives to vinyl and cassettes. I reluctantly made the transition (i.e. expenditure) to CDs which were supposed to last indefinitely if you took care of them. So... what was the point if manufacturers of products that once featured the option to play them have deemed them obsolete? I'm sick and tired of this planned obsolescence where you need to (re)buy everything all over again or spend extra money and/or tons of time trying to adapt.

I was sold this vehicle by being told that - absent other features I would have liked - I COULD play my CDs in my 2024 Kia Niro with an eternal device. That was their second lie, after luring me to buy their car (which was the opposite color of the one I wanted at another dealer) with a price "including taxes and EVERTHING" which turned out to be BS when, after signing a zillion papers, finally saw the REAL price that was 5 grand higher, their excuse being that what they "meant" was the price was"after I paid 5G down" which is NOT what we were told and doesn't even make sense because at the outset I said I'd pay for the car in total up front or at least HALF. So we couldn't back out of it, or so we thought, having spent SIX HOURS there, not even getting a lunch break (despite wanting to step out to do so) so we were glazed over, exhausted, starving and felt like we were taken advantage of. And now they won't help me find the component I need, the place they recommended (crutchfield) said the car was too new for them to know either, and I guess I'm stuck driving around this over-complicated computer console I can't operate and flashes and vibrates constantly at me and I can't listen to any of the thousands of CD's I've always enjoyed when I drive. Now I have one more reason to hate my new Kia and not be able to derive any enjoyment out of it. This sucks.

 

[Techy]

I like my Kia Niro so much that I purchased my second car in 4 years.
If the current trend continues, I am a Kia fan for the rest of my life.

 

[rcan1015]

I don't know what doesn't make sense as it has made perfect sense for the last 30+ years I've been driving around. You put in your CD, it plays, you can skip tracks, etc. What else do you want it to do? As I've said my CD collection has well over 500 albums as well as collections of rare and diverse selections you can't get in any one place, not to mention hundreds of CDs of my own music. Most of these albums I already owned in previous formats, vinyl or cassette. So it represents a serious investment and they all still play. Transferring them to flash drives would require - DUH - a stand-alone CD player/burner/ripper (since "the market" has deemed that not even laptops should have CD drives anymore) and HUNDREDS of hours I don't have.

I maintain my cds in excellent condition as well. But I got tired of digging through them in the car and a few years ago started ripping them on my desktop computer. I chose mp3s with a bit rate of 320 and ripped a few each day. About a year later I had 550+ cds converted and placed them on a very small 256GB thumb drive. It's not as easy to jump to albums in the new Niro as it was in the old Prius, but it's still convenient and less work than swapping cds. Made the 'mode' button turn on the USB and the up down arrows to change tracks. I play my cds on my home stereo, but they will never be in my vehicle again.

 

[SDeemer]

These were your decisions, and you need to live with the consequences. Stop whining.

 

[Johnxyz]

The key is to be adaptable.

I'm old enough to remember when am radio was the only option - then fm was the ultimate- then 8 tracks were the way of the future and the ultimate sound experience- then cassettes- then CDs were the only way to listen to music- then came mp players, streaming, memory sticks and on and on.

How can a car maker possibly accommodate all these technologies.
They don't - their audio selections follow customer demands and popular trends.

In an ironic twist the pseudo audiophile now insists on old fashioned vinyl records for the true audio experience which may actually be the oldest of all the mediums listed.

 

[SDeemer]

In an ironic twist the pseudo audiophile now insists on old fashioned vinyl records for the true audio experience which may actually be the oldest of all the mediums listed.

The only things I miss about vinyl are the pops and scratches. Even if a "pseudo audiophile" could play a vinyl LP in a car, I would bet that he couldn't tell the difference between an MP3 and the LP.

Don't tell NoThanks, but CDs are susceptible to disc rot, and some of his older CDs may already be unusable. The only way to preserve them is to rip them to a computer before disc rot sets in.

 

[shifty]

Ripping CDs to MP3 uses algorithms to compress the files so the sound quality isn't as good.
My wife has a portable rechargeable Bluetooth CD player. Single CD.

In Windows Media Player you can change the RIP setting to the best quality (which is what I do).

 

[shifty]

I actually bought a bluetooth MP3 player and it won't connect to the NIro system. Lack of CD player might have kept me from buying the car. I tried a CD player which connects via USB and it didn't recognize that either. I haven't tried putting music on a stick.

 

[supermama38]

I actually bought a bluetooth MP3 player and it won't connect to the NIro system. Lack of CD player might have kept me from buying the car. I tried a CD player which connects via USB and it didn't recognize that either. I haven't tried putting music on a stick.

Can you tell us what devices (make and model, link if available) you tried so that others can avoid those?

 

[shifty]

Can you tell us what devices (make and model, link if available) you tried so that others can avoid those?

The MP3 player is a "Majority" brand bought on Amazon. I did get it to connect to a bluetooth speaker, so it works. The USB CD is an older Memorex CD/DVD writer. Not sure if that one has the smarts to connect. It isn't clear what is needed or what the logic is when connecting a USB device.

 

[supermama38]

The MP3 player is a "Majority" brand bought on Amazon. I did get it to connect to a bluetooth speaker, so it works. The USB CD is an older Memorex CD/DVD writer. Not sure if that one has the smarts to connect. It isn't clear what is needed or what the logic is when connecting a USB device.

I tried an old external Samsung CD/DVD writer and that did not work either. And I found this other thread discussing the device limitations of connecting via Bluetooth: https://www.kianiroforum.com/threads/kia-niro-wont-connect-bluetooth-mp3-player.11357/#post-110050

It seems so far that the bulky external CD players on Amazon that are listed as working with Android Auto are the way to go if you want to be able to have any control over play/pause/next/back via steering wheel buttons.

Has anyone with a regular CD player (as opposed to a CD/DVD writer) with bluetooth tried connecting it to the Niro bluetooth and successfully gotten audio playback over the Niro speakers?

 

[shifty]

I found that that thread also. I would love to hear that someone used one of those CD players successfully. I had the external CD/DVD player for use with laptops.

 

[supermama38]

I also bought one on Amazon. There are several. One is offered by a number of sellers, has a silver panel on it and looks cheap. I bought the all black with a white button. Has a rubbery cover and works great. Had to play several CDs to kind of break it in. It would play, then skip. Everything's normal now.

@Deadlytx , are you still using your CD player connected via USB? Are you able to control it via steering wheel buttons for play/pause/prev/next?

 

[vangone]

Not sure why there is a reluctance to playing music from one's phone or iPod touch. My ears cannot tell the difference between mp3, aac, aflac,etc, and the sound environment of a vehicle on the highway eliminates any discernable audio nuances.

I have around 115 albums (CDs) on my phone and around 400 on iTunes that I rotate. It took a while to transfer them from CD to itunes, but one can plow through stacks of CDs if one does it an hour here and there.

I have found that there are only a handful of songs per CD that I really like to listen to so I have to skip around a lot. I must have chosen my albums poorly because I have a hard time listening to them in their entirety. It is easier to use streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, Amazon, etc. and listen to genres of music rather than entire albums or music by the same artist. I also subscribe to Sirius XM with their 4.99/month promo--I have to call and renew at the going promo rate at the end of the 12 month period to keep the costs down. That 4.99 includes the Sirius XM app, so I can stream on vehicles that don't have a Sirius XM account or at home.

There isn't tons of extra cubby space to accommodate a portable CD player--where are folks stashing their players? Having controls for streaming from the phone on the dashboard screen makes it easy--a bonus is that the music turns off when someone calls me.

 

[atc98092]

Lack of CD player might have kept me from buying the car.

You will find very few new cars with CD players. That's the state of car infotainment systems now.

 

[Techy]

I actually bought a bluetooth MP3 player and it won't connect to the NIro system. Lack of CD player might have kept me from buying the car. I tried a CD player which connects via USB and it didn't recognize that either. I haven't tried putting music on a stick.

I don't think you can buy a new car anymore with a CD player and has been that way for at least 4-5 years.