Anybody else have issues with CD player?

[Catmobile]

The CD player in my SEL was working fine until I turned it off (with the CD still in it), and when I turned the car back on it wouldn't play the CD, wouldn't recognize there was one in there, and wouldn't eject it.  I took it into the dealer, they were unable to fix it so they're ordering a new unit.

 

Granted, this was a burned CD and not a manufactured one, but the player had been working fine up until then.  And no, I didn't have a label on it.

 

Just wondered if anyone else had had an issue with this.  The dealership suggested I put my music on USB drives and use that instead, which I did, because I also discovered there's no jack in this car to plug my iPod into.  Yippee.

 

 

[Laurel]

Ours works well, but I am really careful to remove the CD as in my old Chevy pickup I did what you did and from thereafter had problems with CD's getting stuck. I put up with it for 5 years LOL.

[Jus-A-CMax]

Ha...a "CD" sounds like an "LP" now...for the traditionalist. I'm done with the CDs, just converted everything to MP3 and dump it into a USB drive. Get yourself one of those tiny USB thumb drives and stick that beast in there with a play list. 16gb contains a LOT of CD and can be had for $15.

[Catmobile]

Well, I did end up putting some stuff on USB drives, since I apparently have no other choices in this car.  But since USB drives don't know from playlists, I ended up getting 3 4GB drives for $25 from Target and putting some stuff on one drive and some on another.  But it's a PITA compared to just burning a cheap CD (and if you're as old as I am you still have a lot of CD's hanging around to convert).  Frankly, if you're buying a $30,000+ vehicle the CD player (not to mention the voice recognition) should just work.  If they can't get that right I'm depressed about what's ahead with other stuff.  A friend of mine wanted to look at mine as he was interested in buying one, but right now I don't know if I can recommend this car.  I love the passenger space, the cargo space, the nifty automatic liftback, etc. etc., but this was a leap of faith for me to go back to an American-badge car, and it's not starting off well.

[C-MaxJaxon]

Just so people are aware, MP3 is a lossy compression, so there will be some sound quality loss compared to CD. I've done some listening tests in the past, and there was obvious distortion below 192 bitrate. So if you want to use MP3, pick a higher bitrate, as high as you have space to hold. The LAME encoder (http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php) was also the best sounding. I haven't tried lossless FLAC files to see if it will play them.

[darrelld]

Just so people are aware, MP3 is a lossy compression, so there will be some sound quality loss compared to CD. I've done some listening tests in the past, and there was obvious distortion below 192 bitrate. So if you want to use MP3, pick a higher bitrate, as high as you have space to hold. The LAME encoder (http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php) was also the best sounding. I haven't tried lossless FLAC files to see if it will play them.

Have you tried playing a SACD? I haven't made any yet but I do have some DVD-A's that it didn't recognize.

[C-MaxJaxon]

I don't have any SACDs even though I got a player years ago that could play them.

[PWBarrett]

I also discovered there's no jack in this car to plug my iPod into.  Yippee.

 

I was also surprised to see that they use RCA jacks for the aux in, both for audio and video.  I haven't used those for much of anything in years.  I'd rather have seen an HDMI input and a 3.5mm audio jack.

 

But you can get a 3.5mm to RCA adapter or cable lots of places for cheap if you want to use the iPod's player.

Or can't you plug the iPod into the USB port instead of having to copy tracks off to USB drives?

[C-MaxJaxon]

With Android phones (dunno about iThing), you can play music over Bluetooth and not use any cables, but the simple pause/prev/next controls with no song title on screen is annoying. I prefer USB drives because it shows the ID3 tag or filename.

Edited January 2, 2013 by C-MaxJaxon

[darrelld]

With Android phones (dunno about iThing), you can play music over Bluetooth and not use any cables, but the simple pause/prev/next controls with no song title on screen is annoying. I prefer USB drives because it shows the ID3 tag or filename.

 

iPhone 5 works great with bluetooth streaming and sound quality is much better than I expected.

[PWBarrett]

iPhone 5 works great with bluetooth streaming and sound quality is much better than I expected.

 

Same here with my Android - The OP was about an iPod, which I didn't think had bluetooth.

[darrelld]

Same here with my Android - The OP was about an iPod, which I didn't think had bluetooth.

 

The iPod Touch does have bluetooth. Here is the complete list with supported profiles;

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647

[Jus-A-CMax]

Well, I did end up putting some stuff on USB drives, since I apparently have no other choices in this car.  But since USB drives don't know from playlists, I ended up getting 3 4GB drives for $25 from Target and putting some stuff on one drive and some on another.  But it's a PITA compared to just burning a cheap CD (and if you're as old as I am you still have a lot of CD's hanging around to convert).  Frankly, if you're buying a $30,000+ vehicle the CD player (not to mention the voice recognition) should just work.  If they can't get that right I'm depressed about what's ahead with other stuff.  A friend of mine wanted to look at mine as he was interested in buying one, but right now I don't know if I can recommend this car.  I love the passenger space, the cargo space, the nifty automatic liftback, etc. etc., but this was a leap of faith for me to go back to an American-badge car, and it's not starting off well.

 

A decent CD to MP3 ripper will also do a ".m3u". The ".m3u" are the playlists files that the CMax does search, index and recognize. Normally, the ripper will dump all the files and the .m3u file into the same directory. You can create as many ".m3u" files as you want. I had a ton of IZ CDs which I have dumped into 1 directory and I have multiple .m3u files by album. Also, these MP3 also have "meta tags". Meta tags allow additional information like albums, track#, year etc to be associated with that song in the MP3 file. Again, if the ripper does the job, it will also fill up these meta tags and you can then use the play by album feature in the MyTouch. 

 

But yeah, not having a CD that works s*cks, it should not be but given how cheap the CD player mechanism now, perhaps too cheap. By the way, CD/DVD players also fail in PCs all the time, its not exclusively in cars.

 

 

Have you tried playing a SACD? I haven't made any yet but I do have some DVD-A's that it didn't recognize.

 

 

I also have SACDs but those discs are going into my high end DVD+blah+blah player in my home theatre. The Max does a "we're not worth...we're not worth".

Edited January 2, 2013 by Jus-A-CMax

[darrelld]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Jus-A-CMax" data-cid="5239" data-time="1357148117"><p>

I also have SACDs but those discs are going into my high end DVD+blah+blah player in my home theatre. The Max does a "<em class='bbc'>we're not worth...we're not worth</em>".</p></blockquote>

 

My Passat plays DVD-A.

[Jus-A-CMax]

Add ".MP4" as not being played in the CMax infotainment system also. Long live the 320bit MP3.

[C-MaxJaxon]

Page 406 of Owner Manual: "SYNC also supports audio formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV and ACC."

[GaryM]

Last week, I put a CD in my C-Max SE, it plays fine, and I enjoyed it for a while, but when I tried to eject it, no go. It makes a bunch of quiet sounds of motors etc., but then it just changes to radio mode and the disk is still in. It does still play it I change back to CD mode, so it has not trashed the disk yet. Guess I am in for a new CD player as well. The car has still not been back to the dealer. I have a few things that need to be done, I am making a list.

[JAZ]

Should you want to remove the disc yourself:

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Stuck-CD-from-a-Car-CD-Player

[mikekoz]

Ha...a "CD" sounds like an "LP" now...for the traditionalist. I'm done with the CDs, just converted everything to MP3 and dump it into a USB drive. Get yourself one of those tiny USB thumb drives and stick that beast in there with a play list. 16gb contains a LOT of CD and can be had for $15.

 

 

       CD's are superior to MP3s in sound quality. MP3s are compressed files and you lose audio quality. How much depends on the MP3, some you can hardly tell a difference, but they are inferior nevertheless. MP3's are just easier to deal with and you can put tons of them on a USB device, which is why I use them now and rarely use CD's. Actually the CD's I do use, are burned with MP3's!!! ;)

[Mark426]

Could someone tell me what a CD player is?

[JAZ]

It's the grandson of Mr. Victrola

[drdiesel1]

Could someone tell me what a CD player is?

It's an old technology that will so be dead :lol:

[GaryM]

I called Galpin Ford this morning and the earliest than can get me in is Oct. 25  good thing I can still play other sources or I would get sick of that CD in a month.

 

I am an audio engineer here in So Cal. CD's are already a lower audio quality than I am used to. My day is filled with 24 bit 48 or 96 khz lossless digital audio. A CD is uncompressed, but starts at just 16 bit at 44.1 khz sampling, which is just enough. The data rate was chosen to be able to fit Beethoven's 5th on a single CD, it had to hold 74 minutes.

 

MP3's at anything less than 256 kbps are downright annoying, 320 k is the only way to fly, and I still hear artifacts. I had an encoder by Xing that was excellent, but I think it was too good and the recording industry got it off the market, and I can't licence it on my new PC. I prefer AAC at 256 kbps, but not many devices support it. The iPod defaults to AAC at 128K. Last CD I ripped into iTunes, I was so upset when I heard the artifacts, it reverted back to the 128 kbps. At home I use FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) so I can fit more music on a flash drive at the identical bit for bit audio from the CD, but again, few devices support it. I have a couple SACD's, but I can only play them on one BluRay player, and there is no way to rip them. I did do an analog record at 24/48 and it did still sound way better than a CD, but it was a pain to do at real time. I also have a few DVD audio disks. Virtually the same audio quality as SACD, but in a more normal 24/48 or 24/96 PCM package like I am used to working with, but thanks to the encryption, again, it has to be ripped analog at real time to make it portable. In reality, most of the time, I do drive with my windows open, so CD quality and 256k and up MP3, WMA, AAC is okay for the car. 

[Bill-N]

Last week, I put a CD in my C-Max SE, it plays fine, and I enjoyed it for a while, but when I tried to eject it, no go. It makes a bunch of quiet sounds of motors etc., but then it just changes to radio mode and the disk is still in. It does still play it I change back to CD mode, so it has not trashed the disk yet. Guess I am in for a new CD player as well. The car has still not been back to the dealer. I have a few things that need to be done, I am making a list.

 

This from OASIS:

 

Oct 14 2013 4180 -2013 C-Max and 2013-2014 Escape - Compact Disc Player Failure To Eject Disc

Some 2013 C-Max and 2013-2014 Escape vehicles equipped with My Ford Touch may exhibit a compact disc (CD) stuck in the player when attempting to eject. Prior to following normal diagnostics, first check for misalignment of the CD player to instrument panel center middle trim panel (18842). If no visible misalignment is present remove trim panel. Refer to WSM section 501-12, removal and installation. Attempt to eject CD while trim panel is removed. If CD ejects suspect trim alignment concern, repair as needed. If CD does not eject follow normal diagnostics.