In-Car CD Players may face extinction

Posted Sep 24th 2007 11:13AM by Tim StevensFiled under: Audio/Video, Car Tech
In-dash CD players have been a staple of car audio for nearly two decades now. But, with CD sales declining and digital music sales soaring, it seems the in-car CD player is going the way of the cassette deck (and the 8-track before it). German car audio manufacturer Blaupunkt -- popular with the 'Pimp My Ride' set -- has ditched the CD player in its new Melbourne SD27 head unit in favor of a slot for SD or MMC memory cards.

The unit will play both MP3 and WMA songs directly from the SD card, displaying song information on a 30-character front-panel display, which, to be honest, we find a bit small by today's standards -- especially given the room freed up by the lack of a CD slot. It won't play AAC songs, so iTunes fans who don't want to convert their tracks will need to hook up their iPods through the line-in jack, which also works with any other media player, of course.

The SD27 is also Bluetooth-compatible, so it can do hands-free calls and even stream music directly from other Bluetooth-compatible devices.The Melbourne SD27 goes for $159.95 -- a small price to pay for freeing your glove box up for what it was really meant for: napkins and ketchup packets.From Gizmag