exiled-again.co.uk

Foxie wants to listen to CDs during the long wakeful nights as her headache pounds away. She doesn't want to be swapping over CDs as they finish. I have looked around for a new multi CD player but they don't appear to exist anymore, there are some second-hand and fairly old technology on eBay but these would require hooking up to speakers with wires trailing everywhere. I was hoping to find a machine complete with speakers where you just load in the CDs and play.

So...

What do my virtual chums suggest? There is the iTouch <Jules splutters at the very thought> and Android equivalents. Some have bluetooth so I assume these can link with speakers. What I can't work out is how to copy the CDs to the machine. My iMac and Foxie's happy do not have ports to insert CDs. We're not interested in ultra hi-tech, just something that is reasonably cheap, simple to use and, especially, easy to set up.

Spotify on a phone?

I've got an external CD/DVD with a USB cable and rip CDs to my Windows laptop and then to USB sticks or other devices.
Amazon sell them. Just check they work with Mac OS. My one came with a couple of cables. There was one with regular USB connectors as well as one for USB-C which uses the same connector as Thunderbolt, I think. Thunderbolt has a faster transfer rate than USB but it shouldn't make any difference for copying MP3s really.

Thanks for those tips. Sorry for being Thicky McThick from the Planet Thickoe but I knows nuffink about such things. Once the CD has been transferred to the Windows laptop what then (my original Mac has a CD port and I was able to copy CDs and then play them via the Mac's iTunes software)? Can the ripped files be copied to an external player of some kind? Can that player then play the music through external bluetooth speakers? Do such speakers have to be attached to the mains for power? So many questions.

The files are MP3s so you can copy them as individual tracks. I don't know nuffink about bluetooth speakers but they must need power from somewhere, even if it's just a couple of AA batteries.
My knowledge of these things has nearly all been used up now!

Do you use your laptop to play the music then?

I usually do play it on the laptop but have copied tunes on USB sticks as well. The TV and Freesat box have USB ports and I can use the sound bar then.

OK, thanks for that, I've checked the spec on Foxie's lappy and it has Bluetooth 4.2.

Does that mean the lappy transmits a signal to a Bluetooth speaker or do I need to plug in a transmitter?

I would have thought the laptop already has bluetooth. If it's a Windows laptop it should that under 'Devices' in settings. You'd have to pair the speakers but they should come with instructions.

Brilliant. I'll check it out.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.

Imagine if you will a modern man time traveller arriving in Neolithic times and spots Og banging flints together in a vain attempt to start cooking his freshly caught pterodactyl* in time for his family's Christmas** dinner. The time traveller whips out his Zippo lighter, click, click... and the fire is lit. Og is dead impressed. Well, dear reader, I was that Og in the 21st century and my jaw was well agape, agog you might say, at the ease that Spotify loaded onto Foxie's laptop and incredible quality music came from the bluetooth speaker. She was dead chuffed and has spent the day creating playlists.

Thanks for all you help.

* Yeah, I know, anachronistic by about 64 million years

** Even longer