Stupid question - Does premium sound include a CD player?

No options for CD player in this car. Just burn 'em and put them all on a USB stick and you're set.

or.. ask Slacker to play the song you're thinking of, and it will 95% of the time.

no offensive, but should forget obsoleted technology

As cgiGuy says, there is no CD player in Tesla's vehicle repertoire, nor do they have hardwired iPod/iPhone and/or MP3 player support.

Your only options for playing tracks from a personally-owned music library is to use a USB stick with those software limitations (discussed in other threads) or play audio via a Bluetooth-enabled device with the inherent lack of quality that involves.

IMHO, and others as you'll find in related threads, Tesla was likely forward thinking by not providing a physical CD player, but this is something where it was likely best not to be a leader -- when most other luxury brands still provide at least a single CD slot in their base models -- to avoid some potential owners seeing this as at least a small drawback owning a Tesla despite it's many other benefits. It can then be further argued if Tesla missed-the-mark by not providing physical iPod/iPhone (Lightning) connectivity and/or the ability to connect a physical MP3 player for those owners that are concerned with quality audio and want to use their own music library like most other brands offer. It's great Tesla provides Slacker (Spotify in Europe/AUS) and TuneIn streaming, along with free internet connectivity for 4 years, but those are not everyone's preferred streaming service, nor do they necessarially have the tracks, podcasts or audiobooks more eclectic audiophiles may own or want to listen to. Bluetooth audio quality limitations are beyond what Tesla can control, so while Bluetooth is a workaround for less-discriminating audiophiles, it's not a real alternative to Tesla's lack of external audio inputs. Even if Tesla gets around to correcting acknowledged problems and enhancing Media Player USB support some day, it will never be as convenient for owners that use iTunes/iPod/iPhones or another MP3 player who have extensive music libraries like myself (1200 albums, 30K+ tracks), having to sync and maintain a subset of ever-changing music albums, tracks, podcasts, audiobooks and playlists now to another device. I used to just plug my iPhone (or iPod Classic which had 100% of my library) into my Lexus or MBZ and had immediate access to everything that was current -- no can do with a Tesla. I knew that before ordering my MS, but the USB limitations and acknowledged-by-Tesla software problems I've found since taking delivery are difficult to live with.

Tesla has never included a CD/DVD drive in the car. It's like when Apple stopped including floppy drives in their computers: at first some people were shocked but it turned out to be a wise move. Then Apple stopped including CD/DVD drives in their computers. Seemed weird at first to some, but we've moved on from removable media and now it makes sense.

ecarfan said:

Tesla has never included a CD/DVD drive in the car. It's like when Apple stopped including floppy drives in their computers: at first some people were shocked but it turned out to be a wise move. Then Apple stopped including CD/DVD drives in their computers. Seemed weird at first to some, but we've moved on from removable media and now it makes sense.

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Agreed that Apple has been a trend setter -- eliminating floppy drives for writable CD; Steve Job's position to only support DVD and never support Blu Ray; eliminating standard CD/DVD drives as devices became thinner; while evolving various charger and I/O connectors across Apple's line for the good and bad of that. ...yet, Apple and 3rd parties still provide an option to add a CD/DVD drive to a Mac or iMac if the owner wants one -- which I have always purchased and still occasionally make use of. I appreciate Apple being customer-focused providing the option for those that want it, even if it's becoming a lesser minority over time.

Tesla elected not to provide a CD drive, which is fine, but Tesla then didn't see a reason to provide fully-functional alternatives for owners that expect more of an audiophile experience in their MS playing their own music like other auto mfgrs in this class all offer. I have no basis in fact for this, but suspect Elon must not listen to a lot of music in his MS, otherwise the missing capabilities would already be there. Beyond Tesla needing to first fix what's broken with audio -- and I won't get into that here -- without a CD Player, it's odd to me that hardwired iPod/iPhone and MP3 player support isn't at least provided by Tesla with their high-end $2500 UHFS like I have. If they don't provide it with their base model audio system, that's how the German mfgrs I've owned packaged their more complete audio capabilities (but then, my former 2013 Lexus and 2014 MBZ both had a CD drive with hardwired iPod/iPhone/MP3 player support as standard -- and their 2016 models still do .)

I think it was the right move to exclude a CD player. CDs are really already antiquated technology. The only reason you should have a CD player anywhere is so that you can burn your existing CDs to a digital music format like FLAC .

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Brunton said:

Is there a digital file type Tesla reads that does not compress the audio stream?

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Use FLACs. Tesla supports them, they can be compressed or lossless, and if you start with high quality source material you can easily *exceed* the quality of a CD. CD sample rates are 44.1 kHZ. FLACs can support 96 kHz and beyond.

Brunton said:

I thought not on the CD. Not a big issue, but compressed digital audio like MP3 loses some of the sound fidelity available on a CD. Not much, granted, but enough to tell the difference in some audio tracks (really!).

Is there a digital file type Tesla reads that does not compress the audio stream?

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FLAC appears to work.

NOTE: For me, one of the challenges is Tesla does not specify in their Owner's Manual exactly which formats, bitrates, etc are supported -- or at least I've never found it in documents provided to me as an owner. Members of this forum and on a couple other sites have done the trial-and-error work to establish what seems to work. THIS SITE has become the first place I go for a sort of FAQ on Audio before looking through some rather long threads here for more.

Brunton said:

I thought not on the CD. Not a big issue, but compressed digital audio like MP3 loses some of the sound fidelity available on a CD. Not much, granted, but enough to tell the difference in some audio tracks (really!).

Is there a digital file type Tesla reads that does not compress the audio stream?

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FLAC is what I use

Brunton said:

Is there a digital file type Tesla reads that does not compress the audio stream?

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Wrong question, compression isn't the problem, lossy compression is. You want a digital file type that the Tesla supports, and uses lossless compression (otherwise files are gigantic)
The Tesla probably handles WAV files which are uncompressed, but extremely large, but what you really want is FLAC which is compressed, but lossless (and the Tesla does play them)

Brunton said:

Cool! Thanks everyone!

I found a program to rip CD's to FLAC. Now I just have to do it. That'll take many hours, but what the heck - I've got lots of time before my Tesla arrives.

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If you have lots of cd's and do not feel like doing it yourself there are many companies you can send them to. I used Music Shifter and sent about 100 cd's and it cost about $130 including shipping.

BertL said:

...one of the challenges is Tesla does not specify in their Owner's Manual exactly which formats, bitrates, etc are supported -- or at least I've never found it in documents provided to me as an owner. Members of this forum and on a couple other sites have done the trial-and-error work to establish what seems to work. THIS SITE has become the first place I go for a sort of FAQ on Audio before looking through some rather long threads here for more.

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It also isn't clear to me what is the maximum bitrate supported by the Bluetooth connection. I know that this can depend on your audio device but it I am not sure what the highest bitrate I can expect from an iPhone 6+ to my Model S. It may not be as good as FLAC but if it is over 300kbps then it is good enough for me.

wayner said:

It also isn't clear to me what is the maximum bitrate supported by the Bluetooth connection. I know that this can depend on your audio device but it I am not sure what the highest bitrate I can expect from an iPhone 6+ to my Model S. It may not be as good as FLAC but if it is over 300kbps then it is good enough for me.

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The Tesla audio system is very much a garbage in garbage out kind of system (some audio systems filter the garbage). I can really tell the difference and my hearing is not particularly good. Of course, in many cases it's the recording that's poor and lossless compression can't fix that. Sorry, I don't know the bit rate through BT.

green1 said:

Wrong question, compression isn't the problem, lossy compression is. You want a digital file type that the Tesla supports, and uses lossless compression (otherwise files are gigantic)
The Tesla probably handles WAV files which are uncompressed, but extremely large, but what you really want is FLAC which is compressed, but lossless (and the Tesla does play them)

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Just for the record in case anyone reads this and wants to use WAV files -- At least in my experience, the Tesla system does not recognize WAV files.