Android devices play audio CDs now

[Redbook]

Thought I'd share something a bit unusual I've been doing with my hi-fi setup.

I've got a FiiO R7 that I mainly use as a streamer, connected to a Hifi Rose RA180.
A while back I started looking for CD players and started wondering whether I could connect a USB CD drive to the R7 and actually play CDs through it — use the R7's DAC for the conversion and skip having a separate CD player on the shelf entirely.

Turns out it is possible. I wrote an Android app called Redbook Player that reads audio CDs via USB and plays them bit-perfect — 16-bit, 44.1kHz PCM, no resampling, no processing, straight from the disc. It does a MusicBrainz lookup for track names and cover art, so the now-playing screen looks proper.

The setup is quite simple:

• FiiO R7 (or any Android device with USB)
• A USB CD/DVD drive (I use an Apple Superdrive but have tested it with several £15 drives from Amazon)
• That's it

Insert a disc, press play, and it sounds exactly like you'd expect — because it's doing exactly what a CD transport does, just via USB instead of SPDIF.

Also does a few other things:

• Chromecast streaming — sends the bit stream to any Cast device on the network. I've been using this from my phone with a CD drive connected casting to a Chromecast Audio into my main amp. Bit-perfect PCM over the network, directly from the disc with some digital shenanigans. Feels very retro-futuristic with the cover art and track names showing up on the phone after inserting a CD, and music being streamed from the spinning physical disc.

• Rip to FLAC — one tap, the disc gets ripped to lossless FLAC with embedded tags and cover art. Handy for archiving discs you'd rather not spin every day.

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Would love feedback on what devices it works on, and any it fails on. Fiio, HiBy, Eversolo, Shanling or any others.

Main issue I've encountered so far is power delivery - you may need a powered USB hub/splitter or similar for some combinations of device/drive. The Fiio drives them all directly connected though, as do some but not all phones.

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[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Forum rules do not permit advertising your own wares - so feel free to edit this to show what you've done, but references to the app need to go. If you don't edit it, moderation will have to, I'm afraid.

Apologies of this seems unfriendly, but them's the rules - see the stickies in each sub-forum.

 

[Jasonovich]

If your Android operated Streamer OS has a USB input, it's likely it will accept cheap CD Rom player, like the one I have plugged into my PC. Legacy Andoid software may have problems but if it's Android 10 and upwards, it should be fine.



It's a good thread you've started you don't need to spend $$$ on a dedicated CD player if you have Android software on one of your devices.

My MAG 555 GoogleTv Android operating system should work and I was tempted to add CD-Rom player but I asked myself, why do I need it, when I have streaming apps on my Google box and music I can play from my digital transport via the FiiO K11 or network my music from NAS?

In the past, I've been purchasing cheap dodgy Chinese Android media player devices, these weren't reliable, if you're lucky, the quirks would be minor, such as rebooting. It was false economy, got tired of wasting £30 and another £30 for it's replacement. Most glad I spent a ton on a proper certified Google media player, like the MAG 555. It works flawlessly (touch wood!) but yes happy with it.

Apart from attaching it to a CD-Rom player, it's also an ideal platform for streaming. If you were thinking about it, the video below helps you get started.

View: https://youtu.be/SfRQy3u7PXU?si=SsluxOsaql0mRwKj

View: https://youtu.be/qws_N24vApg?si=SyBhuQDsVBUpF_H8