External CD Drive (USB or AUX) Quality over Digital Files

[biscuitofthedigestivekind253]

I was recently bought a few CDs and would like to play them in my car but it has no built-in CD drive. If I were to buy an external CD drive to plug into my car by way of USB (or AUX?), would the sound quality be degraded? And hence would there be any point in using the CDs over just digital music off my phone. And if not what would be the best bet for the type of USB for the quality.

Apologies if the answer to my problem is somewhere out there on the internet but I cannot seem to find it. Thanks very much for your time.
-Seán.

 

[Mark RM]

Were it I, I would just strip the CD's to a lossless audio standard and play them from my phone.

I don't think anything portable in the way of CD players is going to give you a noticeable improvement such that you'd wish you did one or the other instead, therefore the most convenient method might really be the best one.

 

[americanaudiophile]

As suggested above it makes more sense to rip the CDs to lossless files such as FLAC or ALAC. If you don't want to use your phone get a digital audio player. It will have a lot more storage.
You can rip the CDs to WAV files. Most headunits will play them from a USB stick. Only a few will play FLAC files. All will play MP3.
You can always convert a lossless file to mp3 if you need to.

 

[USAFRet]

And for car use, you'd need to get a external CD player designed for car use.
To handle the bumps and shocks, without skipping.

I had one long ago. It would cache several minutes of audio into its buffer, and play from that. Only spin up the CD once in a while, to refill the buffer from what is 'next'.

I agree with the above. Just rip them to lossless (or mp3), and play digitally from some device.
Currently, I use a 7" tablet and an FM beamer. My car stereo is so old and cheesy, it doesn't have a port for Audio IN.