You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not great with technology at all. I have a Sonos Ray connected to my TV and am waiting for my new Era 100 to arrive as I wanted some extra output for the sound.
I’m thinking of getting rid of my existing CD player (I still love my CDs, as well as stream music) and wanted to know if there was a good, small CD player I could purchase that would play out of my Era speaker (I don’t know if I could/should attach Ray soundbar). I’ve looked for hours but all that I read is very technical and even more confusing.
Just a simple set-up, I’m assuming it would be over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, I’d still like to play my CD collection, which is still expanding.
TIA
Answered
CD output to Era 100
Best answer by Ken_Griffiths
Any CD player with an analog RCA line-out port will likely be okay. Go for one that’s affordable and will be in-keeping with where you want to put it in your Home (aesthetically). The line-out is first connected to the line-in on one of the two available Sonos audio adapters shown here…
- https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sonos-line-in-adapter
- https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sonos-combo-adapter
Either of those adapters are, in-turn, connected to the USB-C port on the Era-100 and the line-in CD audio can then be played, using the Sonos App, to either, or both, of your your Sonos speakers.
This would give you the best quality and most reliable audio-input into your Sonos products with a bitrate of 1,411kb/s.
You may go onto find a CD player with Bluetooth audio output, to also connect to your Era speaker, but it likely will not be as reliable connection as the line-in wired option and the audio quality will likely not be as good too, over what will probably be the SBC Bluetooth protocol, which uses a max audio bitrate of 320kb/s
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Any CD player with an analog RCA line-out port will likely be okay. Go for one that’s affordable and will be in-keeping with where you want to put it in your Home (aesthetically). The line-out is first connected to the line-in on one of the two available Sonos audio adapters shown here…
- https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sonos-line-in-adapter
- https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sonos-combo-adapter
Either of those adapters are, in-turn, connected to the USB-C port on the Era-100 and the line-in CD audio can then be played, using the Sonos App, to either, or both, of your your Sonos speakers.
This would give you the best quality and most reliable audio-input into your Sonos products with a bitrate of 1,411kb/s.
You may go onto find a CD player with Bluetooth audio output, to also connect to your Era speaker, but it likely will not be as reliable connection as the line-in wired option and the audio quality will likely not be as good too, over what will probably be the SBC Bluetooth protocol, which uses a max audio bitrate of 320kb/s
Hi there
I really appreciate your (detailed) reply; I had to Google as I really don’t know what these things mean and came up with a suggestion (CA AXC35), I’ve now sent a support request through to CambridgeAudio to see if this is compatible. I didn’t realise I was quite so un-technical, I can’t even figure if there is a L and R output then how can this go into one speaker? (I didn’t particularly want to buy 2 Era as my room is very small)
I will get there, I’ll refer back to your response if this unit doesn’t prove ok, thanks so much.
Hi there
I really appreciate your (detailed) reply; I had to Google as I really don’t know what these things mean and came up with a suggestion (CA AXC35), I’ve now sent a support request through to CambridgeAudio to see if this is compatible. I didn’t realise I was quite so un-technical, I can’t even figure if there is a L and R output then how can this go into one speaker? (I didn’t particularly want to buy 2 Era as my room is very small)
I will get there, I’ll refer back to your response if this unit doesn’t prove ok, thanks so much.
It has an RCA line-out (I’ve highlighted it in the image attached) - that in turn, goes to an ‘RCA to 3.5mm’ audio cable (photo of that cable is attached too), there maybe one supplied with the CD player, but if not they’re available from Amazon or other good online retailers.
Just connect that RCA cable from the CD player to the Sonos audio adapter and to the Era 100 speaker via USB-C and it will be ready to play on your Sonos system by selecting the line-in as the audio source for playback on your chosen speakers via the Sonos App.
Hope that assists.
That more than assists, it’s perfect. When I was looking, I was a little concerned as some suggested you shouldn’t put both into one speaker, but obviously you know what you’re talking about.
I didn’t realise there was so much to it, I’m just used to simple systems but decided that if I’m going to have the speakers I might as well use them to full advantage. Thanks once again for your invaluable help.
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