Of course not...both my RX & SC still have the cassette.

 

The cassette deck still impresses passengers.

They think my car is near-new when they go for a ride, and the cassette deck always conjures a big "OH WOW!"

 

 

Like bit said, our new Jeep has no CD player. It will also play lossless WAV files from a USB stick.

 

My 07 RXh with ML had the cassette deck. That sound was fuller, deeper and richer, something that is difficult to attain in my '13 RX with ML (sans cassette). The CD however in my current RX does generally sound better than any bluetooth, aux, or USB sourced MP3s listened in it so I'm in no rush to have manufacturers phase out the CD since we seem to be losing quality one gen to the next regarding car audio technology, at least with the Lexus vehicles I've owned. Unless of course, the new "Clari-Fi" tech found in the new ML developped for the NX, which promises that fuller sound for MP3s, becomes more readily available. Too bad N.A. is not getting ML for the new NX, and that's another topic...

But the reality is, like some have said, give it 10 more years then, inevitably like the cassette, RIP.

 

The only CD I listen to is the Creedence Clearwater Revival CD that I put into my parents' 99 Montero Sport. The CD player(aftermarket) won't eject it, and the antenna is missing, so CCR's greatest hits is the ONLY thing you get to listen to in that vehicle. LOL

 

That would drive me nuts after about 10 min

 

Well if CD players are going away, can my 8 track player be far behind? I had to special order my
LS460 to get it.

Geez, and I just bought Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits!

 

Considering it's our put around vehicle up at our mountain property and gets about 100 miles a year, it isn't a big deal.

 

well removal of cd is just cost cutting.... bluetooth and usb is standard on pretty much every vehicle today.

 

And exactly how many lossless WAV files can a USB stick hold?
(Answer: not many... at all)

 

this $99 small portable drive is 2TB. should be enough for a bunch of tunes.
a 4 minute tune at uncompressed CD quality is (if my math is right) about 40MB. so 2TB would hold 50,000 tunes.

 

If it is that important, you could use a hard drive and just connect to the USB input.

 

CD quality is far superior sounding to audio from USB. Bluetooth is the worse.

 

A single 128GB USB stick (which costs about $40-60 for a decent brand currently) can hold 435 hours of uncompressed WAVs at 16-bit, 44.1Khz (CD-equivalent), which is 6,525 songs at an average length of 4 minutes. A single CD can hold.....1.2 hours.

Now realistically, most albums these days don't run the full 74 minutes (hell, many are barely over 40), so let's be conservative and say the average album is a nice round 60 minutes. If 435 albums is insufficient for your morning commute, may I ask how you currently transport your music collection?

And this is without even getting into the 2TB portable hard drive that Bit brought up...

USB doesn't deliver audio, it delivers data. Incidentally, this is EXACTLY what CDs do. There are only two ways in which audio coming from a USB source can be of lower fidelity than audio from a CD source in the same head unit:
1) You intentionally chose to put a lower-quality audio file on said USB device. If so, blame yourself, not the technology.
2) The electronics manufacturer for some inexplicable reason decided to spend more money than necessary building an inferior product, by including one high-quality DAC for the CD transport, and a second crappy one for the USB input, just to make sure it doesn't sound good.