Personal "CD" player that plays off burned DVDs

[kitkat]

My MP3-capable CD/CD-RW player has bit the dust. It was $30 at Best Buy, cheapest model, so I'm surprised it even lasted a year and a half with all my travels & abuse.

Since I have hundreds of gigs worth of music, and since sometimes I just want to listen to a prepackaged CD the moment someone hands it to me, not wait until I get home so I can rip it to MP3 and put it on a hard drive or flash-based MP3 player, I'm going to go for another discman. My concern is not being able to play "everything;" my concern is being able to play "anything" at a moment's notice. That's just the way I roll--I'd rather grab 3 data discs & go than spend 20 minutes making sure the music I might want is on my player. I need something that can read widespread, cheap, changeable media--like CDs & DVDs.

So far I've only found 1 thing that fits the bill, and it's a little annoying, because it has a remote attached. I do prefer my buttons on the machine itself--one less part to break--but I can live with it. Still, it's pricey and hardly sold anywhere, so I want to keep looking. What I found is a DVD reader + CD burner meant for plugging into a laptop that also works on a charge (wish it took batteries). Sony MPD-AP20U, and it runs about $200, or at best on Ebay, perhaps $100 used.

A Google search came up w/ a Nick Jr. DVD player that looks about twice as thick as a Discman, and square. I sent off an inquiry to find out if it's meant to plug into a TV or stand alone.

That got me thinking--if it had "random" playback and were user-friendly enough as a music player (fast forward/rewwind like a CD player, not a DVD player), why not just get a portable DVD player and never use the screen? I might just do that, but that's a whole new can of worms with time spent searching for the right price, size, quality, functions, etc.

It can't be that hardware executives never thought of DVDs as simply a "bigger CD."
There are lots of car stereo models that won't play video off a DVD but can read MP3s off a DVD, so the idea is out there.


Suggestions?

[Toon Town Dave]

I haven't come across anything besides those little portable DVD players that look sort of like a mini-notebook computer.

I bought a Panasonic portable CD player that does MP3s and read CD-RWs. It's one of their higher end models but is ultra thin and the lid and hinge are metal (hopefully it will last longer). It too has a (optional) dongle for displaying information that plugs into the headphone jack.

I bought it largely for the same reason as you, to listen to pre-fab CD's I acquire while travelling. I can still bring lots of music (mp3) in a small space and still use it for new CDs or if I'm CD shopping some place where you need your own player and headphones to preview. It's also been useful as an emergency/extra player while DJing.