Thread: Modifying Home Stereo become MP3Player

Don't bother. It's possible, just barely, but way too complicated, and would involve a lot of unpretty kludges and wires hanging out of the case and soforth. Just for starters, you'd have to figure out how to read a data (mp3) CD in an audio CD drive. Mechanically, they're not too different, but electronically, a CD-ROM has a lot more precision and specificality about what it will read and what it won't. An audio CD drive is hit-and-miss, but the audio quality is good enought that that isn't detrimental to the final output. I've read about a project somewhere where they've got an audio drive reading mp3 CDs, but it sounds to me like they've got fuNding!

Since MP3s are compressed, they need a processor to decompress them on the fly. To modify a home stereo, you'd have to throw a processor, and with it a motherboard, and with it RAM.... It just turns into a computer, and you're better off just creating your own.