Mechless Goes Mainstream

In a reversal of the CD wave that carried the car audio market for more than 15 years, the aftermarket is now moving towards a car radio future where CD players may be in the minority.

Almost all of Sony’s double DIN car radios are now mechless (lacking a CD or DVD mechanism).

Almost 40 percent of Kenwood’s double DIN radios are mechless, and the same is true for those from JVC.

Kenwood this year, for the first time, is offering navigation decks without a CD or DVD player.

As of September last year, 75 percent of music industry sales came from streaming music fees for services such as Spotify, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.  At the time about 1 million new subscribers were signing up for streaming services per month.

Meanwhile CD sales last year were half of what they were in 2013, dropping to 141 million in units, compared to 289.4 million in 2013. Back in 2007, CD sales were over 500 million.

“Everybody has their music in their phones,” said John Samp of Abt Electronics near Chicago. The trend to mechless began three years ago with the Alpine 62BT, he said. Now Pioneer mechless decks such as the MV1400s are its big sellers.

This year, the trend to mechless accelerated for many retailers. Freeman’s Car Stereo, the 6-store chain in North Carolina, said mechless only really caught on in the past six months.

“I think there’s a lot of people who want to be able to play CDs, but they are shrinking.  I think, yes, it’s going to be a mechless world,” said Kelly Kirschner President of Performance Auto Sound, Wenatchee, WA. “I have a huge collection of CDs and DVDs and I can’t tell you the last time I popped a disc in, for me personally.”

Avenue Sound, NY estimates about a third of its double DIN deck sales are now mechless.

Even though mechless radios tend to cost about $100 less than their CD counterparts, most retailers said they are not losing money on the trend.  Some had an upsell strategy for high end car audio. Avenue Sound’s Vikas Moolchandani said the lower price just helps the shop compete with off-brand CD players on the Internet.  “Now we can offer mechless AV with CarPlay and Android Auto without a step up [price] that’s too high.”

In-Phase Marketing’s Dan McMillan agreed, “I think it’s inevitable that most of the market will be mechless. If you look at new cars today, they are going mechless; just so many people stream.  I’m an audiophile guy so i have CD players in the cars, but I do find myself using Deezer, which is FLAC, probably 95 percent of the time.”