AudioCD Reader 1.0

AudioCD Reader is a tiny DirectShow filter from 2006 that lets older Windows media players play tracks straight from a music CD.

It has not changed since that first and only 1.0 release, so it belongs to the era of Windows XP and DirectShow players rather than today's PCs.

If you just want to hear a CD or copy it to your computer, a current player or ripper will do the job with less fuss, and the options are further down.

What AudioCD Reader Actually Does

Open a music CD in File Explorer and you see small files called Track01.cda. Those are not the music, only shortcuts that tell Windows where each track starts on the disc.

Players built on DirectShow, the playback system inside Windows, cannot read the audio behind those shortcuts on their own. AudioCD Reader is a source filter that fills that gap, handing the CD audio to whatever DirectShow player you use.

It does not rip, convert or tag anything. It only makes a disc playable in players that could not open it before.

Why It Is Mostly a Museum Piece Now

The download is a 212KB zip, BTCDAKReader_1.0.zip, dated July 2006. There has been no update, no changelog and no developer page since.

Most players people use today read audio CDs by themselves. Windows Media Player and VLC Media Player both play a disc without any extra filter.

Many new PCs no longer have a CD drive at all, which narrows things further. Our news piece on why CDs are selling again while laptops lose their drives covers that side.

The Better Download for the Same Job

If you genuinely need CD audio inside a DirectShow player, take CDDA Reader instead. It is an open-source source filter from the Guliverkli2 project that does exactly what AudioCD Reader does, and its page is kept current.

It pairs naturally with the players that grew out of that same project, MPC-HC and MPC-BE.

Who Should Still Use AudioCD Reader

• Owners of a working Windows XP-era setup who want to restore it exactly as it was.
• Anyone testing how an old DirectShow player behaved with CD audio, for example to reproduce an old bug report.

Everyone else gets a simpler result from one of the tools in the table above.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

If your player already shows the tracks and plays them when you insert a disc, you do not need any filter. Installing one anyway only adds another component that can conflict with the ones you have.

If the real goal is to keep the music, playing from the disc every time is the wrong approach. Ripping once gives you files that play anywhere, on any device, without the CD.

Ripping the CD Instead

Exact Audio Copy is the careful choice, because it reads each track until it is sure the copy is perfect. It is slower than other rippers and worth it for discs you care about.

fre:ac is the friendlier option, ripping and converting in one simple window. foobar2000 can rip too, if you already use it to play music.

CDex still works for quick rips, though it has not been updated in years. For MP3 output, the LAME MP3 Encoder is the engine most of these tools rely on.

Our CD ripping and encoding guide walks through the settings, and the Online Audio Converter turns finished WAV or FLAC files into other formats in your browser.

If You Install It Anyway

The zip holds the filter files rather than an installer. DirectShow filters of this kind are normally registered with Windows by hand, and our guide on installing and removing .dll and .ax files shows how.

If a player stops working afterwards, DirectShow Filter Manager lets you see and disable installed filters. The Codec Troubleshooter helps narrow down what went wrong.

Quick questions

For other filters and decoders, browse the rest of our audio codecs, or pick a modern player from our media players section.

Download AudioCD Reader 1.0 if you still need it, or tell us what you used it for if you have history with it.