I know you mentioned you didn't want a MP3 player.. but....
I don't understand why anybody would wanna try to do the CD thing.. even if it buffered the entire album.
I paid about 120$ for the little memorex (I think) kazaa mp3 player at walmart.. it's about the size of a pager, and it's the greatest thing I've ever used for music on a bike. Holds on average 2 hours of music... never skips.. batteries last about 5x as long as any cd player I ever had, and the sound quality is excellent.
You can actually stretch it out to hold probably 4 hours of music if you put the bitrate down to 64 or something. I've always left it at 128.. (really close to cd quality, so I've heard anyway)
I'm sure you can find a CD player that will work.. but.. why would you want to? almost like buying a 8 track player in the mid 80's or something... like ... What?
I've tried LOTS of different ways to listen to music on a bike.. and after buying this was the only time I was ever happy with the results. I just plug it into the computer when i wanna change the playlist.. pick the songs I want from CD's, or MP3's i already have.. tell it what bitrate to convert it too.. and let it transfer... takes all of 10 minutes if your slow.