Continuing with CDs?

I snagged a Tivoli Model CD that came up on Kijiji, it looks nice on the desk. But damned if I can tell the difference in sound from the Panasonic portable player I was using before that... $20 on eBay. So I'd recommend those if looks/remote control function aren't factors. There's a long thread on stevehoffman about how surprisingly good these are :)

you're really looking for a DVD or Blu-ray player, they all play CDs and if they have digital out you can hook them up to a DAC

if you have a dedicated DAC already, definitely

i was gifted an Onkyo CD player, it's pretty damn good. The CD has to be extremely fucked up to skip, compared to old-school players which would skip if you coughed in the next room.

when i first posted in this thread I probably had about 1500 CDs. Down to maybe 600 now?

You should've been with me last weekend when I went into a local car audio store to upgrade my car stereo. The clerk asked me what I was looking for, and I made sure to mention it needs to have a CD player. He gave me the same "Okay, psycho..." stare I get from people when I tell them I still buy CDs.

At home, I'm still using the same desktop CD player I've had since 1999. It's a 51-disc changer (not that I ever put more than a few in at a time). The buttons on the remote have been acting wonky for the last five or so years, but it still plays great.

Don't most cars still have CD? I need to use mine more... I often end up listening to the radio on short trips, rather than: turn on Bluetooth, wait for pairing, max the volume*, pick a song*

What I'd really like is cassette! I don't have a decent digital audio interface at the moment, so it's easiest to record anything live/make a mix to tape.

Or a car without a blinding screen... imagine it!

*can automate, don't want to

It's a 51-disc changer

wow I had no idea this was a thing

why 51 though

i had one friend who had a 101 disc changer, like this one: https://www.ebay.com/p/Pioneer-PD-F908-CD-Changer/66791977?iid=163412537779&chn=ps

The buttons on the remote have been acting wonky for the last five or so years, but it still plays great.

― Rod Steel (musicfanatic)

Disassembly is easy; the buttons are all part of one piece of molded rubber with contacts in the back that abuts with the board -- clean both sides with isopropyl, dry, and reassemble. My son had many spills on our remotes over the years and have done this dozens of times.

The 51 and 101 disc varieties have a carousel for the bulk and a single drawer for single plays.

I have like 30 jandek CDs so a player like that sounds perversely interesting

My current newish one is a Phillips, and it does this annoying thing of hesitating for a couple of seconds between tracks while it reads the new information. Completely fucks up continuous mixes.

my new amp has an onboard dac so I just bought a Sony DVD player for $10 off crait sounds better than the once expensive Marantz that had died

I actually need to replace my CD player, think I'm gonna go for a PS1 as discussed elsewhere (?) since they apparently have good DACs

This is the exact one:https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1517&bih=695&ei=LDxSXLijLYeijwS5hLLgCQ&q=sony+51+disc+cd+changer&oq=sony+51+d&gs_l=img.1.0.0i24.1356.2857..4383...0.0..0.133.832.7j2......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0j0i10j0i8i30j0i5i30.5TF0QDiGGCQ#imgrc=unefVozfpY8NcM:

Sorry about the formatting.

Just picked up a used Onkyo 7030 to replace my skippy old beater - it’s a real pleasure being able to throw any old disc in it and get reliable sound, and it sounds beautiful too (tho my ears aren’t reliable enough to say for certain it’s an audio upgrade).

Were brands like GPX and Coby ever considered reliable?

That was kinda the joke!

I actually wound up buying a Sony for $7.20 at a Goodwill and it's working fine so far.

i got a cool tascam cd player for a song

it doesn't have a whole lot of features but it's very sturdy and i like the rugged aesthetic

https://cdn3.imggmi.com/uploads/2019/2/1/695e846ddc2d1bb6a4083c9c39d70a8b-full.jpg

load cd.
press play.
what more does anyone need.
love the minimalism.

would buy

lol, minimalists love the Muji wall mount thing. it is cute. I wonder if anyone has hacked an optical out

I remember it being really hard to find single-disc players in the late 90s/early 00s.. everything was either a 5 disc changer or one of those 50/100 disc blooming onion things. Seems like it's swung around now.

love the rackmountable look a+

I have a rack-mountable Tascam 3-head cassette deck that would sit nicely next to (above/below) that disc player.

Me from the HTRK thread talking about the brilliant Standish/Carlyon album Deleted Scenes...

Unfortunately two times I played the cd (out of maybe 10 or 12 times) it sounded flickery towards the end in a bad cd-r way. I'm afraid I'll play it years later and it wont even work. I had this problem with the Lush box set and I hate to think that this is becoming a real issue with labels using cheap cds (?) I love cds, don't do this to me, music labels.

I think there might be something wrong with the first disc in a 3CD Terje Rypdal box I bought last year. It's an ECM disc, which upsets me - I thought if any label was gonna be top notch about quality control it would be them.

None of my proper label-released CDs have ever given up the ghost. I've got releases going back to the 80s that are fine. But I noticed this week that my copy of the Walker Brothers Nite Flights had an odd mottling on the top. It's a Sony on demand release. Anyway I agree it would be a pity if CD quality were to suffer because of their unpopularity. I love buying cheap CDs right now. Have barely bought any vinyl in the past two years

It's too bad you can't get buy good thick jewel cases anymore. All the ones they make now are flimsy af.

Oh yeah, the 'digipaks'. So trash for collecting.

I think they meant the jewel cases that are used today are lower quality than previous, and it's true.

Digipaks suck too.

One of the larger indie labels (want to say Sub Pop) packages their CDs in those larger-than-normal digipaks - the kind that doesn't fit in a standard-sized CD slot.

yup that's Sub Pop, hate those

Drag City have reverted to just flimsy sleeves that look like one of those free magazine covermount promo things you'd get in a gift bag at CMJ circa 1998 and immediately throw in the garbage

I kept all my covermounts, and put them up for sale on Discogs a few months ago. I've sold at least 75%, including some big bulk orders - turns out that a lot of people collect them. Makes sense that they would, as they're cheap even by second-hand CD standards.

Since the 80s, when I was a maniac collector, and beginning to sell at record etc. shows, this was always very helpful: Bags Unlimited---still a source of CD (and other format) acessories: http://www.bagsunlimited.com/search?searchterm=CD

Since having a couple of albums pressed to vinyl, I have begun to question the idea that vinyl sounds better. However, pressing albums to CD seems unappetising because I figure that they would be tough to shift and people simply don't value them as much, apart from a minority.

CDs of any era > new vinyl

vinyl sounds "better" if the music has been mixed and mastered for vinyl, not just pressed on it

and how many new vinyl releases fall into this category?

vinyl sounds "better" if the music has been mixed and mastered for vinyl, not just pressed on it

― blokes you can't rust (sic), Saturday, 6 April 2019 18:00 (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The point is still the same though surely, that there are dynamic ranges that are trivial on a CD that will cause problems on vinyl.

To clarify though, I do enjoy the sound of vinyl and also think that when people are listening they are not just weighing up scientific data about dynamic ranges etc.
Personally I think the main advantage of vinyl is long life span rather than improved sound quality as such, I have plenty of LPs that are nearly 50 years old or more that still play fine even if there is some deterioration.

The last Adele album sounds a lot better on vinyl than CD, actually. a lot more dynamic. *shrugs*

Adele is still on XL, a label founded on dance 12"s that basically require attentive mastering to be playable out.

I imagine if it was possible, it would already be happening, but is there the possibility of print-on-demand CDs becoming a thing? Like CDs of lasting quality and not terrible CDR discs or whatever those Lush box set and Standish/Carlyon discs were.

What kind of quality CDs are being sent from Bandcamp artists?

I've never gotten a CD from Bandcamp that was a CD-R unless it was explicitly stated it was a CD-R (Legendary Pink Dots do limited pressings on CD-R and sell 'em). They're all manufactured. Last CD I had trouble ripping was the Loreena McKennitt Live at Royal Albert Hall set... took a couple hours to rip a clean set of FLACs from those.

Usually the minimum order from most plants for a glass mastered pressed CD is 300, because of the expense in preparing to press. Most of the on-demand pressing are to CDR like what Amazon does. CDRs are pretty much laser direct etching into the disc and don't have the top clear coat like usual pressed cd, so they are more fragile. You probably could press only 100 on a glass mastered disc, but I would bet it would cost the same as pressing 300.

What's a good "personal" portable (like successor to Discman) still being sold new? Has to run entirely on batteries, if I chose (and I do), even if adapter incl.

I'd be interested to know that myself. Last time I was looking for one there were literally no major brands left making them, Coby (lol) was the only brand I recognized.

Wound up buying a Sony at a thrift store.