Continuing with CDs?

*walks around park listening to ben folds five*

yeah I had one of those in blue and have much lingering fondness for that era. I even got pretty good at switching out CDs with one hand while commuting on the train. you're right about batteries though

currently using this as my main CD player. Cant believe I used to walk around with these things in my pockets.

http://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71CTnTgdCOL._AC_SS450_.jpg

I seem to recall similar magazine cartridges for car audio; you'd install the cart *in the boot* and the console on the dash was just a remote control for that player. I remember getting a lift down the M6 from a work colleague in his brand new 1994 (M reg!) Vauxhall Whatever - he let me supply the music. I did wonder if I'd ever see those CDs again.

I went through a year or two where the discman was going to be my primary CD player, so I decided to invest in the best one. Surprisingly the bells and whistles were a waste if you were focused completely on audio quality - the EQ settings in particular degraded the shit out of the sound. I found the best sounding Discmans in Panasonic's line of players. Switch it to the most neutral settings and it was perfect. Problem is they're all old now, so they may not play so well. I had one that I finally chucked because some of the rubber parts they came in contact with the CD finally broke down into a sticky, crumbly mess. You can clean them with rubbing alcohol when they get too sticky, but it only works for so long and eventually old rubber is likely to break down like that - sucks when there are no replacement parts.

pulls over onto hard shoulder 5 miles down the road, frisbees the Merzbow into nearby field...

what was the make of cd player that had a door that swung out rather than slid?

I seem to recall similar magazine cartridges for car audio; you'd install the cart *in the boot* and the console on the dash was just a remote control for that player. I remember getting a lift down the M6 from a work colleague in his brand new 1994 (M reg!) Vauxhall Whatever - he let me supply the music. I did wonder if I'd ever see those CDs again.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, January 13, 2022 12:57 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

my friend in high school got one of these....it was a really steep downgrade in convenience for the privilege of being able to shuffle 6 cds

I have that same Insignia model above at the moment. I don't use it often but it's fine.

Pretty tight tolerances on those portable players too; I had a Goodmans in '93, and had a few discs that were slightly warped. They'd play ok, but you could hear the disc catching the inside of the unit at a few hundred RPM :/

xp: Naim possibly still have such a player - entire mech swings out. Meridian ejected the whole mech too.

(Laika sounded great over Corney Fell ;)).

I think the later discmen might have sacrificed sound quality for battery life and/or antiskip. antiskip in particular was bad because iirc the player would read ahead in the CD and then store the music as compressed audio to avoid skipping, degrading the audio quality

one of the grails for discman collectors is the d-555, which just looks really cool:

https://i.imgur.com/eOaxAlW.jpg

> what was the make of cd player that had a door that swung out rather than slid?

NAIM, yes

https://img.canuckaudiomart.com/uploads/large/906812-0a3b602d-naim-cd5x-cd-amp-hdcd-player.jpg

went to finland to be an exchange student in 89-90.
worked in the summers for ABB.
spent the money i earned on this when i got back.

https://i.etsystatic.com/6357513/r/il/a25662/1682839781/il_fullxfull.1682839781_e0c9.jpg

solid build, lasted years.
don't think i ever used it as a portable (batteries !),
used it to record cds onto cassettes as i had a boombox that had audio inputs, so used this as an external for a long time.
was genuinely gutted when it died.
in fact just seeing that picture is making me somewhat emotional.
changed everything for me.

xxxp Yeah pretty much. You have to turn off pretty much every special feature for the best quality, but to be fair, you could understand why they had them if they were made for portability. MP3's and iPods were already big though so I never used a Discman for portability, it was just something to have on my desk or the table with my headphones in lieu of a stereo system.

mark e, I actually found one of those in storage and coincidentally pulled it out over winter break and tried it. Sadly, it doesn't work.

hah I'd be pretty interested in seeing if I could bring it back from life! what was wrong with it? did it turn on?

(looking at that NAIM it's a) ridiculous, i'd only ever seen it half open, not fully out like that and b) it's not just a tray, it's obviously the entire drive and pickup that's swinging out, hence the thickness)

and as mike mentioned upthread, loads of slot loading players now, even the higher end stuff. asking for trouble imo.

yes, fuck a slot load

on features and quality... i looked up the new Yamaha pictured above and it has a "pure direct" button which disables its digital outputs and even the LED for the display in order to give you the cleanest possible analog output...... yeah

xxxp That was a problem. The power cord must've been worn on the inside because you had to bend the cable/wire in different positions until power actually got fed into the player. (I wouldn't leave it plugged in for long unsupervised- I'm guessing there may be a frayed wire inside, which could be a hazard.) After it came on, I tried playing a CD, and for some reason it wouldn't track it correctly. Like it would skip through the disc. You can hear very brief snippets intermittently, but then the player would start skipping ahead or stalling, etc. I didn't want to throw it away in the trash for environmental reasons - it would be great if it could be recycled for parts but it's always tricky with obsolete and non-functioning electronics.

A good portable is perfect for home listening. Mine is replaced for now with a Tivoli "Model CD" that came up cheap locally, just for the look.

Apparently no one is making decent new portables

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiMdpE1Nz5w

xp sounds like the lube on the worm gear is dry and needs replacing. re: power cord, could be a bad power adapter or the soldering of the jack inside is bad. both should be pretty easy fixes!

that's the sony d-2 innit? probably would cost more to repair from one of the discman repair services, although I'd be happy to take a look at it for free

if you're interested in picking up an old vintage discman for home use, i'd recommend the sony d-33 - still $15-20 on eBay and sounds pretty decent

yes, fuck a slot load

― call all destroyer,

100%

once my discman died i avoided anything that was slot loading.
my first proper cd player was a richer sounds purchase that's hidden up in the attic.
just remembered : the brand was 'eclipse'.
it was cheap but did the job as we were young and broke.
the drawer thing was flakey as f^ck though after a few years.
that said, it still works.

my car has a slot loader (yeah yeah it's old), and the f^cker is tempramental at the best of times.
hence i only i ever put in skinny promo cds that i aint fussed about.

https://whybuynew.2dimg.com/10/1451471630_3981.jpg

xxp I can't get it to you anytime soon, but honestly, if you'll cover the shipping (maybe just email me a shipping a label), you can keep it and hopefully fix it for yourself. It's basically in storage back home, where Covid has gotten really bad at the moment. Once it settles down, I can ask my parents to fish out the player and power adapter the next time they swing by the storage unit. I'll probably remember - there's a bunch of stuff I need to ship to my current place, but I won't be able to do it until things settle down and I have time to travel back.

(I already have enough players, so I don't mind giving it away if you can fix it. I just don't want to toss it into a landfill.)

I have no idea what happened to my Goodmans. I certainly didn't eBay it like the rest of my gear. It may be in a box somewhere. But for 2.5 years it was the heart of my hi-fi. It never went outdoors. "Outdoor hifi - is it a sin?"

lol. high frequencies mess with the birds.

cool man that sounds good! I'll ilxmail ya xxp

the old discmen were really nice SQ wise - i currently use a d-4 discman and it gets LOUD, even when using full sized headphones. of course the battery life is like 2-3 hours on AAs (for those that take em - a lot of the early ones used lead acid battery packs that are all dead by now) so I just use it on wall power.

in other CD news:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-makes-surprise-visit-rome-record-store-gets-classical-cd-2022-01-11/

the old discmen were really nice SQ wise

similar to the time that scott once told us that PS1s were great as audio/cd players !?
the same techie gubbins given both = Sony ?

hmm probably! i would say (not having been there in real time) it's probably an example of sony taking a no holds barred approach to what was then a pretty new tech. the later discmen of the late 90s and early 00s were designed more to the market's taste. ironically, it seemed discmen got really good right featurewise w/ unlimited skip protection and mp3/cd-r support right around the time mp3/ipods were taking off

where do uk people buy back-catalogue cds (that isn't amazon)?

i have christmas money burning a hole in my pocket and figured i'd pick up those cure and fall and siouxsie and sonic youth cds that i don't have and don't really know where to look for them. norman records, lots of hits, but the cds, the 10 i looked for, were ALL sold out. is there anywhere with decent stock?

(actually, the sonic youth were on bandcamp so those were easy)

Basically, discogs.

One thing I've been enjoying is checking out CDs from the library, ours always has interesting selections

discogs or eBay or webuy.com (cex) or music magpie (i buy a lot from musicmagpie on eBay)

just bought a Norma Tanega CD from Discogs last week

Basically, discogs.

And a wonderful resource that is.

Koogs:

I would never buy from Amazon unless it was somehow necessary. But surely Fopp? They sell all that stuff upstairs.

One thing I've been enjoying is checking out CDs from the library, ours always has interesting selections

I'm jealous of this. Our otherwise excellent library has an absolutely terrible CD selection. They've got a great DVD/Blu Ray selection, but they appear to have given up on CDs about 2004. When I first moved here in 2008 it already appeared to have been ignored for several years and it hasn't been touched since. It's so disappointing. The jazz section that remains is decent, but only about 20% of the CDs I've checked out have been playable, they are either scratched to absolute shit or the anti-theft strip they apply to the top surface of the disc itself renders them unplayable in most of my disc drives.

Yeah, I get a twinge of jealously when I see people talking about local libraries with great and well curated CDs.

And not just local - Seattle and King County both have great online catalogs and will deliver for pickup at your local. One of the reasons I donate to them.

yeah, PF, fopp. i was hoping to do it from the sofa though, avoiding the great unvaxxed.

i always forget about upstairs at fopp. downstairs is full of dvd goodness, but i never think to go up.

Picked up a tall IKEA CD storage unit left out on the pavement today. There were two but I could barely carry that one.

uk online option : music magpie.
free postage no matter the price.

Koogs, surely you can order online from Fopp?

Maybe a dumb question but how does one use a Discman or similar device with external speakers without losing one of the stereo channels of the CD mix?

if your current cd player is losing a stereo channel when connecting to external speakers that means you probably have a bad connection or are using a mono cable instead of a stereo cable

ok but if there’s a single output on the Discman and a single input on the speaker how do you get stereo out of that?

1/8 inch headphone out is a stereo connection iirc