Need CD player recomendations

[Mark Blasco]

We need a CD player to use for talent shows where people sing along to a CD. It needs to have no problem playing CDs that have been burned. It needs a track and time readout, and needs to be fairly robust (from time to time we will need to check it out to other people who will not be to careful).

 

Can anyone give me a suggestion as to what make and model is the one I should be looking for? Cost is not a huge factor, but I don't want to spend $1000 on this. We already have a bunch of cheap ones, now we need to get one reliable one.

 

Thanks!

[BillESC]

Mark,

 

There are several that will meet your needs.

 

American Audio CDI 500 - $ 399.00

 

Denon DN-S5000 - $ 899.00

 

Pioneer CDJ 800MK2 - $ 699.00

[Mark Blasco]

Bill,

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I need to clarify a little - we don't need the CD player for a DJ. It is going to be run from the back of house by a sound tech. We have just had reliability problems with most of our players, so we want something that we can rely on to play all burned CD's and not just decide in the middle of a talent show that it won't play one of the disks.

[BillESC]

These all play MP3 and burned CD's. The bells and whistles just happen to be included.

[guitarharv52]

I am not an expert on CD players but if you are receiving CD's burned by someone else and it has not been"finalized" by their home recorder then it may not play.

[GCDEF]

I have a CD player in my car, two DVD players in my house, my kids each have CD players in their rooms and have had several portable CD players, and I have 5 computers with various DVD/CD players in them. Every one of them plays burned CDs with no problem. Unless you're buying Walmart's $19 special, I wouldn't think that should be a concern.

[Mark Blasco]

GCDEF,

 

You wouldn't think it would be a concern, but I have had too many situations where a CD just won't play on one player but plays on another. For some of the talent shows we do, we get 15-20 CD's from different people, and they all just need one track played. Currently we need to setup 2 CD players so that if it won't work in one player we can quickly switch it to another player.

 

Our CD players are not permanantly mounted, and we use them in a lot of rooms, so they are constantly taken to new places, setup, used, broken down, and moved back to our storage room. We have CD players from Sony, Denon, and a couple of other brands, and all of them have had problems from time to time. It would be nice to get one higher end player that we would be able to rely on for all situations.

 

I guess my main concern is something that is going to be robust and reliable. I was hoping there was an industry standard for CD players that touring sound techs use, but maybe I am expecting too much. We don't need any bells or whistles, just playback of a CD.

[agedhorse]

ALL of them WILL have problems since the standards for CD authoring of burned CD's deviate somewhat from ideal standards for both software and hardware packages. With some of the added features implimented on some burned discs, this has indeed been a problem. It's way worse for self-authored DVD's.

 

I have had pretty good luck with Tascam products, but there are discs that are unreadable on any system due to actual errors in the burning process. This is an example of theb drive for features getting in the way of the basic functionality of the process of just playing back CD's. This is just like the constand adding of cell phone features getting in the way of making and receiving basic calls... which is the major use.

 

Always test each CD on the machine you intend to play back on well before show-time. Another option is to copy each CD to an IPOD or laptop and do all playback from there... in which case you transfer one problem to another.

[Mark Blasco]

Agedhorse,

 

A lot of times our techs don't actually get the CD's until about 30 seconds before the act is supposed to start. We do a lot of talent shows for student groups, and there is little to no organization with them.

 

What gets me is that we have some players that will play most CD's, but once in a while we get a disc it can't play. If we put that disc into another CD player it seems to work fine, so we start using that player as our main one. Well, sure enough, a few weeks later that player will have problems playing one or two discs, but those same discs play fine on the first player.

 

I was just hoping that there was a player that could play everything, even poorly burned discs, and was reliable enough to be constantly moved around from show to show. It seems like that player doesn't exist.

 

P.S. Why do cell phones suck so much now a days? I remember when I first got a cell phone about 5 years ago, the sound quality was good, the reception was good, the battery life was good, the screen was readable in the sun - and that was the free phone that came with the account. Now I've gone through several phones which I payed for, and all of them suck in one area or another.

[Ear Abuser]

I suggest you get all of the CD's for one night, and burn the tracks to a couple of CDs ( a primary and a back up). That's what I have done for talent shows. Much less headache on show night. No fumbling for the next disk etc.

A dual deck DJ style player is handy becuase you can use the cueing features and time remaining read outs.

I have a Stanton (who knows who really makes it) and it's fine for this kind of thing. I think it was around $200-300.

[ViLo]

Agedhorse, A lot of times our techs don't actually get the CD's until about 30 seconds before the act is supposed to start. We do a lot of talent shows for student groups, and there is little to no organization with them. What gets me is that we have some players that will play most CD's, but once in a while we get a disc it can't play. If we put that disc into another CD player it seems to work fine, so we start using that player as our main one. Well, sure enough, a few weeks later that player will have problems playing one or two discs, but those same discs play fine on the first player. I was just hoping that there was a player that could play everything, even poorly burned discs, and was reliable enough to be constantly moved around from show to show. It seems like that player doesn't exist. P.S. Why do cell phones suck so much now a days? I remember when I first got a cell phone about 5 years ago, the sound quality was good, the reception was good, the battery life was good, the screen was readable in the sun - and that was the free phone that came with the account. Now I've gone through several phones which I payed for, and all of them suck in one area or another.

 

Your problem is not The CD players, is the CD's If the CD's are burned a Max speed of the CD burner, chances are they won't play....They have to be burned at a lower speed, but you have no way to control that, so the best thing to do is to get a laptop and play them from there.

 

I have had problems @ church where some CD's won't play, so I had to use a cheap CD player that plays them all, we just bought a laptop so I don't have that problem anymore.

 

[DJ Swydez]

Your problem is not The CD players, is the CD's If the CD's are burned a Max speed of the CD burner, chances are they won't play....They have to be burned at a lower speed, but you have no way to control that, so the best thing to do is to get a laptop and play them from there. I have had problems @ church where some CD's won't play, so I had to use a cheap CD player that plays them all, we just bought a laptop so I don't have that problem anymore.

 

I burn CDs off my laptop computer at max speed all the time. I use iTunes to import my music in MP3 format and then burn audio CDs from there. All of the CDs I burn play on my DJ CD players, other computers, household CD players, DVD players, car CD players, portable CD players, etc. Never have I had a problem playing a burned CD in "audio" format unless they were scratched or unfinalized, but with MP3 CDs it is another story...

 

Oh and btw, you CAN control the speed at which your computer CD drive burns CDs, if you so wish. Go into "My Computer", right click on your CD burner and select "Properties." From there select the "Recording" tab. Then make sure the box that says "Enable CD recording on this Drive" is checked. Then click the drop menu under "Select a Speed" and select a lower speed. Once finished, click "Apply" and then exit. You should be able to burn CDs now. If not, check in the menus of the particular software you are using to burn the CDs to make sure nothing is preventing the proper burning process.

 

Also, you may want to check the max speed of the CD-Rs you are using to make your CDs. If the max speed on the drive is higher than the max speed the CD-Rs can be burned at, you need to lower the burning speed on the drive to be able to burn working CDs.

 

Good Luck.

[BillESC]

Perhaps packaging your CD players would eliminate most of your problems.

 

 

or

 

 

Boxed systems transport better and last longer.

[Kevin Mc Carthy]

Hey Mark,

 

Unfortunately, I don't think you'll ever find one CD player that is guaranteed to play everything. You're dealing with way to many variables...one of which nobody has touched on here yet, is the quality of the blank media these folks bringing you the discs are using. I've burned things on blank discs that i've bought for about a dime apiece and sometimes have problems playing them in different players. If I want to be relatively sure it's going to play on just about anything, I use a high quality disc that will cost about a dollar. Mitsui is my brand of choice. You'd be surprised what a difference it makes in compatibility but unfortunately you don't have the luxury of choosing the blank media being used.

 

I own a Marantz professional CD recorder and have found it to be very reliable, good sounding and pretty forgiving when it comes to playing discs from various sources. Being a recorder, it might not matter if the disc was finalized or not either. While it's not $1000.00, it may be close, but worth every penny of it in build quality. This is a dual tray which may or may not be a benefit. If you only need a single tray, I believe they make one of those also. Here's a link to the one I would look into:

 

http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=1516&CatID=1&SubCatID=6

 

Best of luck.

 

Kevin

[gruvjack]

Get a Denon. Most reliable brand of CD players in my experience. Never failed me.

 

V.

[Al Poulin]

Man, I love my minidisc players. In over 10 years of use, I have yet to have a track skip or a player not read a disc. I have done a few school concerts where each different class had a different song. Some were from cassettes, some CDs. Instead of having to cue all of those and have to play over 10 different cassettes/CDs stacked in order on a table, I asked for a program, and transferred all the songs from cassettes and CDs to one minidisc. Then, using the editing capabilities of MD, put them in the order I needed for the show. From what I've read, you probably don't usually have that kind of convenience....Unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to find full size MD recorders. The same could be done with a computer or Ipod I suppose. Transferring can be a bit trickier thoug, if you have to deal with cassettes, which is getting rarer and rarer.. Al - Party-Time! DJ Services

[agedhorse]

MD is unfortunately on it's way out. CDR, IPOD, MP-3 and computer playback via Instant Replay type software is shoving yet another technically superior yet commercially disasterous device up Sony's ass.

 

They are one company that has yet learned how to do buslness in the pro audio or commercial world. While they do have their commercial success, they have the most impressive list of products that they alone have killed due to their corporate ineptness.

 

1. Beta (consumer)

2. El Cassette (semi-pro)

3. LCD video projection (professional)

4. SDDS digital audio cinema format (cinema professional)

5. MD (semi-pro and pro audio)

 

All of these were technically superior than the competition but they refused to license any of their technology and then failed to live up to their promise of delivery/support. Anybody want to buy a $30k SDDS system???

[Gregidon]

 

MD is unfortunately on it's way out. CDR, IPOD, MP-3 and computer playback via Instant Replay type software is shoving yet another technically superior yet commercially disasterous device up Sony's ass. They are one company that has yet learned how to do buslness in the pro audio or commercial world. While they do have their commercial success, they have the most impressive list of products that they alone have killed due to their corporate ineptness. 1. Beta (consumer) 2. El Cassette (semi-pro) 3. LCD video projection (professional) 4. SDDS digital audio cinema format (cinema professional) 5. MD (semi-pro and pro audio) All of these were technically superior than the competition but they refused to license any of their technology and then failed to live up to their promise of delivery/support. Anybody want to buy a $30k SDDS system???

 

 

So true... at least they seem to be getting Blu-ray done right this time. By getting a bunch of other companies involved from the get-go they should have a fighting chance against HD-DVD. Who wants to buy a $1000 blu-ray player?.... we'll see how that one pans out.

[Craig Vecchione]

Sony can bite me. Between their incompatible formats (yeah, I had a Betamax ) and consumer product failures (I had 4 of their phones before I finally learned my lesson, and a DVD system that died a month out of the 90-day warranty) I truly doubt I'll buy anything from them anytime soon. True, I had a Trinitron tv that lasted 20 years, but one success out of 7 does not a happy customer make

[Dryskin]

Sorry I can

[agedhorse]

 

Granted, this is a dedicated computer that stays back in the sound booth (no internet or games). Good luck

 

 

Good point, and the basic computer (and OS) must be stable also.

[DJ Swydez]

Now, all I do is rip each CD to a computer and create a playlist (WMP or whatever you use). No problems for the past 3 years. Granted, this is a dedicated computer that stays back in the sound booth (no internet or games).

 

This is what I do... I either rip all the music off of the CDs and play it off the computer using iTunes, or I make a master disc which I burn myself. This works for me, and I have never had any problems playing these discs in any CD players (unless they were scratched or chipped of course)... Oh and btw, I use my Compaq laptop for games, internet, word processing, playing music, etc. and it has never failed me (granted it does get a little slow sometimes when I run tons of apps), however I always have a backup computer either under the table or in the car... If you are going to use a computer often to play music, but you use it often for other things (as I do), I would recommend reinstalling your operating system once in a while to get rid of any bugs in your system and keep everything running smoothly (I do this about once every 6 months or so and am problem free)...

 

Good Luck.

[GigMan]

 

Get a Denon. Most reliable brand of CD players in my experience. Never failed me. V.

 

 

 

yah - I have a Denon DN615 in my rack:

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-DEN-DNC615.html

 

It has never met a CD it couldn't play - although I agree that there are some home-brew, homemade CD's that sometimes just won't play on some players.