Re: dedicated cd players versus jukebox software: which is best?

["David Buckley" <db@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Stephen <yahoo@s...> wrote:

> I was thinking of making images of my cds onto the hard drive
> and then using some jukebox software to play them, but I have
> now seen that Sony sell a cd player that hold 300 discs! What
> are the advantages/disadvantages of each option? Which is
> best?

I'm going to stick up for the jukebox option, with some provisos.

My CD system is 3 x 200 disc sony players, a slink-e, and CDJ
software, and some more stuff I'll get to later.

First, I need another player or two, as I have too many disks :-(

The Good news:  The music is CD quality, not compresssed.  I have no
backups, but CDs dont tend to die like hard disks.  It uses less
power, and (most of the time) makes less noise.  With two or more
players, it can sequence disks without gaps.  All the track and
album data is held in a (jet) database, and is automatically
populated from CDDB or FreeDB.  It works.  Really well.


The Bad news:  It only does one "zone".  The limitation is the
CDJ
software, which is only capable of controlling one zone.  With the
DXS switch, and using external DACs, the core system can handle more
zones, though I need more players to be comfortable.  I think that
for most times, 2 + number_of_zones player should be adequate,
though more would never hurt.  More players is better than less
players with more slots.  But I need to find (or write) a multi zone
player program.

Also bad:  it's all mechanical, so one day it will break down and
need repair.

Also bad: I suspect the total cost is well more than a hard disk
system.

Also bad:  The audio DACs on multidisk CD machines are generally
pants, you need to use external DACs or an amplifier with a digital
input.  It is true I used the internal DACs and a passive mixer when
the players used to live in the workshop, but the inadequacy of the
internal DACs was more than masked by the workshop sound system,
consisting of an Amerex tuner/amp/8 track (remember them?), rescued
from a skip, and a pair of 1970s speakers, one of which had a blown
tweeter...

The terrible news: Nirvis, makers of slink-e and CDJ are shutting up
shop, see http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1439.html

The extra stuff:  The DXS switch is a digital audio matrix switch,
which can switch (16) digital audio signal inputs to (8) outputs in
any combination.  Now sadly discontinued.  Each output from the
switch (in node 0) goes to an external DAC converter placed by the
amplifier from the zone, over coax (or over cat5, if you mod the DXS
i/o board).  You can still read all about it in the Nirvis help file.