Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Furniture or mega-changer?

OK...our new townhouse is coming along nicely. Painting is nearly finished, new stairs are being put in...but we've got a huge mountain of cd's piled up along the livingroom wall. Our dvd's are currently stored in a really cheap shelving unit...not a pretty sight. So we've got to do something. One idea was to buy a mega-changer, and stash the cd cases in the closet. Then get some sort of nice shelving on the wall for the dvd's. Another idea is to buy a nice storage unit for the cd's and dvd's.

What do you all think? Can some of you post pics of how you store your cd's and dvd's? I need some ideas!

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Furniture or mega-changer?

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Wood or Electronics........................Electronics for me everytime!!!!! As for storage. My wife has an old china case that I keep all my DVD's in. Sounds odd but it looks kinda nice and she likes it so it works for me.

If I get the changer, is that Pioneer Elite likely the best mega-changer I can get? I've found it on the web for under $400.

I'm not real up on MEGA changers (I use my computer) but that one sure looks decent to me.

Hi Craig,

I truly wish I could help you with more than opinion. I am very interested in your question, and hope you will keep us posted as to its resolution.

It seems to me that it is a more efficient use of space to go the mega-changer route. You could put the jewel-case inserts into plastic sheets in a set of binders or something so that you still have them for reference.

Some people (like both me and the missus) to not like the "look" of hundreds of jewel-case spines as a design element. I'll try to post a picture of what we did. Basically, we got inexpensive Ikea drawer units, bolted them together and painted them. It is a bit like an apothecary chest (lots of small drawers with knobs on the front).

Nice furniture is expensive!

I am also seriously considering the mega-changer route.

Got time to rip everything to a HTPC?

The more I search, the more a mega-changer seems like the best route. Even though we have 500+/- cd's and the changer would only hold 301. But for that matter, the only furniture I've seen that looks nice could only hold part of our cd/dvd collection as well. This shouldn't be so hard, should it?

Hey guys,

I have the Sony CDP-450, a 400 disc mega changer. I have it stashed behind my M60s, next to the TV. It is barely noticeable. With a little extension wire, I couldve put it further away from the system, but the room really didn't make that a better solution. I used some IR repeaters and hooked it up to it and my cable box (which sits behind the TV, out of sight). I also have the cdp-450 hooked up ("daisy chained") to a Sony 200 disc mega changer.

Here's why I love it, aside from the fact that it, aesthetically is a very clean solution to "CD clutter." First, I love being able to view all of my discs on the TV. Beware! Some cd mega changers don't give you a video out to display the names of the discs on the TV, and you have to squint at the tiny display to find out what cd you're playing or want to play. The 450 has the video out (which the 455 does not have - is that an upgrade or what?). Pressing "play" on random all is a truly great experience, especially because I tend to listen to the same cds over and over again. This helps me rediscover my old discs - ones that I would never get the urge to put in for any good reason.

Second, I love putting discs on and just letting them ride - for a party, for back groudn music, whatever. It's so easy to "auto dj" a party.

Third - with two players daisy chained together, you can use Sony's "mega-control" feature, which eliminates the delay in between random tracks. While the first player is playing, the second player is searching for and cueing up the next song. Great feature.

Lastly, with over 420 discs in my collection, I find that I don't ever leave discs lying around to get scratched or lost. This is just taken out of the equation.

There are some questions about Sony's reliability from a construction quality standpoint, but I haven't had any problems so far. I bought both players off of eBay for less than $300 total.

I really do love the functionality of the players. My wife digs that fact that we'er cutting down on "tech storage" space. We turned a huge cabinet full of cds into a "box" that is basically a 36" black cube (both players stacked on top of one another). It's no bigger than my STF-2, and would actually look quite nice opposite the sub to balance out the aesthetic.

Spiff - go to epinions and read the reviews for yourself. Note your preferences and choose judiciously. For example, I chose video out over mp3 playability with the 450, and couldn't be happier (though I'd pay for a player that did both).

In sum - go with the mega changer.

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Can some of you post pics of how you store your cd's and dvd's?

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Here's my built-in DVD shelves http://www.aa4m.com/photos/ht/ht190Resized.jpg and here's my CD/tape cabinets http://www.aa4m.com/photos/ht/ht070Resized.jpg. Be sure to allow room for growth!

- Bill

Sony makes a 300 disc mega-changer that retails at $199. Daisy chaining 2 of them together would give you room to grow, give better random playback and cost less. Mine only has the optical digital out, though.

Question regarding daisy-chaining...

If you have two units linked, the remote control only has to reach one of them, no?

I don't have room for two units in my cabinet, but I could put on unit in the cabinet, and the other outside, behind the cabinet.

Just a very quick addition to the VERY thorough post above on megachangers- check their size to determine if they'll fit in your space.

I have two of the Sonys daisy-chained and they are everything as described...but boy are they deep. If you have deep shelves (especially enclosed) you'll never notice it... but put them on open racks like my Bello stand and they sure seem monstrous!

Thanks guys. I'm now leaning heavily towards daidy chained mega-changers for the cd's and a modest shelf/cabinet setup for the dvd's. Of course that's the priciest option, but certainly will have the highest SAF. I include myself in that...I don't want my living room looking like a blockbuster video store!

Here's what not to do:

(l-r) my CD racks in my office, her CD rack in her office and our DVD shelf in the living room.



Bren R.

Too funny Bren...but at this point, that looks good compared to what we're doing right now!

Do you have a PC and a home network? If so, you might consider a digital music player like the AudioTron (AudioTron) or the SqueezeBox (SqueezeBox). Both are two or three hundred dollars, and allow you to play thousands of CD's from your computer (assuming you have the disk space). The only real downside that I see is that you have to rip all your CD's to some other format (FLAC, WAV, or MP3) and store them on the computer. This get's over the one thing that I really don't like about the mega changers though, in that it always seems that when I want to listen to my current favorite CD it's somewhere I'm not (i.e. the car, at work, upstairs, wife's car, etc...). I've not purchased one yet, so I don't have any personal experience, but plan to unless there's something that I'm missing. I've already got both a wired and wireless network in my house (mostly used to share the cable modem), so I'm all set there.

That's where things are headed isn't it. Music from your PC. It's funny that saying that I want to keep and use my CD's makes me "old school". What does that make people who still listen to vinyl? Dinosaurs? (No offense meant to any LP lovers out there!)

Yeah, I guess it is where things are headed. I too like to own the physical CD, rather than downloading it from iTunes or some such service. It's just that when I want to listen to the CD, it'd be nice to not have to hunt around for it. Seems that the more CDs I get the more likely it is that I can't find the one I'm looking for -- some crazy inverse proportion relationship thing. Plus, I like the idea of being easily able to create play lists (via drag and drop on the PC).

If I had vinyl, I think I'd want to do the same thing for the same reasons.

Have you considered the 400 disc CD/DVD Mega Changers like the Sony Sony DVP-CX777ES or SONY DVP-CX985V. I'm pretty happy with the 300 disc version but keep eyeing the above that play SACD. I loaded the dvd's into the high end numbers going down and the cd's in from one up so I add discs to either end depending on type. No cases or racks to deal with at all.

I went the computer road years ago. Not sure why I did it but it has worked out. At first I thought it would be cheaper but after you add up a good sound card, bigass hard drives etc etc. I doubt it's that much cheaper. But you can't beat WinAmp and just letting tunes go based on genre, year or whatever you feel like. I currently have 2 hard drives devoted to MP3's. One is 100gig that is my main and another is a 160gig that serves as my back-up. I also tote around a USB External 80gig Maxtor. When I go to a buds or whatever, I take my tunes with me!

I was about to suggest the 400 disc Sony! It costs a little more and I couldn't find anything on-line that would tell me about its video processing capabilities (or is that a mature technology now, too?), but one of those and one of the 300 disc cheapos would work pretty damn well. I was thinking about that a while ago, now that I have so many baby videos.
Dunno about the remote question, spiff.

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video processing capabilities (or is that a mature technology now, too?),

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:-) No it's not. There are huge differences in video processors!!!!!...................but you knew that didn't you? lol

NeverHappy - How's the sound quality of the MP3's? And what bitrate encoding are you using? I was thinking of going with FLAC or some other lossless encoding for better sound quality, but I'm curious as to what you think. MP3's would certainly save a lot of hard disk space.

Say What! NeverHappy, you worry about the brand name of your DACs, but happily compress your music into MP3s???

Yeah, that's pretty shocking!

And yes - I only use one remote to work both units. Basically, when you daisy chain the players, the second player is a slave to the first. the first player controls when and how the second one is working and can even read the cd names from the second player (if encoded or pre-labelled).

And yes, they are deep. I'm happy that someone else mentioned this. Mine are free floating on the floor behind the speakers, so it's not much of an issue, but in a rack, they might be too deep.

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Say What! NeverHappy, you worry about the brand name of your DACs, but happily compress your music into MP3s???

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Only when it's time to do some critical listening do I pay attention to what DAC's I'm running everything through. :-)

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NeverHappy - How's the sound quality of the MP3's? And what bitrate encoding are you using? I was thinking of going with FLAC or some other lossless encoding for better sound quality, but I'm curious as to what you think. MP3's would certainly save a lot of hard disk space.

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I use Exact Audio Copy with LAME and rip everything at 320. I have tried FLAC and every other one out there and everytime I go back to EAC and LAME. As for the sound quality, I could fool anyone on these boards. 99.9% of people would not be able to tell one of my MP3's from the CD.

Craig, as I've said before and as Adrien and the two Marks have indicated here, my view is that daisy-chained Sonys is the way to go.

I'm considering the Sony mega changer as well. I'm not too much of a Sony fan. However, their mega changers look very nice.
I also found this http://www.escient.com/fireballmp100.html
It might be overkill but a lot easier to manage all of my CD's.

Thanks, NeverHappy. I hadn't heard of Exact Audio Copy or LAME but I'll check them out. Also glad to hear your comments about the good audio quality of MP3's ripped at 320 (I forget if it's bps, or kbps, or whatever). I was thinking that 320 bits ought to be enough for anyone.

spiff, when you have time, you should come over and check out my MP3 to audio system setup. I currently use the Linksys Wireless Media adapter, but I'm thinking about switching to the Apple Airport Express.

Afterwards we can go play some tennis.

I've seen your wireless set up Curtis. It's very cool. Roger's actually hooking up the Tivo (oh, yeah...we got tivo last week) to a wireless system from our computers upstairs. As much as I hate the idea of it, perhaps ripping all my cd's and storing them upstairs on a firewire drive, and using the wireless network to listen downstairs isn't such a horrible idea. (I may have typed that, but my mind is saying "yes it is.")

How much drive space are we talking for 400+ cd's? What are all the drawbacks to this idea? You all really need to sell me on it before I go that route. Right now the sony 400 disc changer idea sounds pretty good.

I've got probably around 200 CDs that are taking up 20 GB of space, ripped as 160-192 bit AACs. This is probably not CD quality, but (here's the shocking phrase on an audio board) I can't tell the difference.

Curtis...why are you considering changing from the Linksys to the Apple? What is it about the Linksys you don't like?

More questions regarding going the "ripyercdsandforgetaboutem" idea.

If I go that route, I'll need to buy some more storage space for my computer. I'd wanted to add some space anyway, so I was looking at some firewire drives.

I like this one. It's 250gb, looks nice, and can be had for about $225. The other drive that I've looked at is this one. It's only 120gb, but twice as fast. It can be had for $180. How important is that extra speed? More important than the extra space? Getting the speed and the space is more than I want to spend.

The extra speed will do you no good whatsoever with music storage. For that, you want BIG. If you're going to be using it as your primary drive, you'll want the speed (which you're not, since it's firewire). However, if that's part of the same Big Drive line as I think it is, that's a pair of disks in one enclosure, without a fan. Because of the way they're configured, if one of the disks goes bad, you lose everything. NOT a good idea. Stay away from anything in the Big Disk lineup, unless you really want to rerip all your CDs on a moment's notice.

--edit--
oops, looks like their website isn't properly set up... The second one isn't a Big Disk, but my statements about Big Disks still stand. In any case, go for the capacity, not the speed.

When your ripping or actually playing a MP3, the drive speed doesn't matter in the least. Ripping speed is more controlled by what your using (Software) to rip and the CD player being used.

One more thing, that 250gb Lacie is the way to go! They make nice stuff!

OK...so the 250gb Lacie Porche drive is the better option. Looks better, stores twice as much.

Firewire card...are Firewire 800 cards backwards compatible with Firewire 400 drives? If so, is there any point in spending the extra $30-40 for the 800 card over the 400 card? (Thinking future proofing)

The Firewire 800 cards should be backwards compatible (I think; my only experience is with built in, e.g. Macs), but you'll need special cables, which will probably be expensive and hard to find. The 800 uses a 9 pin connector, and the 400 uses 6 or 4 pin connetors (the extra 2 pins carry power).

I have no idea on your question but I have played around with my external drive with the USB hook-up and the firewire hook-up and didn't see any difference in speed, reliability............nothing.

OK...after further investigation, I'm leaning heavily towards ripping my cd's. (*sigh*)

Lacie 250gb USB2.0 drive
Belkin 5 port USB2.0 PCI card
Belkin Gold Series USB2.0 Cable (A/B)
Apple Airport Express

What am I missing? (A wireless network is being setup this week already for other reasons.)

From their lit (the Lacie 250):

Available with high-speed FireWire interface, the LaCie Hard Drive offers fast data transfer rates (up to 400Mbits/s) that are required for substantial jobs like rendering 2D/3D images

I find that utterly humourous - for anyone that has done any 3D rendering - you realize the rendering engine spits out one frame (about a meg) every say 30 seconds to 30 minutes, which means you need something capable of about 0.25-16 (not 400) Mbits/s.

Uncompressed CD audio requires about 10MB a minute (or about 1.5mbits per second) so I'd say you're pretty much covered.

Bren R.

Just the software you are going to rip with and I have a feeling that will turn into a debate and a half around here!!!!!

From my own experience (I have been doing MP3's since before Napster if that matters!) I have had the best results with EAC and LAME following this standard:

http://www.ubernet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Files&file=uberstandard

I must admit that I don't follow that to the letter. I use EAC version V0.95 PreBETA 5 from 8 and LAME 3.96. My results after trying a ton of other combinations, are flawless at 320kps. I have tried them all from Flac to Monkey to a ton of other variations and in the end I have had the best luck and the best results using the above.

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What am I missing?

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About 100 hours of your life that you'll never get back. I thought about going this route - and yes, the end product is a great investment - no more worrise about scratches - you effectively get a back-up version of all of your music, and in the meantime, you can purchase a big floppy binder and put all of your discs in your car or second room if you want... but jees, that project sounds like something that would take the better part of two months over the course of several weekends. On the other hand, I loaded in my discs and input the names in less than a day (most of the time was spent loading in the names, which went faster than expected).

I know you're a big boy, but make sure you consider what you're getting into.

Time, Craig, you're missing Time.

You're OBVIOUSLY going to want excellent fidelity (I like and respect NeverHappy's experience here). I don't know how long it takes to rip an average CD using his methodology. My (limited) experience suggests that 7-8 minutes per disk using Musicmatch at 192. For 400 CD's, you're talking about ~60 hours of swapping disks continuously. PLUS cddb lookup time, PLUS category/list management, etc.

Now, I don't dispute that some of this investment really pays off in value-added functionality, but the infrastructure startup time is signficant.

Craig, don't you also need a control device on the listening end? Digital media receiver or some such?

Do you guys back those huge drives up?

I guess I just don't want to relinquish my nice, shiny disks to the binary desert. Yes, I still have a turntable. No, I haven't used it lately.

Anybody else considering abandoning their VCR? I still have several, but now that I have Tivo, I can't imagine ever actually using one again.

Hey, if I ditch the turntable AND the VCR, maybe I'll have room for those mega changers! No, wait, I don't need one of those if I do all that ripping/networking stuff.

God, I am confused. I'm just going to go back to the beer thread where I belong.

Hey now guys...after I finally start to come around to the ripping cd's idea, you bust out the "NO STOP!" routine!

I too am hesitant to give up my nice shiny cd's. But on the other hand, I've given up on a land line phone (hell, did that about 2 years ago!), we got tivo last week, and I've already removed our vcr's.

Yeah, it's going to take some time, but I'm weird...I actually look forward to it. I like cataloging stuff.

What about all the time you and your computer will have to spend away from the Axiom forum? Those moral majority guys will probably try to take over the politics thread.

I've given up on that political thread. Too out numbered. You guys wore me down.

If I'm sitting at my desk for hours at a time ripping cd's what do you think I'll be doing while they rip? I'll be here of course.

Good for you! You will have to invest some time but in the end, you will be happy you did it!

One thing to mention is don't forget to back everything up as you go along. I have all my MP3's on one 100gig and I back it all up on to a seperate 160gig. Chances of them both crapping out at the same time are about the same as me winning the lottery!!!!

If you need help with anything, let me know and I will do my best.

Spiff/NeverHappy...

I'm going to start a new thread with a comparison between MP3 and lossless compression here. Maybe check it out.

Bren R.

Geez...this thread took off!

I answered spiff in a private email he sent....but I will answer it here.

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Curtis...why are you considering changing from the Linksys to the Apple? What is it about the Linksys you don't like?

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I am considering the change because of the ease of use factor with the Apple Airport Express.

The Linksys requires you to do some onscreen(TV) navigation to get music playing. Once playing it is great and displays track title, artist, and album all onscreen. One thing it does that the Airport Express does not do is display photos on the TV.

The Aiport Express is controlled via iTunes on the computer. Just one click and it begins the stream. You can also drag and drop to create new playlists. Managing songs in iTunes is very easy. The Aiport Express is also very small and easily hidden.

Hmmm...I actually need on screen controls. My computer(s) is upstairs, my stereo downstairs. I don't want to have to go upstairs to get things going, and then come back downstairs to listen.

Does the Airport Express have both computer controls AND on-screen tv controls?

No...it does not.....it is strictly computer controlled right now. There is a rumor of a remote controlled version on the horizon.

Well [censored]...just when I seemed to have made up my mind.

Spiff, I have nothing constructive to add here, but I feel I need to tell you what I was going to post immediately after reading the post title.

I though you had X amount of dollars to spend on either a changer or a nice piece of furniture (unrelated to CD storage), so I was going to recommend the furniture since you can't have sex on a megachanger ... or can you? Ow.

hmmm...

Got our wireless network setup last night. (Thanks to Roger...I'm usless when it comes to that crap.)

Seems our tivo can do pretty much what that Linksys system can. I'll play with it some more this week and let you know what I find out. But as far as I know, we've got some sort of "home media center" with it, that lets you browse all your music, pictures, etc via your tivo/tv/stereo. Seems pretty good to me. I'll let you know what I find out.

If that's the case, I'll I need is some storage space, and start rippin'!

Anybody out there use their Tivo for this?

I wish.

My understanding is that only STANDALONE Tivos have this functionality. Home Media Option is not available on Directivo to my knowledge.

I'm hoping to in the next couple of days.

I asked my Dad what he would like for his birthday and, after hearing all of my raves in the last couple of years, said he wanted a TiVo. I bought one a month before his birthday when I saw it on sale with a great rebate.

Well, we cut the box to remove the SKU, sent in the rebate, and he now said he wants to try the "Cable box with built-in DVR" alternative so he has a one-box solution. I couldn't return the TiVo with the cut box (plus it's a little over 30 days) and with a final cost of $100 in a store, I'd only get probably $50 for it on eBay (though the box is still actually sealed). I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'm gonna end up eating the cost of the one I bought.

So, I'm going to end up with a Series 2 TiVo to replace my original model. I'll be able to stream music from my PC and program it for a recording over the web. It's not all bad. I just would not have bought one at the moment, because my gut feeling is that they're offering these $100 rebates to clean out stock before introducing a hi-def version.... THAT's what I was waiting for!

Hopefully, I'll get it set up in a couple of days and can report on how well it works out...

Don't forget, you'll have to do MP3s to use the TiVo.

Spiff, as an alternative to TiVo, you can buy an Airport Express from Apple and hook it up to your HT. With the free iTunes program, you can rip all your music with Apple's Lossless Encoder, saving 50% over uncompressed file sizes, and then wirelessly stream music to your HT via the Airport Express. It only costs $129. I have one and it's great.

The one downside it that it doesn't come with remote control functionality. There are ways of doing it, but all are extremely geeky.

I was going to go that route, but having to control it from my computer isn't possible, as the computer is upstairs, and the HT system is downstairs.