At a glance, here's a long overdue pic of my system (all but the QS8's). I had to take it at an angle because I couldn't stand far enough in front of it to get the tv in! Notice the Okiniwa shisa guarding the system?!

Very nice, Mary, but has it been effective, i.e. have you had any problems with evil spirits?

WOW Mary! That is one BIG TV. Everything looks great, and I'll wager it sounds even better than it looks. Very nice, indeed.

Nice looking setup Mary! Looks like you are a major DVD aficionado. How do you like the Megachanger? Good performance, easy to organize, display of CD titles???

nice setup!

Randy, from Des Moines

ditto, very nice.

i am sure jealous of that TV. nice, modern, overall look.

bigjohn

Hi!
GREAT!Enjoy your system!
I have the same TV and I am waiting to get my Axiom system(M80,VP 150,QS8).Could you please let me know where did you get the stands from and how much did they cost(can I order them on line?)
Thanks,
Octavian

I like it! Great symmetry.

I also have to ask about the megachanger, what brand and model is that? After my Toshiba SD-9200 died, I bought a cheapie Sony player as a temp fix, and I'm looking at getting a changer now.

Hi Octavian,

I got the stands at my local Office Max, but it looks like you can order online, here. They're even on clearance now! Anyway, I bought them because they were inexpensive and the looks were acceptable. I don't quite like the metal tubing along the sides and back but it's not very noticeable when viewing from the front. I also wanted two of them (to be symetrical) and I couldn't afford two of any other stand out there! Stands are really expensive, it seems. This is about as good as I can do right now, but it seems to match the setup OK anyway.

No such evil yet...probably due to the shisa!

WOW!!!

I bet spiff is drooling.

Hi, Jack! Unfortunately, the TV is NOT mine, nor the Xbox. They belong to my roommate. She cared more about the size of the TV and I cared more about the size of the sound. It's a good comprimise! I really want an HDTV set, but until more stations become available, this does just fine for now.

That big TV does not do HD?

*smiles* This may be news to some, but big TV's have been around a lot longer then you think ^_^, that TV is obviously 4:3, so thus it does not do HDTV...

Good symetry, I like!

As for the DVD's, you think that's impressive? I have 3 times as much as that, and MY collection is small! I've got friends with 900+ dvd's

- D

Very nice indeed.

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*smiles* This may be news to some, but big TV's have been around a lot longer then you think ^_^, that TV is obviously 4:3, so thus it does not do HDTV...

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There are 4:3 TVs that are HD. True, if that is a much older unit, it won't do HD.

Well, if that is not a Hi Def, TV, you can be happy that it's not yours. Not that there is anything wrong with that set. It's just that when you CAN get your own TV, your can get yourself one that's Hi Def.

Were I younger, I probably would've waited. At my age, I figured I'd better get one while I can. If I'd waited until there are enough channels to justify the purchase, I ran the risk that I could be pushing up daisies by then.

A wise precaution, Mary. As you may know, there've been reports of evil spirits coming in the night, spiriting away Axiom speakers, and leaving Bose cubes in their place.

My Phillips 60" is a 4:3 HDTV. If you don't mind the dull gray, the wooly stock speakers, and the lack of name brand cache, it's an awesome deal at Costco for $1299.
Does 1080i apparently, but all I've seen is the progressive scan output from my DVD player. Awesome picture - couldn't be happier.
The old shape is definitely a plus for standard TV broadcasts, IMO.

Precisely John. Some members of this board (cough cough me!) grew up just outside the quad-cities and know their way around (sort of). I don't think it would take much time to remember what is where and start lookin!

jr

PS Very nice setup!

Oh yeah, almost forgot - nice HT, sonicfox (especially for a chick LOL, JK, etc...).

Hello BigWill!

Nice to see you back! Nice set up sonicfox!

About the megachanger. The model I have is a Sony CDP-CX355. Although I haven't had any problems with it, I cannot recommend this particular unit due to reliability problems that others seemed to have had. Surprisingly, a lot of people said it destroyed some cds getting tangled in the carousel tray and others had problems with the cds skipping. I think I've had one cd skip and it was actually a cdr, but I've never had a problem with cds getting caught up in the tray. I'm suspicious that people aren't putting the cds in the tray properly, but just too many people are having this problem.

Because I'm too lazy to write my own description, here's a run down copied from Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Product Description
The CDPCX355 300-disc CD changer puts hours upon hours of music at your fingertips with features like cross-fade sound, text display, and an organization feature that makes it easy to find your favorite songs and albums. The CDPCX355 plays audio CDs, CD-Rs, and CD-RWs, and you can program it to play CDs or tracks one by one, in random order, or in your own customized track order. You can create up to 8 different groups of CDs to quickly jump to certain styles of music or a favorite collection of songs. A hit list memory feature allows you to return to your 32 most frequently played songs instantly. You can browse through all of your CDs by name, so you'll never lose track of what CDs are in the player or what order they are in. You can also custom-label CDs stored in the CDPCX355 for quicker retrieval. The CDPCX355 includes a jog dial control that gives you quick access to individual CDs or tracks. With the jog dial, you can listen to snippets of music or skip tracks you don't like quickly.

For power users or music lovers with a deep library of CDs, the CDPCX355 can synch up with another CD changer. You'll never have to wait for a disc to change to keep the music playing, thanks to a cross-fade feature that brings the audio of one CD down at the same time that a new disc starts to play. By adding a second changer, you can expand your instant access to up to 600 CDs total, and both changers can be controlled by a single remote.

The hybrid pulse digital-to-audio converter reproduces a warm, natural sound from your CDs, making you feel like you were there when the music was recorded. You can easily connect the CDPCX355 to an audio receiver with both analog RCA-type and digital optical outputs. An analog connection instantly synchs the CDPCX355 to another changer, and a Control A-1II cord links the CDPCX355 to any other Sony components in your audio system or home theater. A headphone jack is also featured.

In case you're interested, I'll add my own personal experience and explain how I use it. I input all the cds by artist name first, then album name. When inputting the artist's name, I usually use the first and last initial, the first three letters of the band name, or any other abbreviation to help me recall the artist. This way, when I want to find albums by a particular artist, I do a 'memo search' which recalls text alphabetically. (The exception is if I have a bunch of cds from the same artist, I usually input only the album name and put that artist in it's own 'group'). Unfortunately, when doing a 'memo search' it always starts at the beginning of the alphabet, so you may have to do a lot of scrolling to get to the desired album as you cannot jump to certain letters. Another quirk with 'memo search' is that if the cd already comes with text on it, it cannot be edited. Therefore, it retrieves the cd by album name and not the artist.

Before going on, I must add one quick note about inputting text with this unit. You can connect a computer keyboard to the front of the unit to make inputting text easier. It helps, but it's still a pain because the player cannot keep up with the typing and ends up doubling up on letters or skipping them altogether. Although it's still faster, you have to be careful. It's really frustrating!

Anyway, after the cd text (artist & album name) is input to my liking, I place it in any one of the 8 'groups' which can be anything...artist name, rock, dance, classical, jazz, etc. If you can remember the 'group' the cd is in, this may be a better way to search for them instead of going through the whole library. However, the SAME cd cannot be placed in more than one group which can be frustrating.

Well, I haven't gotten around to using ALL of the other functions of the player, but in general, I really like it. It's too bad others are having problems. Well, I'm sure if you find another more reliable unit, the functions will probably be the same. The real pain of these megachangers are inputting the damn cds! It's a slow process. I'm still not done!

This is precisely why the first company to market with a computerized music server that's affordable and easy to use will make a fortune.

I use the squeezbox, sounds great, no problems, easy set up, wireless, reasonable price.

Sonicfox:

Have you heard of software that controls the megachanger to gather all the disc info? Someone told me about it probably 2 years ago, but I never followed up on it. Evidently, it uses the 1/8" connectors that allow "chaining" two units together.

My understanding is that you load the changer, sit it next to an internet-enabled computer, and connect the included serial to 1/8" jack to enable the PC to talk to the changer. Then, the software rotates to each CD slot, gathering the info needed for the Gracenote database to figure out the artist and album and enter the information. I'm not sure what it does with the "group" classification.

I have two Sony 400 disc changers that offer me a love/hate relationship. I do think that these units are best paired with a mate to avoid the long wait times between disc access. I love being able to choose a genre and have them shuffle play all tracks from the genre (group), even adding a short crossfade between the two. I love that they are text-CD capable and that the big display on each does a decent job giving you track names, etc. I love the fact that I have 700 discs taking up very little space in comparison to Jewel Cases.

I don't love not having the ability to play multiple groups without others, plus the limitation of 8 groups. For instance, my groups are (and nobody better give me no crap!): 50s, 60's, 70's, hard rock, rap, best-of, new, and Christmas. I have the 50's, 60's, and 70's groups because I have the complete Time-Life series of each decade and, to me, I can't just put them all under "rock" because I don't want to hear the Black Crowes followed by Chubby Checker. But sometimes I do want to hear a wide variety of music, so I'd like to choose all…. But then I'm hearing "White Christmas" in July. If I had more "groups" available, I'd add soft rock, jazz, classical, and "other" (for such CDs as those soundscapes CDs with The Seashore, Thunder and Rain, etc…hey, I haven't tried that last one with my Axioms and 350 Sub!).

I also intensely dislike having to enter in the info for each disc. I completely emptied the changers about 10 months ago because discs weren't back in the right slots, plus most discs' information seemed to have gotten corrupted: Jimi Hendrix under the Artist Group of "Journey" for example. I have yet to put them back in the changers, and instead just have them on spindles making it very difficult to gain access to a disc when I'm in the mood for it. I know it's gonna take three days to get them all entered, though, and I always have more important things to do!

I've been stalling in hopes of finding a media server that I like, and getting my networking setup correctly (I have 6 computers and three printers that need wired, wireless and gigabit networking and it's been very problematic…I'm waiting for my "Systems Integrator" to make the trip here and get it done once and for all). At that point, I might just convert some of my older video-editing drives into a 400 Gig array and dedicate and older computer as a server house-wide.

I've even considered ripping all my music to harddrives in the meantime, and duping each disc to a CD-Text capable version. That way, the artist and album info are ALWAYS "with" the disc if it should end up in the wrong slot, and I'll have track names so there's no missing the Jewel Cases stored in the attic.

In the meantime, till I figure out how best to handle all these discs, I miss my music!

I should also add: Nice system, by the way! And having just gotten a new large-creen with high-def capability, my opinion is that you should kick your current rommate out in favor of one with a high-Def monitor!

Hi!
Thank you very much for your answer.I like the way they look, they match the TV very well.
Enjoy your system!
Regards,
Octavian

Thank you for the lengthy, detailed reply sonicfox, but I have to apologize; I thought the megachanger you have was for DVD's.

I want one of these, but not at $3999! Like you said, pmbuko, someone needs to come up with something similar to this, but certainly more affordable.

In reply to:

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I want one of these, but not at $3999!

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I remember reading a review about the Fireball's when they first came out. Don't quote me verbatim (because I don't remember exactly) but the pricing was at that time, also $4k with an 80 (!) gig drive and something like $800 more with a 120 gig drive! This as about a year ago.

I thought: For what they're charging, why the hell not put a 200 gig drive in there? And how did they figure another $800 for a drive that cost $30 more on the street?

As I said in my other post, I'm keeping an eye out for convergience technologies, but the prices are a joke at this point!

I think the HTPC route is the way to go. There are many interfaces available now as well. I am debating on building one. The cost of PC's is always getting cheaper, I figured I can make one to handle MP3's and video(HD too) with 250-300gb of storage for about $800.

Currently, I rip and store all my CDs on to my PC, and stream them to my audio system via my wireless network and the Apple Airport Express device (previously, I was using a Linksys Media adapter).

The Airport Express is connected digitally to my pre/pro. The sound quality is excellent. It is controlled via iTunes which is an excellent interface. There is no onscreen display as far as the TV is concerned....but that was not a deal breaker.

Although iTunes can rip MP3's, I use CDex. Song and artist information is displayed in iTunes, and there are many ways to create playlists. "Smart" playlists can also be created by giving a set of paramenters for example "25 most recently played songs" or "50 highest rated songs (you rate the songs)".....these are dynamic lists that are changed automatically.

Very slick.