Shaun Gonzalez
Auditioning
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2002
- Messages
- 10
Hey all, this seems to be as good of a place as any to ask this...
We recently got a surround sound setup (receiver + speakers), and are looking to throw a CD changer into the mix. While I've done a little looking around in stores, I was hoping to garner some general recommendations here.
We're looking for a 5-6 disc changer. While we do have enough CDs to fill a 100 disc changer, it just seems like more hassle than it's worth (not to mention more money for the unit itself).
MP3 playback is highly preferred. Through my preliminary research, I've found two CD changers that can play discs full of MP3s:
- A Sony 400 disc changer. See above.
- A RCA 5 disc changer. As far as features go, it looks to be what we want, but we don't trust RCA as a brand.
Now, I know that there's DVD changers that can play MP3 CDs, but we already have a DVD player hooked up to the system, so another DVD player would just be an extra cost. Not to mention that, in my experience, items that do multiple functions aren't as good as a specialized unit.
A digital coaxial output would also be nice. Our receiver has an optical input (currently being used by the DVD player), and a free coaxial, so one with an optical out won't really do us a whole lot of good. We did find this changer. The feature list shows "2 Optical digital inputs, 1 coaxial digital input". Now, is that a typo, or is there some reason I'm not aware of that a CD player would have inputs?
On a related tangent, which one gives better sound quality, optical or coaxial?
One final thing is a question of brand. I've seen some posts in here regarding Sony and how they tend to cost more than they're worth as far as quality goes. What brand would you guys recommend, though? I've had good experiences with Sony's stuff, but other suggestions would be welcome. Unfortunately, our budget for this is, at the very max, around $300.
We recently got a surround sound setup (receiver + speakers), and are looking to throw a CD changer into the mix. While I've done a little looking around in stores, I was hoping to garner some general recommendations here.
We're looking for a 5-6 disc changer. While we do have enough CDs to fill a 100 disc changer, it just seems like more hassle than it's worth (not to mention more money for the unit itself).
MP3 playback is highly preferred. Through my preliminary research, I've found two CD changers that can play discs full of MP3s:
- A Sony 400 disc changer. See above.
- A RCA 5 disc changer. As far as features go, it looks to be what we want, but we don't trust RCA as a brand.
Now, I know that there's DVD changers that can play MP3 CDs, but we already have a DVD player hooked up to the system, so another DVD player would just be an extra cost. Not to mention that, in my experience, items that do multiple functions aren't as good as a specialized unit.
A digital coaxial output would also be nice. Our receiver has an optical input (currently being used by the DVD player), and a free coaxial, so one with an optical out won't really do us a whole lot of good. We did find this changer. The feature list shows "2 Optical digital inputs, 1 coaxial digital input". Now, is that a typo, or is there some reason I'm not aware of that a CD player would have inputs?
On a related tangent, which one gives better sound quality, optical or coaxial?
One final thing is a question of brand. I've seen some posts in here regarding Sony and how they tend to cost more than they're worth as far as quality goes. What brand would you guys recommend, though? I've had good experiences with Sony's stuff, but other suggestions would be welcome. Unfortunately, our budget for this is, at the very max, around $300.