Best CD player choices for crappy CDs...?

[KevinE]

without doubt the pioneer cdj series are the most forgiving, from the CDJ500, 800mk2, 1000 (all marks) and onwards. These all use Pioneer hologram laser pickups which are very reliable and all use buffering.

 

I once took an old CD and cut a 1mm radial slot in it from centre to periphery and my CDJ500mk2's here would play it, albeit with a 'tick' every time the slot went over the pickup. That's a good tracking / servo circuit for you!

 

None of the cheap twin decks with 3-beam sony clone mechanisms (and most of the DN.. range) are much cop; they dont track scratches very well and rely heavily on computer control to attempt to re-read any bad data. Fine in theory but they can get stuck on a serious scratch or even re-cue to the start of the track.

[pmiller056]

@Mac. Thank you for the reference to PlayIt Cartwall. Been looking for something like that for years! Magic!

[GridGirl]

I'm (thankfully) out of dance school/festival world now, but back in those dark days the best CD player we found for those discs was a d0m3stic Sony one - it didn't skip a beat, ever. No idea of the model number, but I'm talking over 10 years ago so it was not a new fancy one!

[i_hate_fisicks]

I don't do dance schools, but it surprises me to hear that people still bring CDs. I haven't seen a CD on a job for 10 years!

I do a yearly fitness exhibition, and in the last couple of years, a new problem has arisen. Well, two actually. Firstly, iPhone 7s without adapters. But then, everyone has their music in the cloud, Spotify, Apple Music etc, and doesn't even grasp that it's not actually on their device and can't fathom why it won't play in an exhibition hall with no internet!

[dbuckley]

A lot of the problem is CDs burned on PCs are "odd".

 

I had a bargain basement DVD player that cost like $40 that would play anything that was put into it. I lost the remote, so I binned the player, and then found the remote.....

 

But yeah; grab an annoying CD you cant read and go down to an electronics retailer and see if a DVD player will play it.

[sandall]

....everyone has their music in the cloud, and doesn't even grasp that it's not actually on their device and can't fathom why it won't play in an exhibition hall with no internet!

Or indeed in the middle of a large park. In venues that do have Wi-Fi I find the easy answer is "come back when you've found your music & we'll try to fit you in"

[Bazz339]

In this day and age would it not be possible to get this all in hand before the day?

 

** laughs out loud **

 

I nearly fell off my chair.

 

Some of these people can barely get you a CD in time for the start of the show. Even if they did give it you in advance, it would be wrong, or they changed their mind, or something.

 

We bought a Denon DN-300Z which hasn't choked yet, plus has the ability to also play USB, SD Card and Bluetoooth. Quite handy for dance season insanity.

 

http://denonpro.com/...ts/view/dn-300z

 

This thread certainly brought back memories. I well remember trying to sort out sound effects on various media for drama festivals in the late seventies and early eighties.

Time permitting I very much liked laying off CD onto Mini Disk with its simple naming and editing functions.

 

Does the Denon DN 300Z offer frame accurate cueing like many of the more DJ Style machines? I did have look at the picture and tech details but was unable to decide.

 

 

 

 

[nuttytechy]

I run a Marantz PMD 331 and it plays virtually everything from scratched disks to copied.

 

I even still use a MiniDisk. Recently we had a charity evening for one of the volunteers and everything was handed to me via USB and CD. Even though there is a computer up in the control room running multiplay. Many hours before curtain up I made a duplicate onto my MiniDisk because computers are not full proof.

 

We do get many variety events where cd's are still used so I will use my Marantz CD Deck as I know most of the time it can handle half of the poor quality media thrown at me.