cd players

[ccfan213]

my friend, who is also the lighting tech i do most of my work with, and i are thinking of buying a dual cd player and dj mixer to use with some equipment i have from my brother's band and do a little DJing to make some money and have some fun. we already know how to dj, and have done it before. since there has been some criticism in a recent post of gemini cd players i was wondering what type of cd player is out there that is better quality without costing too much money. basically the brands that seem to be within my price range and i see listed on musiciansfriend.com (which is guitar center) are numark, stanton, american audio and gemini, denon and pioneer are too expensive. out of the listed brands, or any other cheap models i dont know of, what is the best? Most of the brands that i have listed seem relatively even in their ratings on musicians friend. each has good and bad models. thanks for what im sure will b very helpful information.

[Mayhem]

This sort of advice is very difficult to give as we all place different values on different aspects of equipment; also some people are biased against some equipment.

It already looks like you are heading in the right direction by trying to find out the pros and cons of each make/model.

Set yourself a price limit and work within that. You may find people will bag the cheaper brands and in many cases, they will do the job that you want, just not for as long as the more expensive brands.

Another thing to do is to see if you can find out if certain makes/models are frequently returned for warranty or repair work. Be careful however, as some people may say that brand x gives problems, purely because they stock brand y and want you to buy that particular model. As such, shop around and see if a pattern begins to emerge.

I would imagine that you are going to be paying cash for this CD player? If so, ask for cash discount, or at least get them to thro in some leads etc.

In most cases, you will have made enough money to buy a better CD player before this one fails. This is a good way to look at things. You have to start off somewhere and perhaps you will not make any money for a while. However, once you have built up enough capital, you can then replace selected items of equipment with higher quality items. Sell or rent out the older ones and keep building your inventory. This is how I started out.

[rgsw]

go mp3 - either computers (laptop best) or as I would love if I had enough money a fleet of ipods

[avkid]

i have used and liked a Gemini cd-j 20

[The_Guest]

Have had great experiences with Marantz (not denon, horrible cd players) and Tascam.

[Foxinabox10]

Marantz is pretty close to the head of the line. They have always worked well for me.

[ccfan213]

i cannot find any marantz cd players that look like they are designed for DJing, most appear to be either cd/tape cd/radio or recording devices, but none seem to be designed for my purpose, unless im looking in the wrong part of their site. I am also rather confused because the marantz site lists a model that says denon on it, but i was under the impression that denon was bad and mrants good, could the companies have merged, please enlighten me :?

[Mayhem]

Hi Matt - have you walked into your local sound and lighting or DJ store and had a play with anything yet? By all means, gather as much information as you can on the various makes and models on the market but always get down to the store and have a play!

The other advantage of going to the store is that not only can you touch and play with the equipment but you can also talk to other aspiring DJ's and see what they have or have used.

In my previous post, I had assumed that you would have done this but in the day and age of the web, I know a lot of people buy equipment over the net without ever having seen or used it before hand. Now I know that there are a lot of review sites that are designed to take the hard work out of things and provide very detailed reviews but I still think that nothing beats good old leg work in seeing the gear in person and in use.

Also - for what it is worth - I personally am not a fan of using computers for DJ'ing. Sure I will use them in the workshop for testing to running up equipment but for my mind, there are too many things that can go wrong.

The way I look at is this - you are much better off in using a piece of equipment that is specifically designed to do one thing only, rather than one that is designed to do several thousand things all at once.

As I said - just my thoughts.

[zac850]

I find it intersting that you say that. I personally trust my computer to run sound then I trust a CD. I import the CD onto my laptop (or just the song), and connect my laptop to the sound board. I feel much more comftorable because I know that the sound won't skip or jump or anything like that. Also, I can look on my laptop in iTunes and see what track is playing, how long the track is, what its called, the artist, etc.

For long running shows (I'm doing Summer and Smoke now, 9 shows, 3 weeks) I have all of the music on a CD sitting in a CD player, but that CD player is off, and its there more if I forget my laptop.

I found this to be the best when I ran sound for a school lip sync. In the space of about 15 minutes I had about 30 kids trying to give me 30 CD's. I simply asked them to write on a slip of paper there name, the track number, and what the track is called. I imported all the songs in my laptop, and just ran down the list in iTunes.

Since my school only has a 5 CD changer, every 5 acts I would need to stop the show, and eject the CD's, and re-set the CD's up. With the pace of the show, that was not an option.

[Mayhem]

I am sure that for certain applications, this would be fine. I also know that you use a Mac, so you are probably running off a more stable platform than PC. I have just heard too many "blue screen of death" stories and seen problems at (albeit low grade) parties to risk wrecking a client’s show.

Remember - I run a mobile DJ service and if I balls up a show then 1) I don't get paid, 2) I risk being sued for breach of contract and 3) I don't get any follow on bookings. All of these hit me in the pocket and will cost me a lot more than a decent set of CD players would.

Also, for the work that I do, I cannot go past two single CD players. One CD playing and one cued up and ready to go. Keep in mind that most DJ's will not have a "set" which can be cued up ahead of time and most will mix on the fly. This is one of the skills that set us aside and is why people pay us good money to ensure their gig is a success.

Different horses for different courses I guess, but from my own experience it is not something that I would recommend for DJ's.