American Audio

CowboyDan

Member
I am looking getting a MCD 810 from American Audio. I was wondering if anyone had an problems with this unit or the brand. I am not a sound guy but need to purchase a dual deck for the theatre. I need it to be able to read all mp3 formats as well as cd's. I would also like the ability to connect a laptop and either download the music onto the deck or simply play the file from the laptop using the decks controls. I do not know if this is possible or even out there but this is what I am looking for. Any help or suggestions will be helpful.

Money is not a problem so do not let that limit your thinking on this one.

Thanks for the help.
Dan
 
If you want full computer operability, why not just go with a computer? You might want to look into getting SFX.
 
You might also look into QLab, which is free and does the same thing as SFX (I'm not related to the author, just a happy user). http://figure53.com/
 
Wow, a program that is mac compatible! And free! This is wonderful! I am definately going to use this! (Sorry, I know this is a bit off topic, but this is really incredible, and my school can afford it!)
 
If you want full computer operability, why not just go with a computer? You might want to look into getting SFX.


The main reason I do not want to go with a computer is because it will have to live in the booth. If it is not in a rack it will grow legs and walk away.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Dan
 
I'm a little wary of the DJ brands. Most I've seen are a little less rugged than what I like & they offer a lot of weird features that are cool for club DJs, but have little use for theatre. I had a Gemini that developed an intermittant problem with the play button; talk about frustrating!

I recently purchased a Tascam CD-01U Pro (http://www.tascam.com/Products/CD-01U.html) to replace the Gemini & am really happy with it. I've used Tascam products for years & can't think of anything that gave me trouble. It is only one rack unit high, so it doesn't take up a ton of rack space. It has a lot of features that are useful for theatre including on called "key original," that let you speed or slow the tempo of the disk while maintaining the original key. That feature is great for speeding or slowing tempo for dancers, singers & many other uses. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it works very well without objectionable artifacts all the way out to +/-12 percent. It also plays back MP3s, as you mentioned as a requirement.

This is a single disk player, so if you must have a dual deck, this is not the one for you. You can still stack two in a rack & take up less space than most dual decks, and it has relay play with an included interconnect cable to auto play from one deck to another. I paid about $520 plus shipping, but the CD-01U (without the "Pro" designation in the model name) drops the balanced XLRs, digital outs & 15-pin sub-D parallel control & MSRPs for $100 less.
 
If you are looking for a rack mount dual deck cd player i the american DJ MCD800 would work just fine. Or as another user suggested the Denon DJ DN-9000 unit as much more functionality for playback and on the spot editing. Either unit is great i would personally purchase either.

If you are looking for strickly MP3 or other music file playback with a rack mount controller i would suggest PCDJ. They have a rack mountable controller similer to the head units on dual deck CD players, but it is USB and controls the MP3s on your computer.

I have more information on all these products and there pricing if you would like.
 
The main reason I do not want to go with a computer is because it will have to live in the booth. If it is not in a rack it will grow legs and walk away.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Dan

You can easily put most towers in a rack that has a locking front and set up some kind of remote boot up mechanism or just leave in sleep when not in use.
 

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