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omg... my cd player is jammed!

Sarahbelle

By Sarahbelle
in Soundboard

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mattm Newbie

mattm

Posted
Posted

see what happens when you use ancient technology.

I know computer cd-rom drives have a tiny little hole on the front that if you stick a paperclick (unfolded into one long piece of metal) into will cause the drive to open so that you can remove your cd if it's stuck. I'm not sure if this has something like it but I figured most cd-players had something in case this happens. Not sure though, it's been a long time since I've owned a cd player.

Once you get the cd's out, also get with the times and get an mp3 player :)

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Weirdness Newbie

Weirdness

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Posted

Step 1--Unplug the unit from the wall

Step 2--get a screwdriver and take the top off of the case

Step 3--take out your 5 cd's

Step 4--plug the unit back in and power it on, then try to re-load your discs

Step 5--If the unit will play the discs again, take them all out, unplug the unit, put the lid back on again, plug it back in and you're all set.

It's not uncommon for a 5 disc changer to jam up. If you take the discs out and it still won't play then you likely have a problem with the player itself. MP3 players and hard drives have a tendancy to break as well as do all things electronic but if your player is pooched then do whatever you think is best.

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phorbesie Apprentice

phorbesie

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Posted

i don't see myself switching from CDs anytime soon.

OK it's a little more effort to put in a CD than to press a button on my crappy ipod that's gonna die in a few months ;)

but i like the whole package, having CDs to choose from (visually), album covers/art, liner notes, actually having the product that was made for this purpose. i like it. :)

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questcequecest? Newbie

questcequecest?

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Posted

do people really abandon cd's for the 'convenience' of having all your music compressed (lossy) in one small package? i mean, music enthusiasts like on this site? wow, im surprised.

I understand this for riding the bus, or walking to lunch or whatever, but for listening at home the sound quality of cd's is far greater that that of mp3's...

granted, i listen to a lot of mp3's, but when i particularly like an album, i buy it... not just for the sake of supporting the artist, but to have a quality recorded version too.

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mattm Newbie

mattm

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Posted (edited)

I have a hard time distinguishing between a properly encoded mp3 and the original (256kbps or more). Could be that my hearing isn't the best (which is true). Could also be that my stereo was under $1000. Combine the two and we have a perfect match: mattm + mp3. Also:

A lossy format like mp3 encoded at the highest quality settings is often half the size or less than a lossless format, particularly if you use variable bitrate. From some double blind studies I conducted while at Microsoft (for my own gratification), less than 5% of participants could accurately distinguish between mp3 and wma formats encoded at or above 196-256k and the original source material. Even those that could distinguish at better rates than chance were only doing so around 70% of the time. Only 25% of participants could distinguish between 128-196 VBR and the original.

I'm at work so I don't have time to get more statistics but if I search really hard I would be very willing to bet that with average equipment (even moderatly higher end equipment), most people couldn't tell the difference between a 190kbps (let alone 300+) and the original source. That said, if you download an mp3 from itunes or something like that, you are getting 128kbps which can be distinguished from the original (even by me with my audio setup).

Pros:

Personally I think the whole package is better digital (mp3, flac, shn, whatever, just on the computer), though. All the music in one spot is great for making mixed playlists and nowadays everything from cover art to lyrics to anything else can be included in an mp3 or can be included in whatever software is used to store the library (in case of flac/shn/wav files). I can open up winamp on my computer and immediately have access to 75,000 (or more, not sure what it is now) songs. All this connected to the stereo with the flat screen tv as the monitor and a wireless mouse means 75,000+ songs without getting off the couch. On top of that, winamp will automatically download for me nice things such as cover art, though it will also do that if I pop in an audio cd.

Another thing that I really like is that, in my case, my entire music collection is on a portable hard drive. This means that I can take the whole thing with me in my backpack and pull it out anywhere there's a computer. On top of that, if I put a bunch of music onto my mp3 player, a PSP, and then bring that to another location, I can plug it into anything that has audio inputs and this can include cars, stereos, computers, tv's, basically most things with audio output capability will have audio input jacks which makes the music even more portable.

One more thing here for the pros section is that after a while my cd's tend to get scratches which mean that they could skip or not play altogether. My mp3's on the other hand, will always play and the only reason they would skip is because the hardware playing them is too slow (and we have to go waaaaaaaaaaay back in time to find computers that slow, more than a decade if the mp3 program is all that's running).

Cons (of mp3's):

Step on a cd and you break it and have to replace it. Step hard enough on your hard drive (actually, you can stand on a hard drive all day and it will be fine, though if it's portable you might wreck the enclosure, the HDD inside will still be ok, give it a nice electric jolt on the other hand...) containing the music library and you've lost the entire library which is a little bit harder to replace (although I have a second hard drive which contains a backup of all the songs, it could also go down, but then I also have dvd's which contain the lossless versions of almost all the live stuff and also all the mp3's so I'm fairly well covered).

Another con is that unless you encode the mp3's yourself, you have no control over the actual quality and as such, there is a very good chance that your music collection will vary quite a bit in quality as opposed to cd's which "should" be all good.

My final con is that yeah, I do enjoy having an entire bookcase filled with cd's to look at. Like others, it makes me feel good (same with dvd movies as opposed to movies on the hard drive) and it's just plain cool when people come over and see it.

Edit: Yeah, if the band is good, buy the cd, and then properly encode it into smaller format and stick it into the music collection. Help support bands, especially those without craploads of money to back them.

Edited by Guest
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