Sony 400 cd mega changer or use flash drive?

Nightshade22 said:

Hi all, I have a sony 400 mega cd changer and its failing. I've changed the belts but it sputters and the door doesn't open half the time. I am either going to pay someone to fix it or convert them all to flac and use a flash drive. I love the idea of the mega changer but I realize that in time it will fail all together...though I'm
tempted to have it fixed or buy a new mega changer ..I wanted to buy the sony 400 blu-ray mega changer but hear it scratches cd's??? Is this true?

If I do decide to rip them instead...Can someone recommend a good flash drive or usb stick that is up to the task..should I use a 1 terabyte portable hard drive or a USB drive? Also, I need a new cd drive that is great and fast at ripping cd's..Any advice is welcome

George

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I use this a SSD based flash drive.


It comes in sizes all the way to 1 TB. For 400 CDs you don't need 1 TB, I don't think. I did a calculation with my itunes library, with everything ripped to apple lossless. The average CD is about 300-400 mb. Let's just round up and say 500, or half a gb. It would take 2000 cds to be a TB. I bought the 250 Gb version of the above.

I also bought this while waiting on my order to come for the SSD based flash drive


It works very well as well, and is a bit cheaper. Theoretically the vision tek is faster than the pro-elite PNY as it can be partitioned and has it's own controller, it's almost a SSD harddrive in usb stick form. But the pro-elite works well too. I'm using the pro-elite PNY in my technics SL-G700 CD/SACD player and it works just fine. 256 gb should accommodate about 500 CDs. Try not to bury things in too many layers of subfolders. I do Artist-Album, that's it. I also have hi-rez albums from hd tracks up to 192/24 and they playback fine from either stick. I can tell the vision tek ssd based drive is a bit faster as the menu comes up a hair faster than the PNY pro-elite, but we are talking a few seconds, that's all.

Mega Changers were great in their time, but I think it's time to move on. The PNY comes in 512 gb if you so chose. The vision tek, up to 1 tb, but it's pricey.

Roseval is right, buy a backup. I currently use the pro-elite daily in my technics sl-g700, and use the vision tek as a backup. So I have all my purchased hi rez and cd rips in four places. My computer, the time machine backup, the pro-elite which stays plugged into the player, and the vision tek backup thumb drive.

I agree with the others. FLAC is the way to go. It's a lot more convenient and you'll be able to do things with the files that you cannot with CDs (meta data, CD album art, playlists, etc.)

For ripping the CDs, I recommend Exact Audio Copy. It does a fantastic job with ripping and it will tell you if there are any problems with the process since it compares it to a database of accurate rips. For tagging meta data and album art, I use Media Monkey. It has a great interface and is really easy to use.

I would also recommend setting up a NAS. This will allow you to access your media files anywhere in the house. A really easy one is the Western Digital MyCloud. FLAC files don't take up a lot of space. 400 CDs would probably be around 150GB. For playback, I'm a big fan of the Nvidia Shield. I like the Plex app to manage and playback music. The other benefit is that the Shield is the fastest device on the market for other apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBOMax, etc.

Nightshade22 said:

Some great advice here and I'm taking it all under consideration...My Marantz receiver doesnt have a USB in so is there another option for how to use a flash drive/USB with it.

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The marantz ND8006 CD player can play from usb. You can also use the HEOS app from an iphone to select music. I almost bought one but went with the technics sl-g700 for SACD as well. The 8006 is 1299, so pricey, but a solid player. You can probably find more cd players that can play from usb, but not have an iphone app for selecting music. Denon has the DCD-800NE that can play from USB, but music selection is from the front panel display. If that is a bummer, then look for networking players. The marantz N30, which is 2400 bucks, the technics I have etc. Do some searching. Many blu ray players can play files from USB, but only some have RCA connections. (You don't mention your reciever. Does it take HDMI, or just RCA). Spend some time at crutchfield looking around. I don't know of any of the current blu ray players that have an app for music selection since Oppo left the market. The downside to blu ray players that don't have an app for music selection is music selection is done from a TV. I've read of guys just using very small monitors for this purpose. (I google small hdmi monitor and amazon had one that was 10 in for 79 bucks. If this area is also your tv watching area, then this is not necessary and you are good to go.

I love doing my CDs from USB, but to me the critical feature is how hte music is selected. I wanted an app for that so I went with a networking player. A new reciever might afford the same capabilty without even buying a CD player. Then there is streaming. You could get something with airplay 2 capability, load you CDs on a iPad or phone or use a laptop and itunes and stream to an airplay 2 device like the bluesound node 2i, or any reciever capable of airplay 2. If you go the airplay route, you'd rip in iTunes in apple lossless and load up a phone or iPad. I'd get a 256 gb version. Without many apps to clutter up memory, you'd be able to load a bunch of CDs.

I know I've hapzardly thrown a bunch of stuff out here, but do some research and decide what suits you best.

I am going to be the dissenting voice. If you really like a changer I wish you good luck in replacing it with digital files.

From about 2004 I have looked for a replacement for a 200 disc changer. iPods, iPads, servers, USB drives, HDD. Tried different front ends….AVR, Oppo, AppleTV, TiVo, dedicated HTPC, etc.
Nothing I tried was as efficient, simple, reliable, and musical as the CD.

I always wanted a media server, that could rip and tag the disc, save to internal storage, have a nice on screen display but also have a useable display on device to enable turning on the audio system, pick your favorite CD, and play without waiting for HTPC to reboot or turn to the right input, etc.
I know there must be a solution out there…..but time and expense never equaled the return from just playing the dang disc.

I still have my Sony 400 disc changer and it works fine. If you're old skool and determined to keep on playing physical CDs, you may be able to find a used 400 disc player cheaper than fixing the one you have. I've tried finding a local business who can fix older electronics, and aside from enthusiasts on forums online, don't see anyone who actively does so - near me. If it's just a band or minor adjustment, cleaning etc, maybe search online for a video on how to DIY.

But I came to some conclusions long ago, that continuing with CDs and CD players, isn't efficient or convenient, not to mention the space it takes up. My CD collection, which I've boiled down to essentials over the years, takes up much less space than before. I much prefer the convenience of digital media, the ability to find what I want and be listening to it in moments. You get a lot from digitizing your discs to FLAC. It becomes effortless to catalog everything, you have a lot of data on your music at a glance, including type/quality of audio file, images of your album covers - which is excellent, all on a hard drive (which are really affordable these days for huge amounts of space), or in a tiny microSD card for instance which can be anywhere from 32GB, 128GB to 2Terabytes (even more I think), as well as the ability to create playlists, sync your music among PC, phone and various devices, take it anywhere, car, home, work, vacation, and so forth. Basically you're gaining endless options, while maybe sacrificing only the nostalgia of a near-bygone physical media format. Opinions differ of course, and I still listen to LPs and CDs on occasion, for the, I don't know, it's like a special event to put on a physical record or CD and just let it play thru. But typically, I want it all at hand, at all times, simply because I can.