Quality multi cd changers?, Moved from Audio Hardware (TOS #6) Options

[keenly]

Does anyone rate TEAC?

I know DENON make a couple but they are very expensive. I have an ONKYO 6 disc changer but it easily skips and distorts witht he slightest scratch.

Budget about 250 quid MAX although i would prefer less.

any ideas on what is decent?

[slks]

Sorry to make this thread sound like a broken record (skipping CD?) but is there any reason that you specifically need a disc changer as your solution? Disc changers really belong in the previous millennium - they're simply outclassed by hard-disk-based solutions. If you're needing to switch between multiple albums easily, you're going to get way more mileage out of something computerized, with a hard disk. And you can have 600 albums on tap, not just 6.

Being a computer guy, I'd probably set up my system as something like the previously-mentioned "netbook + external sound card" ... actually come to think of it, I've had my computer hooked up to my stereo system for years now. Just running a Y-cable with RCA jacks on one end into the 3.5mm line-out at the back of my computer. People who are OCD about sound quality might suggest an external card, but it doesn't even have to be that complicated. Also, doing something like this with your current computer would have costs approaching $0. (Although I recognize that there may be reasons why you'd want a separate system from your main PC to play the music.)

Now that I think of it, portable music players like the iPod essentially perform the same function of easy switching between albums. And there's models available for much less than 250 quid. I've been to house parties where the "sound system" consisted of an iPod hooked up to some speakers, and it worked wonderfully. That's actually what I use for my car audio - iPod hooked up to aux. input of the car's system.

Unless you really must have your audio hardware taking up an entire wall... that, of course, you won't get with an iPod