BassMan

I'm considering adding some kind of jukebox - CD, MD or harddisk based. One flexible alternative would be if CD changers start supporting MP3-coded music. With a 6-CD changer you could get quite a bit of music on board and also have the alternative of loading the occasional regular CD. Does anyone know of such a thing?

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[grey]2000 S2000 - 1998 VFR800 - 2000 Atos[/grey]

MacGyver

Quite a few decks support MP3, but I'm not aware of any changers that do the same. I'd love to know if any exist (you'd think they would have come out by now).

PaulC

You may want to check out PhatNoise - they're working on a hard disk-based changer that emulates a CD changer. It's not shipping yet, but I've seen prototypes working at trade shows, and they're in beta testing.

Paul

MacGyver

Not to take away from the coolness of the product, but it's no different than any of the other MP3 players out there that use a hard disk for storage (EMPEG, CarPEG, etc.).

Luis

The Alpine cda-7878 soon to be available is reported to have MP3 playback capabilities from recordable CDs. On top of that you keep your in-dash controls operational. This would be the best option.

BassMan

I beleive the Alpine 7878 is not a CD changer but rather a head unit with changer control. There are already a couple of those, i'd like to find a CD changer that can play MP3 from recordable CD-Rs.

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[grey]2000 S2000 - 1998 VFR800 - 2000 Atos[/grey]

Clark

Though the CD changer sounds nice, how would a non-MP3 head unit deal with the sorting/selecting of MP3's? It seems to me that you would be limited to playing MP3's in order only, and you may not even be able to use any sort of directory structure to organize them.

Clark

AusS2000

Except that you can use it with your existing head unit (several brands) which is made by an audio company and has a tuner built in. With the EMPEG you get MP3 and now radio as an option. But I'm not sure of the audio quality? I don't think you get standard CD playback? Or changer control?

I haven't seen the PhatBox in action, but I suspect the PhatBox with a decent Sony (for example) head unit and changer would be pretty cool. The only limitation I can think of would be the navigation via the Sony head unit.

My system uses a Sony system with changer and a Neo 35 with about 1200 songs on it. Control is via a separate wired remote with 4 line display.

BassMan

Agreed, the unit must support the list function, but if PhatNoise can emulate this i think an MP3-capable changer should be able to do it too. One complication is perhaps that there would be "disks" in two levels (each MP3-coded CD in the changer will in turn contain songs from several CDs). I don't know if the list function is prepared for that. This would perhaps be hidden by the changer hardware BIOS, making the unit look like a CD changer with perhaps a hundred individual CDs.

On the other hand a harddisk based system might be the future anyway, it comes down to price i guess. I just thought adding MP3 to changers would be a small extra cost compared to adding hard disks, linux, a home docking station and what have you.

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[grey]2000 S2000 - 1998 VFR800 - 2000 Atos[/grey]