One more cool trick the Beosound 9000 CD mechanism had up its sleeve is that after spinning your discs, it would always leave them in the exact orientation you placed them in - so if you had CDs worth looking at, they would always remain the right way up.
until the rotation sensor failed and it couldn't tell which way round it was ;) But it (at least on the later versions) would also read the discs faster than it played them - effectively the same concept as shock protection - so the music would keep playing while it changed discs. That machine really is a display piece more than anything, since many of them have reliability issues because it uses optical sensors for aligning the player and the discs, which makes it sensitive to dust. One of my friends in school (or rather his parents) had one and it ended up only being able to play discs in the one slot after a couple years because it couldn't find the other slots anymore. The Beosound 2500 had similar issues with its sliding doors where the drive belt would snap, or it'd just stop being able to tell if the doors were open or closed.
@@dcpayne5264 Forget B&O if your that cheap ! cheap dreams ? Absolut formats .... Record ? LP ? Ortofox element is enough, any direct drive player, $100 max ???
If I were rich, I would buy a TON of these and display my favourite albums one large wall. Then, whenever I want to listen to a specific album, I'd just press the play button.
Oh wow, the second one really looks nice. It is also smart that it doesn't even try to mount the speaker by itself and let say if connected to ceiling speakers, it might even be neater. A few of those mounted on walls, color matched, and you are set to have a museum look.
Thank you, Techmoan, for using our album Second Sight on the compact disc format to demonstrate the features of the wall-hanging CD 💿 players in your latest video. The km5 CP1 is a beautiful-looking device! Thanks for shining a light on it! 🍬🍎🟦
Thank YOU, for providing excellent music, and letting that music be freely available for tech TH-camrs to use in demonstrations, without fear of DMCA or Content ID/Monetization issues! 👏
I have to say, I absolutely love the passive aggressive pre-emptive responses you sometimes pop into a video. It can be insanely grating seeing the same inane comments, those random barbs always catch me off guard and give me a cathartic chuckle. Great video as always.
Mat, though I have no interest in buying this product, I’m still grateful that you made a video about it. You make Saturday nights (I’m on the other side of the world) better. Especially cold winter nights like this one.
Big thumbs up for the Pete Rock and C. L. Smooth and also for Eric B. and Rakim CDs!👍 Anyhow, an even better solution would be an option to attach the whole jewelcase, without a need to take out the the CD booklet. ( I wrote this before seeing the end of the video. 😊)
How many times do I have a thought and then read the comments to see other people had the same thought. Given that at least three of us had the idea to put the jewel case in there, what’s going on in those product design meetings? How do they miss this stuff?
@@nickwallette6201 Well, that would probably need a bit brighter cover door and more an more material cost. I don't think that all those people are that stupid not recognizing the better solution, but they chose a cheaper one, unfortunately. The competition and the price war on the cheap "Chinese" market is too strong.
As a person who still collects physical music cds, or at the very least gets CDs as presents during Christmas or birthdays... this was a neat video. Plus that new Japanese wall mounted cd player does solve one problem when it comes to playing a cd in the Muji one... the Disc isn't exposed.
I like it; It's easy to forget album running orders are often considered, so you get an extra creative kick out of sitting down and listening to the whole thing, plus it showcases the cover art, adding more creative back for your buck!
Thank you for this video! I've been having a hard time picking a CD player for my work area that would display some of the discs I listen to, and your past videos + my own shopping around painted a pretty bleak image for finding a new CD player that can go on my wall. I had looked at the Amazon wall mounted CD players featured in the first half of this, but always found them a bit to "melted bar of soap" aesthetic. The km5 player is sharp and crisp looking, and the ability to slot in the album art is a win. Perfect!
David Niven. The idea of having your favourite albums displayed on your wall, that you can play at a touch, is fantastic! Thankfully there's a bunch of ways we could achieve this now! Thank you for the inspiration 🙏
The second one looks very fancy with its clean minimalist design. Looks almost like a picture frame especially with the album artwork. But hey, if they reduce the Amazon one, at that price you can hardly complain!
I really like the one displaying the album art! I do agree with you it should be able to take the whole case for convenience. On the topic of discs, it might be interesting to do a video on UMD, Sony's proprietary format for their PSP. It was supposed to be a universal media disc, so that means it played movies as well. You could connect the PSP up to a TV as well, if I recall correctly.
8:35 - "Because of it's origins it does have an effective shock protection buffer" I didn't get that at first, but then I was like "Oh, right, earthquakes!"
An even better idea would be to replace the front window with an E-Ink Display that automatically downloads and displays the album art of the disk you put in. That way you would not have to take out and replace the booklet every time you change CDs.
That's an excellent idea. Heck, at that point it could just be an e-ink display that scrapes whatever is playing on your phone or computer now and gets the art
I have to admit that one of my "secret pleasures" in watching your videos is the seemingly innocuous way you forestall the naysayers and the overly critical with your nuanced "if ya don't like it, don't buy it"......................particularly well founded since you are so complete with the pros and cons of each subject. I would hesitate to get into a verbal sparring match with you - and I'm GOOD at it!
If you're going to put the booklet into the window I feel like at that point it's more of a permanent fixture rather than something that needs an internal battery. If it wasn't held together with clips I imagine one could easily mod it to take out the battery (for long term safety) and replace it with an appropriate power converter so it can be wired directly into a wall hole as if it was a light fixture.
you just have to use the right tools and be careful when you take it apart and put it back together. I do it all the time with laptops and it's really not a big deal. Of couse if the plastic is really poor quality it will break no matter how careful you are, but in that case the whole thing is usually also not worth keeping
@@daw1kurp Or you could put it on a recessed wall box with a USB outlet and that flex cable. Qi works too, but the USB route would probably be cheaper, and you're already putting stuff in the walls.
I could imagine the second one being useful for people still wanting a CD player in a modern car. As those often come without AUX-in, the BT feature would be perfect.
Thanks for plating that song. I haven't heard it in decades and the last time I did, I didn't get the name off the radio. They reminisce over you, thank you.
The design is super clean, but not sterile. The device includes legacy features (as it is a CD player afterall), as well as some great modern additions. Really neat product.
That gave me an idea: it would be cool to have a square LCD screen hanging on your wall, that automatically shows the album art of whatever album you're playing. But square LCD screens appear to be in short supply.
Well what you could do is since the device itself is a rectangle, and the view window is a square. Is use the bezels of the view window to block off the unwanted parts of the display and have your image only show in the windowed part. I think that technique has been used before for round displays, before they became common.
@@adlz518 You could also just use the whole display, and have the part that isn't used for the album art display other information, play time, CD text or other metadata, make it a touch screen and have playback controls there, but at that point you may as well just mount a tablet to your wall
This is a nice idea, despite CDs being basically dead for the mainstream market. It would have been great if they could have made some sort of swappable cartridge system which keeps the CD and cover in and just slots in, but that would have made it way more expensive. Future idea for any companies listening: a FLAC playing picture frame with an e-paper display for album art.
Now for the next evolution of such devices: One that can understand the contents of the CD somehow (the difficult part, I'm sure), and then displays album covers found on places like Discogs or MusicBrainz. Data CDs can just have MP3s with embedded album art, or folders with a cover.jpg or something, but sadly the Red Book didn't really allow for much in the way of metadata from my knowledge.
CD-G for graphics. It was what the Philips CD-i used. There were some titles in the early 90s which used it, though they weren't marked and are very rare.
Lmao. There's much simpler solutions around used decades ago even in Windows media player older than windows xp: an album can be identified by the number of tracks and their individual lengths and positions on the cd.
How bout this... forget the CD player, just make a 12"x12" digital picture frame with a built in Shazam app. You hang it on the wall, and whenever music starts playing, it does its thing and displays the album art. And when music's not playing, it could just be a digital picture frame--cycling through your own pics, or all the album covers you've previously listened to.
Me too! I've thought about buying a walkman to modify and put on the wall but this is actually quite a nice device and will probably look quite a bit better.
That's pretty neat! I like it as an item in a bookcase of CDs, but I'm glad the wall mount is offered. That carrying case looks good too, but I feel that exists so you can surprise someone with playing a CD in a big case! I can sort of see the appeal for the original one, but it almost feels like an idea of "The Future" from the 80's.
This is an interesting device. I imagine it would be even cooler if it had an multi colour epaper display and an internal album art database so it would display the album cover sheet recognising the disc.
Just bought a CP1 and am waiting on its shipping from Japan via eBay. Can’t wait to get it and play / hang the many plethora of CD’s I have. Your video was really interesting and insightful - ultimately inspiring me to make the purchase. Thank you
"Most CDs are not decorative" might be true for your collection but definitely not all. Almost every CD i have has at least the album cover or original artwork on it, which is why i was originally fascinated when I heard about these, I've never understood why there weren't more players that show off the disc inside rather than just hiding it away.
YES! Sod the CD players, I came for Mats' completely correct and long overdue withering comment at 4:48 about people who mount TV's high on their walls. Techmoan video of the year for me, this.
Something like this with a transparent display built into the front glass to digitally display the album art or a visualizer/video while still vaguely seeing the disc spinning behind would be neat. Maybe a multi-CD one for bigger display area and spiffy CD-changer action. Too expensive for me to buy and not something I would even if I could afford it.. but neat!
A better idea would be a digital picture frame with a built in Shazam app. Forget the CD player, that's not the selling point. Make it 12x12 like vinyl record sleeves. People mount those on the wall anyway. It'd be pretty cool to have a "now playing" one that updates itself.
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This reminded me of that weird CD player which looks like it's embedded into a "door frame" you can see during the intro sequence of Melanie C.'s Never Be The Same Again clip. I always wondered if that's an existing device you can buy or just a functional prop.
If I'm not mistaken the "door frame" is the actual system, but I can't identify it. We did however have over a thousand brands of audio players in the 90s because very semi-capable electronics company made them, so it's very likely a real system, just not one that's well known
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@@thesteelrodent1796 the clip is not very sharp and it's hard to figure out what exactly you are seeing. I've always thought it was meant to be part of the future-minimalist furniture of the house and the CD player is literally part of the house or something. But it's probably some kind of standalone system with the Icelandic LCD text (according to Wiki) added in VFX.
Unless it only played 45s, but that negates the point as most collectable records these days are LPs. And it'd still be thick to accommodate the needle
Interesting as always... just waiting for an obscenely priced player with an LCD door that automatically recognises the content and displays the album art. Might be the first time i'd buy a Bang & Olufsen product 😉
@@thesteelrodent1796 Shame, but I think if they (or someone) made perhaps a slimline LP sized wall mounted player that displayed the album art it would look pretty neat. A gimmick I know, but possibly asthetically pleasing if done with some thought.
Great item. Great video again! Its about time, they give you that knighthood Techmoan, for great service and entertainment you have given us for a number of years on TH-cam. Well done Sir!
I'm also disappointed that it didn't just let you slot in the whole jewel case. Though, to be fair, double cases and half-thickness cases exist and might have made it a bit tricky to be truly universal.
the new one is actually pretty cool and I would definitely use it, currently I have to play my CDs through my DVD hooked up to a CRT in my room, it would be so much more convenient to just send the audio off to my BT speaker!!
That second one is pretty neat. Only 2 things I'd want changed about it: 1/ As you said, slide the whole CD case in there instead of having to constantly remove/replace just the insert, and 2/ A door on the back with a replaceable battery. At only 7 hours playback time, it'll see a lot of charge/discharge cycles and wear out in a few years (if you primarily prefer CDs to MP3 players or streaming, that is), and then you'll have a USB-C charger constantly dangling from it and ruining the aesthetic.
I was even thinking a door with 2 hot swappable batteries, so that while one is charging the other one is used, and it could switch seamlessly during playback, with a color led on each to show when to charge it. Oh well, I'm not an electronics designer, so I guess I won't be making one of these. Would be cool though. I play my CD collection on the regular.
The second one is very interesting, I'm seriously thinking of where I could put one of those to use, but regardless of wherever that might be I'm sure I would probably tire of swapping over the cover art with every CD change, but an arty photograph or something similar would be ideal. Either way, it's given me some ideas about displaying art with a soundtrack.
I have to admit, although I enjoy your videos I’m usually not bothered about buying the stuff - but I WANT I WANT I WANT!!! My favourite album isn’t available on ANY streaming service, so having the CD sat ready on my bookcase would be amazing. And this player is so clean and modern ❤
Not something I'd personally want, but I can appreciate how cool it is and why someone would want one. There's plenty of album art that's worth displaying, and being able to do so whilst also playing the disc back is a nice talking point.
Your thoughts on just sliding the CD case entirely was what came to my mind right away as well. Would be FAR easier and make a lot more sense, not only it provides the same effect, but stores the case of the disc being played. Still a quite nice idea, I really like the whole concept of seeing the discs being played, always did.
I have no idea where you find these things Matt but I think the Japanese player is a really good idea. The front plate where you "load" the cd booklet doesn't look well designed and looks like it could easily break. However great idea. Personally going back more and more to cds...
I think it's fairly easy to get the first device a little bit more appealing by replacing the USB cable with a pretty one of your choice. Like those braided versions and whatnot. Make it a short one (50 cm or less) and use a small powerbank at the end of it that also doubles as a weight and mimic a more proper pull cord that is essentially the power source.
Yeah man. Like the idea of the 2nd one. BeiBeing able to display your cover art. Nice tunes used. Got Kool g rap on vinyl. And got Pete rock and Cl smooths album on CD and vinyl. ✌🔥
Techmoan is a dyed in the wool B-Boy. He never misses and opportunity to show off his collection from the Golden Age of hip hop. Can't say I blame him.
Thanks for the video. Coincidentally, I was in the market for a portable CD player. The old CD-ROM with Audio CD controls which I've used previously broke down completely due to age. I wanted something modern and at least half-decent. The km5 cp1 looked like a good replacement so I bought one from Amazon Japan. Here's a short'ish technical review: The cp1 can read Audio CDs, mixed-mode CDs (eg. old game CDs with CDDA audio) and MP3 CDs. But since the track number display is only 2 digits, MP3 CDs with over 99 files will still play all files but not display the track number past 99. Audio output is either via Bluetooth (SBC and AAC only, no aptX) or the 3.5mm headphone jack. Bluetooth output does have an annoying nuisance in that it has to be re-activated every time you turn the device on. It won't turn on automatically. The device relies heavily on buffering regardless of the type of media - it pre-loads audio data into the buffer in advance and spins down the CD when the buffer is full even when playing regular audio CDs. Anti-skip is implemented by re-trying the read operation multiple times (this can cause dropouts and delays in the audio). This is more like how a computer CD-ROM drive works, than a CD player. Most audio CD players will simply skip past the damaged areas. Anti-skip feature has a glitch when playing MP3s - it sometimes causes crackling noise to be injected into the output. To resolve this, you need restart playback of the currently playing file. When using Bluetooth wireless headset, remote play/pause/skip controls on the headset do work with this player. As for the aesthetics, the device does look nicelty designed, with a lot of emphasis on the photo frame aesthetic. The build quality is decent but looks somewhat cheap for the price.
On the show Nip Tuck, they had a cool vertical CD player in the operating room. It looked really cool for the time, I don't know if anybody has ever mentioned it.
That first one (the cheap one) uses the same style mounting bracket as a lot of IT equipment. A lot of Wifi Access Points use that exact style, only it's not just a slide on for many, they also have locking tabs added. But it's neat because that wall mount bracket is made in the millions (or some version of it anyway). Plus, they already know how to make the mold for the tabs to mount it. I wouldn't be surprised if the case dimensions match an older model AP model and they bought up the dies for the rear and ground them to add features and styling changes. Also, I know people complain more often than praise when they do or do not like something. So I just wanted to say I like the format of your videos. I like the history of why you made the video and the history of the product (if applicable).
I get the impression that this is for the sort of person who enjoys the ritual of listening to music. It's not about putting on a playlist of some tunes that you're quite fond of. It's going through your shelves, finding that one album you just want to listen to all the way through for the 385th time, carefully removing the disc and loading it into the player. While the first track begins, you peruse the liner notes, even though you know them off by heart. Then finally, you slot the booklet into the display door, sit down, and just listen to the album. All the way through.
I kinda like this in concept but what it makes me want to do is mount the art of my favourite albums on the wall together with a QR code, and then use an app to scan whatever code and immediately start playing that album from my library.
I think it would be technically cheaper to put a semi transparent oled cover that displays the album art on it :D I noticed there is also a DVD version of the Amazon one, had it been BluRay, I might have bought it :D
Actually, another way to get a the cover art to look like it's fixed on a spinning disc is to use a slightly darkened window and then flash a strobe led at the disc at the same frequency as the disc spins at so every time the disc is lit up it is in the same position and you can just let persistence of vision do the rest.
Since the BT one has an audio jack, I guess you could mod it so that it would have it's own speakers, that way you could always and immediately listen to your favourite albums, I can even imagine someone having multiple of those for each of the albums! Very cool!
That would also be cool as an MP3 player with a digital display for the album cover. You get a different piece of cover art depending on what your listening to. I'm surprised they haven't done this yet
I really like the idea of holding a CD cover in a picture frame. Finally, a reason to use physical media. (Tidal has replaced my library and has done for some time).
there's more reasons than that to use physical media. when it comes to movies, when the constantly offended decided that your movie now needs to be censored it may just disappear from streaming.
@@whitetiana3022 I understand the arguments for physical media (I'm talking music, here) but, for me, having the entire word's music for a small fee every month, overwhelms the debate. If it does get to the point where my favourite artists are censored, then we have bigger issues than CD ownership. I pay extra to Tidal to ensure artists get a reasonable return, and I'm happy with the quality of the streaming.
@@whitetiana3022 even with physical media it can be difficult to find uncensored versions of old movies unless you get hold of an original release. Convoy is one I can think of right now that's a prime example, where most the DVDs you can get now is the American censored version (even though its only "crime" is partial nudity in a couple scenes), and they dont't bother to mention that on the DVDs, so you have no idea which version you're getting
This is one of those things that's aesthetically cool. But by the time you worry about charging it, pairing it with bluetooth, and clipping the album booklets in and out of the front cover as you change CDs, it all feels like it's way more of a hassle than I would reasonably want to go through when I just want to pop on a CD.
9:40 Also, videogames shipped on CD-ROM which had playable CD audio tracks. Those manuals are considerably thicker than album covers. That said… Xpander by Sasha, from the videogame Wip3out, is always my goto test for CD Players.
Great video as always, thanks! A backlight of the CD jewel case would elevate this product even more (although most probably due to it being a battery device this was foregone - however, LEDs are very efficient these days)
Clipping it onto a wireless charging pad on the wall would fix that issue. You'd have to get an electrician to install a usb wall jack to keep the clean look and suddenly the cost of this thing is rising exponentially 😂
I agree, a design that would allow you to slide the CD sleeve in the front or though the side would make more sense although more complicated than the current design. The fiddly holder makes the whole thing look sleeker but less convenient.
As the majority of consumers have moved away from physical media, I've always wanted something like an LP sized colour E-ink display that could cycle through either what's playing or some of my favourite albums. I have a frame for displaying some of the LPs I do own, but it's such a faff that I rarely do it, and obviously it massively inconveniences you if you do want to play it.
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman faff = too much effort for very little (if any) reward, doing something basic that is overly/unnecessarily complicated to achieve.
there is one solution: scan all your album covers and use a digital photo frame to display them. Might require some retouching, but it gets around the inconvenience
I'd have been immediately sold if this unit had some sort of digital output! Heck, still want one, givin me serious CD walkman vibes. Big ups for the classic selections on deck!
One more cool trick the Beosound 9000 CD mechanism had up its sleeve is that after spinning your discs, it would always leave them in the exact orientation you placed them in - so if you had CDs worth looking at, they would always remain the right way up.
That's an incredibly nice attention to detail
until the rotation sensor failed and it couldn't tell which way round it was ;) But it (at least on the later versions) would also read the discs faster than it played them - effectively the same concept as shock protection - so the music would keep playing while it changed discs. That machine really is a display piece more than anything, since many of them have reliability issues because it uses optical sensors for aligning the player and the discs, which makes it sensitive to dust. One of my friends in school (or rather his parents) had one and it ended up only being able to play discs in the one slot after a couple years because it couldn't find the other slots anymore. The Beosound 2500 had similar issues with its sliding doors where the drive belt would snap, or it'd just stop being able to tell if the doors were open or closed.
I really wish B&O would make a new cd player. And while I’m at it, an affordable record player (I can dream)
@@dcpayne5264 Forget B&O if your that cheap ! cheap dreams ? Absolut formats ....
Record ? LP ? Ortofox element is enough, any direct drive player, $100 max ???
It was a sad day when BnO stopped making CD players.
2:46 "CD is broken. Solution: Use another CD"
Are you kidding me lmao
Lol with CD is broken Solution Go Out To The Store And Buy A New CD Single With Scarborough fair on it
If I were rich, I would buy a TON of these and display my favourite albums one large wall. Then, whenever I want to listen to a specific album, I'd just press the play button.
😄
Dude!!!! That is a cool idea
not a bad idea since there are Iconic albums
Would love to have a bunch of Judas Priest albums on some of these
Luckily you’re not
Oh wow, the second one really looks nice. It is also smart that it doesn't even try to mount the speaker by itself and let say if connected to ceiling speakers, it might even be neater. A few of those mounted on walls, color matched, and you are set to have a museum look.
Even better, mount some jewel cases and play the tracks from your iPod to the Bluetooth speaker you need for this to work...
Is your pfp an edited image of Yu Narukami?
@Scroogsthat's a matter of perspective.
I will never stop smiling at the protective plastic removal scenes. Best creative embellishment on TH-cam. Excellent work!
A Techmoan protective plastic removal scene compilation I think would be so popular, it could break TH-cam.
I think it should be done a little slower…
Thank you, Techmoan, for using our album Second Sight on the compact disc format to demonstrate the features of the wall-hanging CD 💿 players in your latest video. The km5 CP1 is a beautiful-looking device! Thanks for shining a light on it! 🍬🍎🟦
Thank YOU, for providing excellent music, and letting that music be freely available for tech TH-camrs to use in demonstrations, without fear of DMCA or Content ID/Monetization issues! 👏
I discovered your wonderful music only because of this funny video by Techmoan. Never heard about your band before!
I have to say, I absolutely love the passive aggressive pre-emptive responses you sometimes pop into a video. It can be insanely grating seeing the same inane comments, those random barbs always catch me off guard and give me a cathartic chuckle. Great video as always.
Mat, though I have no interest in buying this product, I’m still grateful that you made a video about it. You make Saturday nights (I’m on the other side of the world) better. Especially cold winter nights like this one.
also hot summer nights over here in the northern hemisphere :D
Hot summer nights in England.
It's so cold and wet in Perth! Almost feels like a Cornish Winter!
Big thumbs up for the Pete Rock and C. L. Smooth and also for Eric B. and Rakim CDs!👍
Anyhow, an even better solution would be an option to attach the whole jewelcase, without a need to take out the the CD booklet. ( I wrote this before seeing the end of the video. 😊)
T.R.O.Y. is still one of my favorite songs
How many times do I have a thought and then read the comments to see other people had the same thought. Given that at least three of us had the idea to put the jewel case in there, what’s going on in those product design meetings? How do they miss this stuff?
@@rokucam1958 Use your condoms, take sips from the brew, when they reminisce over you, listen.
@@nickwallette6201 Well, that would probably need a bit brighter cover door and more an more material cost. I don't think that all those people are that stupid not recognizing the better solution, but they chose a cheaper one, unfortunately. The competition and the price war on the cheap "Chinese" market is too strong.
As a person who still collects physical music cds, or at the very least gets CDs as presents during Christmas or birthdays... this was a neat video. Plus that new Japanese wall mounted cd player does solve one problem when it comes to playing a cd in the Muji one... the Disc isn't exposed.
I like it; It's easy to forget album running orders are often considered, so you get an extra creative kick out of sitting down and listening to the whole thing, plus it showcases the cover art, adding more creative back for your buck!
You've intrigued me yet again! Thanks for including the Amazon Japan link. This is a collector's piece that just may be added to one's collection. 🙂
Thank you for this video! I've been having a hard time picking a CD player for my work area that would display some of the discs I listen to, and your past videos + my own shopping around painted a pretty bleak image for finding a new CD player that can go on my wall. I had looked at the Amazon wall mounted CD players featured in the first half of this, but always found them a bit to "melted bar of soap" aesthetic. The km5 player is sharp and crisp looking, and the ability to slot in the album art is a win. Perfect!
David Niven.
The idea of having your favourite albums displayed on your wall, that you can play at a touch, is fantastic!
Thankfully there's a bunch of ways we could achieve this now! Thank you for the inspiration 🙏
Still amazed at the rather unique things you manage to find. Definitely entertaining.
The second one looks very fancy with its clean minimalist design. Looks almost like a picture frame especially with the album artwork. But hey, if they reduce the Amazon one, at that price you can hardly complain!
must be essential gear, Bezos, who bought it ?
Indie markets only ?
I really like the one displaying the album art! I do agree with you it should be able to take the whole case for convenience.
On the topic of discs, it might be interesting to do a video on UMD, Sony's proprietary format for their PSP. It was supposed to be a universal media disc, so that means it played movies as well. You could connect the PSP up to a TV as well, if I recall correctly.
I think he did do a video on UMD many years ago.
8:35 - "Because of it's origins it does have an effective shock protection buffer"
I didn't get that at first, but then I was like "Oh, right, earthquakes!"
It’s always good to have the ability to listen to music as your house collapses around you 😳😊
I'm very slow 😂
nope - the mechanisms origins as a portable cd player - they need shock protection. .
@@Techmoan I realized that too late, and the earthquake explanation is now head canon.
An even better idea would be to replace the front window with an E-Ink Display that automatically downloads and displays the album art of the disk you put in. That way you would not have to take out and replace the booklet every time you change CDs.
That's what I was expecting when I saw this video's thumbnail. Once again, disappointing tech...
1000
I was thinking LCD like a pessimistic muppet because even greyscale E-ink displays are still aneurysm-inducingly expensive. D:
@@glengreenman3921good if we see it in the next iteration
That's an excellent idea. Heck, at that point it could just be an e-ink display that scrapes whatever is playing on your phone or computer now and gets the art
I have to admit that one of my "secret pleasures" in watching your videos is the seemingly innocuous way you forestall the naysayers and the overly critical with your nuanced "if ya don't like it, don't buy it"......................particularly well founded since you are so complete with the pros and cons of each subject. I would hesitate to get into a verbal sparring match with you - and I'm GOOD at it!
If you're going to put the booklet into the window I feel like at that point it's more of a permanent fixture rather than something that needs an internal battery. If it wasn't held together with clips I imagine one could easily mod it to take out the battery (for long term safety) and replace it with an appropriate power converter so it can be wired directly into a wall hole as if it was a light fixture.
you just have to use the right tools and be careful when you take it apart and put it back together. I do it all the time with laptops and it's really not a big deal. Of couse if the plastic is really poor quality it will break no matter how careful you are, but in that case the whole thing is usually also not worth keeping
I mean, adding a Qi charging receiver to the back and routing a thin flexible cable to the power socket would also be an option
@@daw1kurp Or you could put it on a recessed wall box with a USB outlet and that flex cable. Qi works too, but the USB route would probably be cheaper, and you're already putting stuff in the walls.
love all the classic hip hop albums you got!
I could imagine the second one being useful for people still wanting a CD player in a modern car. As those often come without AUX-in, the BT feature would be perfect.
I didn't even think about that, that's genius because I was really sad about my new car not having a CD drive.
I always enjoy when you are able to slip in some of your appreciation for old school hip hop.
Man your music choices are great. Much respect for having Rakim.
Thanks for plating that song. I haven't heard it in decades and the last time I did, I didn't get the name off the radio. They reminisce over you, thank you.
The one you got from Japan without all the unnecessary cables is very nice, I just might invest in one
The design is super clean, but not sterile. The device includes legacy features (as it is a CD player afterall), as well as some great modern additions. Really neat product.
That gave me an idea: it would be cool to have a square LCD screen hanging on your wall, that automatically shows the album art of whatever album you're playing. But square LCD screens appear to be in short supply.
Well what you could do is since the device itself is a rectangle, and the view window is a square. Is use the bezels of the view window to block off the unwanted parts of the display and have your image only show in the windowed part. I think that technique has been used before for round displays, before they became common.
@@adlz518 You could also just use the whole display, and have the part that isn't used for the album art display other information, play time, CD text or other metadata, make it a touch screen and have playback controls there, but at that point you may as well just mount a tablet to your wall
I love the obscure tech you show. Been watching you for quite some time now, and every single video is amazing! Thank you for another amazing video.
I would prefer " Don't turn it on, take it apaaart. "
But he has a much more soothing voice than Dave.
This is a nice idea, despite CDs being basically dead for the mainstream market. It would have been great if they could have made some sort of swappable cartridge system which keeps the CD and cover in and just slots in, but that would have made it way more expensive. Future idea for any companies listening: a FLAC playing picture frame with an e-paper display for album art.
Pete Rock - Reminisce - very appropriate for Techmoan talking about CD players. Love it!
Now for the next evolution of such devices:
One that can understand the contents of the CD somehow (the difficult part, I'm sure), and then displays album covers found on places like Discogs or MusicBrainz.
Data CDs can just have MP3s with embedded album art, or folders with a cover.jpg or something, but sadly the Red Book didn't really allow for much in the way of metadata from my knowledge.
CD-G for graphics. It was what the Philips CD-i used. There were some titles in the early 90s which used it, though they weren't marked and are very rare.
If it can connect to the internet it could Shazam the audio and download the album art
Lmao. There's much simpler solutions around used decades ago even in Windows media player older than windows xp: an album can be identified by the number of tracks and their individual lengths and positions on the cd.
How bout this... forget the CD player, just make a 12"x12" digital picture frame with a built in Shazam app. You hang it on the wall, and whenever music starts playing, it does its thing and displays the album art. And when music's not playing, it could just be a digital picture frame--cycling through your own pics, or all the album covers you've previously listened to.
@@joeblankenship377 NIce idea..
No better way to start a Saturday than with a Techmoan video.
I always love seeing your old hip-hop too, T.R.O.Y is a classic
At first I wasn't sure this made sense, but I'm worried my favorite Sony Discman might be on it's way out. I'm actually kinda of tempted.
Me too! I've thought about buying a walkman to modify and put on the wall but this is actually quite a nice device and will probably look quite a bit better.
That's pretty neat! I like it as an item in a bookcase of CDs, but I'm glad the wall mount is offered.
That carrying case looks good too, but I feel that exists so you can surprise someone with playing a CD in a big case!
I can sort of see the appeal for the original one, but it almost feels like an idea of "The Future" from the 80's.
"Well thats a silly product why would I wont one of those" , "I think the best option would be not to buy one" .. Excellent
This is an interesting device. I imagine it would be even cooler if it had an multi colour epaper display and an internal album art database so it would display the album cover sheet recognising the disc.
I think you’re describing a wall mounted streaming device with an album art display 😅
If someone could find an epaper display of just the right size I can see this being an moderate/easy mod to hack together.
That's what I was hoping this was going into the video, although using the cd booklet is neat too I suppose
For that much coin it should be this.
I would buy something like this in an instant. Maybe a nice Kickstarter idea? 🤔
Just bought a CP1 and am waiting on its shipping from Japan via eBay. Can’t wait to get it and play / hang the many plethora of CD’s I have. Your video was really interesting and insightful - ultimately inspiring me to make the purchase.
Thank you
"Most CDs are not decorative" might be true for your collection but definitely not all. Almost every CD i have has at least the album cover or original artwork on it, which is why i was originally fascinated when I heard about these, I've never understood why there weren't more players that show off the disc inside rather than just hiding it away.
YES! Sod the CD players, I came for Mats' completely correct and long overdue withering comment at 4:48 about people who mount TV's high on their walls. Techmoan video of the year for me, this.
Just looked at their website, and they've added a CP2 to their lineup, that includes a built in speaker.
8:27 Now that's attention to detail, I expected a crackle as the headphone plug was inserted, and you gave it to us! Well done!
Something like this with a transparent display built into the front glass to digitally display the album art or a visualizer/video while still vaguely seeing the disc spinning behind would be neat. Maybe a multi-CD one for bigger display area and spiffy CD-changer action. Too expensive for me to buy and not something I would even if I could afford it.. but neat!
A better idea would be a digital picture frame with a built in Shazam app. Forget the CD player, that's not the selling point. Make it 12x12 like vinyl record sleeves. People mount those on the wall anyway. It'd be pretty cool to have a "now playing" one that updates itself.
This reminded me of that weird CD player which looks like it's embedded into a "door frame" you can see during the intro sequence of Melanie C.'s Never Be The Same Again clip. I always wondered if that's an existing device you can buy or just a functional prop.
th-cam.com/video/2nEzfa43VF8/w-d-xo.html
Sony had a few players that had the disc upright and showing like that iirc. But not nearly as compact as this thing.
Ooh I’m going to have to check that out now.
If I'm not mistaken the "door frame" is the actual system, but I can't identify it. We did however have over a thousand brands of audio players in the 90s because very semi-capable electronics company made them, so it's very likely a real system, just not one that's well known
@@thesteelrodent1796 the clip is not very sharp and it's hard to figure out what exactly you are seeing. I've always thought it was meant to be part of the future-minimalist furniture of the house and the CD player is literally part of the house or something. But it's probably some kind of standalone system with the Icelandic LCD text (according to Wiki) added in VFX.
Fascinating! Thanks for the great review, seems I've discovered a great channel here!
I could see a vinyl record version of this being super popular. That said, it would take up a lot more room, and almost be like a shadow box.
Unless it only played 45s, but that negates the point as most collectable records these days are LPs. And it'd still be thick to accommodate the needle
Thank you for the efforts on the slow peeling.
Interesting as always... just waiting for an obscenely priced player with an LCD door that automatically recognises the content and displays the album art. Might be the first time i'd buy a Bang & Olufsen product 😉
not something B&O would ever make
@@thesteelrodent1796 Shame, but I think if they (or someone) made perhaps a slimline LP sized wall mounted player that displayed the album art it would look pretty neat. A gimmick I know, but possibly asthetically pleasing if done with some thought.
I wish I could like this twice - once for the usual top-notch content and another time for the Bubba Ho-Tep DVD!
Japanese wall player looks interesting, nice simple design. I have few SHM CDs that are just green with album name barely visible...
Great item. Great video again! Its about time, they give you that knighthood Techmoan, for great service and entertainment you have given us for a number of years on TH-cam. Well done Sir!
I'm also disappointed that it didn't just let you slot in the whole jewel case. Though, to be fair, double cases and half-thickness cases exist and might have made it a bit tricky to be truly universal.
Thanks for reviewing these, because I really do want one but have never trusted that it'd actually work.
the new one is actually pretty cool and I would definitely use it, currently I have to play my CDs through my DVD hooked up to a CRT in my room, it would be so much more convenient to just send the audio off to my BT speaker!!
Ooh shivers with just the tease of ‘They Reminisce Over You’, my god!
That second one is pretty neat. Only 2 things I'd want changed about it:
1/ As you said, slide the whole CD case in there instead of having to constantly remove/replace just the insert, and
2/ A door on the back with a replaceable battery. At only 7 hours playback time, it'll see a lot of charge/discharge cycles and wear out in a few years (if you primarily prefer CDs to MP3 players or streaming, that is), and then you'll have a USB-C charger constantly dangling from it and ruining the aesthetic.
I was even thinking a door with 2 hot swappable batteries, so that while one is charging the other one is used, and it could switch seamlessly during playback, with a color led on each to show when to charge it. Oh well, I'm not an electronics designer, so I guess I won't be making one of these. Would be cool though. I play my CD collection on the regular.
Techmoan's hip hop collection is on point.
The second one is very interesting, I'm seriously thinking of where I could put one of those to use, but regardless of wherever that might be I'm sure I would probably tire of swapping over the cover art with every CD change, but an arty photograph or something similar would be ideal. Either way, it's given me some ideas about displaying art with a soundtrack.
is it USB CD-ROM too ????
@@lucasRem-ku6eb I don't believe it is.
I have to admit, although I enjoy your videos I’m usually not bothered about buying the stuff - but I WANT I WANT I WANT!!!
My favourite album isn’t available on ANY streaming service, so having the CD sat ready on my bookcase would be amazing. And this player is so clean and modern ❤
There's something slightly disconcerting about starting a CD player by yanking on the power cord.
Oh, I am so tempted.... Bookmarking this for now. Thanks, Techmoan! :)
Not something I'd personally want, but I can appreciate how cool it is and why someone would want one.
There's plenty of album art that's worth displaying, and being able to do so whilst also playing the disc back is a nice talking point.
Your thoughts on just sliding the CD case entirely was what came to my mind right away as well. Would be FAR easier and make a lot more sense, not only it provides the same effect, but stores the case of the disc being played.
Still a quite nice idea, I really like the whole concept of seeing the discs being played, always did.
Japan making wall hanging CD player does not surprise me at all
Why??? I have a Bush made one here in Spain but is a Uk model. Its a CD/FM radio..B&O made one in 1996 that was amazing...
Thanks Techmoan, I've just bought it. This is the second great device I've bought from your videos.
I have no idea where you find these things Matt but I think the Japanese player is a really good idea. The front plate where you "load" the cd booklet doesn't look well designed and looks like it could easily break. However great idea. Personally going back more and more to cds...
A pull cord to play is one of the strangest choices I've ever seen
I think it's fairly easy to get the first device a little bit more appealing by replacing the USB cable with a pretty one of your choice. Like those braided versions and whatnot.
Make it a short one (50 cm or less) and use a small powerbank at the end of it that also doubles as a weight and mimic a more proper pull cord that is essentially the power source.
I would never have guessed your great taste in old-school hip hop👍
Yeah man. Like the idea of the 2nd one. BeiBeing able to display your cover art. Nice tunes used. Got Kool g rap on vinyl. And got Pete rock and Cl smooths album on CD and vinyl. ✌🔥
Techmoan is a dyed in the wool B-Boy. He never misses and opportunity to show off his collection from the Golden Age of hip hop. Can't say I blame him.
@@pervertedalchemist9944innit. ✌
Thanks for the video. Coincidentally, I was in the market for a portable CD player. The old CD-ROM with Audio CD controls which I've used previously broke down completely due to age.
I wanted something modern and at least half-decent. The km5 cp1 looked like a good replacement so I bought one from Amazon Japan. Here's a short'ish technical review:
The cp1 can read Audio CDs, mixed-mode CDs (eg. old game CDs with CDDA audio) and MP3 CDs. But since the track number display is only 2 digits, MP3 CDs with over 99 files will still play all files but not display the track number past 99.
Audio output is either via Bluetooth (SBC and AAC only, no aptX) or the 3.5mm headphone jack. Bluetooth output does have an annoying nuisance in that it has to be re-activated every time you turn the device on. It won't turn on automatically.
The device relies heavily on buffering regardless of the type of media - it pre-loads audio data into the buffer in advance and spins down the CD when the buffer is full even when playing regular audio CDs. Anti-skip is implemented by re-trying the read operation multiple times (this can cause dropouts and delays in the audio). This is more like how a computer CD-ROM drive works, than a CD player. Most audio CD players will simply skip past the damaged areas.
Anti-skip feature has a glitch when playing MP3s - it sometimes causes crackling noise to be injected into the output. To resolve this, you need restart playback of the currently playing file.
When using Bluetooth wireless headset, remote play/pause/skip controls on the headset do work with this player.
As for the aesthetics, the device does look nicelty designed, with a lot of emphasis on the photo frame aesthetic. The build quality is decent but looks somewhat cheap for the price.
how is the sound quality? (Bluetooth and 3,5mm jack)
Very cool device! Seems I've been living my audiophile life vicariously through Techmoan. Thanks for the good life Mat!
On the show Nip Tuck, they had a cool vertical CD player in the operating room. It looked really cool for the time, I don't know if anybody has ever mentioned it.
I think it was motion activated too.
I really want one for my office, I have some cube display with cd’s in having one of these in the next cube playing would be great
Amazing taste in hip hop!
That first one (the cheap one) uses the same style mounting bracket as a lot of IT equipment. A lot of Wifi Access Points use that exact style, only it's not just a slide on for many, they also have locking tabs added. But it's neat because that wall mount bracket is made in the millions (or some version of it anyway). Plus, they already know how to make the mold for the tabs to mount it. I wouldn't be surprised if the case dimensions match an older model AP model and they bought up the dies for the rear and ground them to add features and styling changes.
Also, I know people complain more often than praise when they do or do not like something. So I just wanted to say I like the format of your videos. I like the history of why you made the video and the history of the product (if applicable).
I get the impression that this is for the sort of person who enjoys the ritual of listening to music. It's not about putting on a playlist of some tunes that you're quite fond of. It's going through your shelves, finding that one album you just want to listen to all the way through for the 385th time, carefully removing the disc and loading it into the player. While the first track begins, you peruse the liner notes, even though you know them off by heart. Then finally, you slot the booklet into the display door, sit down, and just listen to the album. All the way through.
How do I get to the point of being able to afford that sort of time? 🥺
I kinda like this in concept but what it makes me want to do is mount the art of my favourite albums on the wall together with a QR code, and then use an app to scan whatever code and immediately start playing that album from my library.
This looks like a very nice bit of kit. I'm tempted. How's the battery life?
OMG That David Niven with signature on the wall simply shows that You are the man of culture as well :O
It’s a pity that the laser assemblies don’t rotate, leaving the disc still so you can enjoy the artwork on picture discs.
That would be less balanced than a brick in a washing machine
I think it would be technically cheaper to put a semi transparent oled cover that displays the album art on it :D
I noticed there is also a DVD version of the Amazon one, had it been BluRay, I might have bought it :D
Would be a cool novelty to create some sort of scanner that can just look at the whole disc surface and play the data without rotating it.
@@SUPRAMIKE18 or it could rip the disc into memory, then stop spinning and you can see the artwork.
Actually, another way to get a the cover art to look like it's fixed on a spinning disc is to use a slightly darkened window and then flash a strobe led at the disc at the same frequency as the disc spins at so every time the disc is lit up it is in the same position and you can just let persistence of vision do the rest.
Since the BT one has an audio jack, I guess you could mod it so that it would have it's own speakers, that way you could always and immediately listen to your favourite albums, I can even imagine someone having multiple of those for each of the albums! Very cool!
Interesting video, and thanks for the useful advice Matt "... not to buy one".
Didn't know these existed. Don't want one, but I did really enjoy seeing some more gems from your album collection.
That would also be cool as an MP3 player with a digital display for the album cover. You get a different piece of cover art depending on what your listening to. I'm surprised they haven't done this yet
Ever heard of an iPod?
@@Some-guy-on-the-internet Yes thanks. Try and hang it on your wall genius
@@squirrel7t7 You could probably wall mount an iPod dock then place it on there.
A lot of DIYers do this with eg. a Raspbery Pi Zero and a very nice hi-res 4" display called the Hyperpixel Square.
All you need now is one that plays MP3s and has a small screen on the front to display the album art.
@4:37 what's the story with the framed cheque on the wall ?
I'd def use something like this in my craft room. Small enough not to take up valuable space, but able to give really good sound.
I really like the idea of holding a CD cover in a picture frame. Finally, a reason to use physical media. (Tidal has replaced my library and has done for some time).
there's more reasons than that to use physical media.
when it comes to movies, when the constantly offended decided that your movie now needs to be censored it may just disappear from streaming.
@@whitetiana3022 They can't remove the movies that are downloaded onto my hard drive 🏴☠
@@whitetiana3022 I understand the arguments for physical media (I'm talking music, here) but, for me, having the entire word's music for a small fee every month, overwhelms the debate. If it does get to the point where my favourite artists are censored, then we have bigger issues than CD ownership. I pay extra to Tidal to ensure artists get a reasonable return, and I'm happy with the quality of the streaming.
@@whitetiana3022 even with physical media it can be difficult to find uncensored versions of old movies unless you get hold of an original release. Convoy is one I can think of right now that's a prime example, where most the DVDs you can get now is the American censored version (even though its only "crime" is partial nudity in a couple scenes), and they dont't bother to mention that on the DVDs, so you have no idea which version you're getting
@@EXiLExJD Arrr... Oi be enjoying that kind of movie ownership too, me hearty! ☠️
Always love the snippets of hip hop, very good taste
This is one of those things that's aesthetically cool. But by the time you worry about charging it, pairing it with bluetooth, and clipping the album booklets in and out of the front cover as you change CDs, it all feels like it's way more of a hassle than I would reasonably want to go through when I just want to pop on a CD.
That's pretty much what most people think of CDs, when they just want to play some music.
What a great little device. As an owner of over 300 CDs I'm very tempted.
9:40 Also, videogames shipped on CD-ROM which had playable CD audio tracks. Those manuals are considerably thicker than album covers.
That said… Xpander by Sasha, from the videogame Wip3out, is always my goto test for CD Players.
Great video as always, thanks!
A backlight of the CD jewel case would elevate this product even more (although most probably due to it being a battery device this was foregone - however, LEDs are very efficient these days)
Clipping it onto a wireless charging pad on the wall would fix that issue. You'd have to get an electrician to install a usb wall jack to keep the clean look and suddenly the cost of this thing is rising exponentially 😂
@@TheTruthKiwi ps TruthKiwi - nz for the win!
I'd buy that for a dollar
I agree, a design that would allow you to slide the CD sleeve in the front or though the side would make more sense although more complicated than the current design. The fiddly holder makes the whole thing look sleeker but less convenient.
As the majority of consumers have moved away from physical media, I've always wanted something like an LP sized colour E-ink display that could cycle through either what's playing or some of my favourite albums.
I have a frame for displaying some of the LPs I do own, but it's such a faff that I rarely do it, and obviously it massively inconveniences you if you do want to play it.
*_"faff"?_*
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman faff = too much effort for very little (if any) reward, doing something basic that is overly/unnecessarily complicated to achieve.
there is one solution: scan all your album covers and use a digital photo frame to display them. Might require some retouching, but it gets around the inconvenience
I'd have been immediately sold if this unit had some sort of digital output! Heck, still want one, givin me serious CD walkman vibes. Big ups for the classic selections on deck!