Just some general ramblings..

I'm curious if anyone has "Professional" CD PLayers at their house?

A few years back, I picked up a Denon DN-951-FA (Radio station quality player, retails for over $1k USD) for about $79 (USD). Sure, it uses cartridges, but it plays even the scratchiest disks much, much better than my 'home' player.
Denon has a new model out, for 19-in Rack Mount, the DN-C635 which has alot of the same functions, but in a different style case, and with MP3 compatibllity. The latter slightly intregiues me..

Me.

I havd two Pioneer CDJ-500II Limited professional Cd players. I love these things! Very good for mixing !
Of course, they're starting to show their age a bit. Now they're surpassed by new models from Pioneer that also play MP3cd's and memory cards, can scratch, etc. These can't do that, but they're still exellent for mixing normal Cd's.

But I must shamefully admit that, eversince I got my Empeg, I'm not using them much anymore. I don't DJ anymore, and whenever I want to hear a certain track, I'll find it much faster using my Empeg...

I installed two of them recently, the mp3 feature displayed the filename I don't think it could read tags. It did handle folders. My major gripe was that couldn't switch from elapsed time to remaining. Other than that, it has a fast seek and seemingly bombproof transport.

My one question is, which idiot sold you a 951 for $79? Even third hand they can go for 200/300.

I installed two of them recently, the mp3 feature displayed the filename I don't think it could read tags. It did handle folders. My major gripe was that couldn't switch from elapsed time to remaining. Other than that, it has a fast seek and seemingly bombproof transport.

Ah, hate to hear that about the tags. I probably won't look into getting one then. I thought it'd be a neat feature..

My station used those for the longest time, and it bacame easier for me to work one of those than a 'normal' CD Playuer. (I guess just used to the "hit play, it starts immediately at the first audio in the song". So one day I went searching online for them. Like you said, they all ranged 300-on up. Until I came to a pawn shop company who had their merchandise online and orderable. They had ONE for sale for $79, I called them up to make sure they still had it, they did, and ordered it. Came with about 20 'carts'. The only CD player I still use.

Me.