Wow CDs everywhere...What to do?

It's really unbelievable (at least to me). You plop your CD into the changer, and a minute later the cover art, album title, and list of tracks is retrieved from the internet and then pops up on your video screen. You can sort by artist, music genre, album title and (get this) track names listed in alphabetical order from ALL artists. Fabulous!

I'm using an Esoteric P70 transport and matching D70 DAC. This all feeds a Mac C200 then into Mac MC501s, into Dynaudio Confidence C4's.

Couldn't be happier with the sound and the convenience.

You have created in interesting and functional alternative to the hard-drive based music server.

Rge following IMHO....

The key to this is the Escient box - if you can find one at the right price its a fine thing. But do not mistake the quality of a Sony CD changer for a hard drive based system - the changers are an evolutionary dead end with no one else supporting the format, and the cost is greater too.

In fact it was researching these players and the very expensive Escient that led me down the path of hard drive based systems exactly 2 years ago. There has been tremendous evoluton on the one side - and none on the other.

Don't mean to rain on anyone's parade. I have no doubt that Bigbucks is a happy camper - clearly this approach is better then a wallful of CDs. Its just nowhere near the ultimate solution that is available to all of us right now.

I understand that this isn't the ultimate solution. It seems the 'right' architecture is some kind of networked collage of hard drives tied to a wireless network with the right peripherals to make the sound happen.

For know, I'm not ready to make that jump into a 'disc-less' environment. I like the physical CDs. But I'm sure that once I get comfortable with the system I have, I'll atart thinking along the lines of the completely discless system.

With the Fireball it is a simple matter of convenience and super easy access to your entire music library vs. pure audiophile sound quality. The sound from the Fireball is good though. When you really want to sit and listen critically you can always grab a CD and play it in your stand alone player.

Ckorody - Who would argue that the sound quality from an iPod is not sub par? Nobody cares because of the easy access to your music that it gives you. Escient is not trying to be the next Esoteric or Wadia. They have made a simple to use product that integrates into your sound system with ease and does actaully sound good too. I would say compared to a Sony CD changer most people would not be able to tell the difference. And you can run the digital out from the Fireball into your higher end DAC and really put the Sony Mega Changer to shame :-)

I have had my PC connected to my audio system and had a 300 CD changer but until I got a Fireball I had never listened to my music as much as I do now. I can't see not having one at this point.