A question about music players

[lathany]

For some years now I've been playing music in roleplaying sessions with the help of a CD player. However, the last two (or maybe three) were cheap, didn't last very long and broke pretty quickly. I currently have no music player at all, but plenty of CDs (which get played on my PC).

So - what should I buy now? Should I purchase a new CD player (possibly something more expensive) or finally face the whole MP3 thing that I've been ignoring and buy an MP3 player? And, if the latter, what form (eg. speakers) given that I want to play music to a room? (Incidentally, recommendations that ignore products from that Jobs company are particularly appreciated.)

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you want to play music in other people's rooms, or just your own? (What I'm really asking is "does your solution have to be portable?")

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. If it's a good solution, then it doesn't have to be portable. Whilst I have run games with music outside my home that's very much the exception (about once a year), so I could do without.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

...or you could use my laptop for those occasions.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

We rip our music onto the pooter and use that. I have some 20 quid speakers as a guard against utter tinniness. We aren't very fancy, but it works.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Sadly, we don't have a computer in that room. We do have consoles, but I've never tried playing music on them.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Ah.

Laptop and USB stick? :-/

[lathany.livejournal.com]

That kind of works, but we probably need a set of speakers as well - the laptop sound isn't great.

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

If you don't have any MP3s already, I'm not sure it's worth going through the whole rigmarole of ripping them, making playlists etc.
Assuming you're comfy with the way you've been doing things so far, I'd buy a decent CD player and carry on.

On the other hand, If you're using your lounge to play in, the PS3 is a reasonably good playback device for music, and it can cheerfully stream playlists across a network.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I wondered about the PS3. It gets a fair amount of use for movies; I might try it for the next session I run.

[quiet-dignitea.livejournal.com]

What about cables? I'm a big fan of cables. I ran my speakers out to the parking lot, once, with 50-foot cables, so I could listen to the stereo while cleaning out the car. The cables were about $3 each. Or are you lacking any CD player at all?

[lathany.livejournal.com]

It's the lacking any player at all thing. However, combined with venta's response below - this may be heading for a full house solution.

(Although I will also try al_fruitbat's suggestion for my standalone game that's fast approaching.)

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

A word of warning about the PS3 as a media player - you're probably going to need the TV screen on, in which case you might have to deal with the distraction of the visualiser.

Try it out beforehand would be my advice. You can always turn the TV brightness down loads :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I am a shameless reactionary and - though I listen to mp3s at work - I cling tenaciously to CDs at home (and vinyl, and tapes). Particularly if you're deliberately using music to add atmosphere to a game, then putting a CD on has a nice sense of occasion to it. You can get reasonably nice mini CD-players-plus-speakers not too expensively (say, something like this (http://www.sony.co.uk/product/micro-systems/cmt-s20b) - we have something quite similar in the kitchen at home).

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I think this may be the solution as I'm very fond of CDs too. Also, if I want it in other rooms then it goes well with quiet_dignitea's cable idea.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, this sort of micro-hifi is what I use. I also listen to MP3s at work, but it seems somehow Wrong to use them as background music for a game. (Plus I'd probably foul up the playlist somehow and get skippy elf music when they're confronting the big bad.)