Karaoke Forums

I said I feel sorry for the CDG KJs... because they aren't making the old workhorses (Pioneer V10, JVC222, 333 or 555, and I've even heard rumors that Pioneer isn't going to be making the V555 or V888 players anymore.)

That means constantly having to buy used equipment or get them serviced at shops that frankly can't get support or parts anymore.

And Tim, I'd NEVER have gone the full route with computers if I didn't like the sound and graphics. C'mon man, do you REALLY think that I'd have invested that kind of money for what I called the future, and tested it and tested it and not believed in it?

That Pioneer drop tray unit from what folks around here are saying was a gem.  I suppose it's limited in the formats it can play, yet I was told if I can get one of those units to grab it. Apparently a few of these units were respected, and as a result hold their value even in resale market.  The RSQ I never got to know much about.  Seemed to be "the standard" for most home and pro's alike that didn't want to spend an arm/leg for a backup or just a decent unit. Even three years ago, I wasn't able to find the Pioneer V10 on "blowout".  People wanted it, and paid to have it.  The few stores that had those left reduced them somewhat, but I was never able to find one at standard clearance or blowout prices.. I suppose the RSQ units are new "pawn-shop" and ebay prizes to grab too when found for low bucks.  In all areas of the electronics market, Companies and models every-so-often come out with a better product line, and than the lesser respected models..  Seems the better technology during this transition period, or perhaps even this "end of a fad" period, is behind us.  What's next ?  I guess as people are saying computers in everything possible. Smaller portable technology to do-it-all ?  Who knows.  If fewer are buying Karaoke machines today, than 10 years ago for home use,  technology isn't focusing on the making of free-standing players.  The demand is down, they won't sell in large numbers I suppose. R&D is about what will make money and sell..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Unbelievable !!

I just did a search for you Kappy. The RSQ MV-333 triple tray player
which is an awesome player that is discontinued.

If you can find it at a store they are going for $500. On e-bay the last one
sold was for $300.

I was lucky enough to get mine on e-bay for less than $200.

The price is being forced up because of the demand. Proof is in the pudding -
new players bite.

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I hear you Kappy.  I have some older Symetrix & dbx compressors that will blow anything new out of the water (well in the same comparable price range).  Same goes with a couple boat anchor (weight) power amps I have, just too heavy to move to justify the added sound benefit.  One of my first cd players (1984-85 circa) - well actually finally died last year, was the best player I ever owned.  It had some very nice features that I utilized that aren't found on todays players, it was solidly built, NOTHING plastic on it.  It even had a separate (subcode) output for future use.  Later to find out it was for an underlying graphic code that was still in development - was cdg even a sparkle then?  I never heard anything more about it nor could find any part that was ever released for it either.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I have heard many horror stories about computer karaoke.   Most of them sound like crap.    Because most wannabes buy a cheap laptop.   They know nothing about good sound and a quality system to begin with.   The laptop barely has enough power to play the speakers in it, let alone be good enough to just plug into an amplifier and expect anything good.

I had a guy bring his laptop to one of my shows.  I hooked it to my system out of curiosity.    I wanted to do my own evaluation of the computer and my ability to get it to sound good.   Played with it all night.

I know nobody will believe this, but I hooked it into my system and without doing anything but adjusting the channel gain, to get volume without red lighting, it sounded wonderful.  

I will be switching over to a computer.   It will have very good video and audio cards.   And I know I'll be blowing away the competition, as always.

Lonnie,   I often give the impression that my loyalty is in "older technology".  Fact is, my loyalty is in "decent quality electronic devices".  Whether it's the older "work horse" amp, cabinet, even VHS player.  Whether it's currently being manufactured, or was discontinued 30 years ago. Different brands have good periods.  I was amazed to read Consumers and find that in certain electronics markets Samsung was the highest rated.  You just didn't find this to happen 20+ years back. Sony, Onkyo, etc were often the respected names, however IF it's a good period for a brands particular model.  I like to know this.  I will always look for GOOD technology in reel to reel players, even turntables, tuners, Tape decks..(a few older great teac models), and I've noticed Nakamichi has made a comeback and is selling at prices thru the roof.  I'd like to look into their actual quality, since I don't recall much about it from the older days.. It was always reasonable quality.


Incidently, slight side not, but still deals with technology.  What ever happened to Nanou ?   They made really nice monitors..  I like NEC, and Nanou.   I guess they went under.

I like to consider myself a "smart buyer".   I'll pay what I must for the best product (within a reasonable margin) that will last, and is solid..  This is why when an older device I have breaks, if it's solid, and one of my tech friends tells me
"the heads on this machine were made VERY well, it's durable". I won't throw it out, and buy new, if "new" has a great line of "planned obsolescence" brand machines on the new market.  This is what I love about Ebay,  You can buy decent past technology at good prices.  As long is it's not a past model everyone raves about that just received monster "writeups"..  When home recording wrote something on the Teac and Nakamichi decks of the early 1980's.  The used market prices went thru the roof.


Bab's, this is how the market works.  A great way to see what's going on in the market currently is to see the Cost/Demand aspects of products of recent past that are not as much in supply. Such as the 333 (3 tray) even the two tray, and the Pioneer model.  When people are saying the NEO isn't as good, and discon models are creeping up, what this means to me is a few things..

Possibly,  The makers of these products are aware the Karaoke machines aren't selling at the rate they were during the peak of the Karaoke fad (perhaps in the 1990's???)   The realize that people that buy today also likely won't use the products quite as often as they did 10 years back... Demand is down, revenue is down, Karaoke (for home use) likely doesn't sell free standing product as it did in the 90's.
The companies might speculate Karaoke will be around for another 3-4 years.  After that technology will make the free standing VCR sized entertainment players obsolete. Hence,  No need to make as good a product,  The best VCR's *quality-wise* were some of the boat anchors made in the late 1980's... Sure JVC in the 90's dropped prices on 4 and 6 head systems,  but my JVC 6 head system crapped out on me in three years.  My 2 head "Emerson" and "Magnavox" VCR's from the 1980;s have never snagged a tape, or destroyed a movie yet !  They've always worked with minimal maint.  THESE will not be tossed away... Always something to keep downstairs next to the Thorens, B&O, and older stuff because it's decent, and one never knows... Decent will always be in demand !  Just like the older phone company touchtone phones that were of course designed DELIBERATELY NOT to breakdown, and force the phone co to make a trip out when everyone had inside subscriber wiring services they paid for, and weren't yet buying their own phones.  Some products were designed to be EXTREMELY durable.. I ALWAYS look for these..I just like having solid things designed to last, to me these are an investment, ESPECIALLY when they sound good too !

Any of you that have a chance... Do a comparison with an older tube Sony Trinitron set, and one of the newer flat panel models... The TV market works because people either have never seen a really nice old television sets picture, or those of us that have, have also forgotten how nice NICE was....  "State of the Art" isn't always worth buying IMHO..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Yep, just like the Symetrix 501 compressors I have, I got 6 of them off of e-bay for about $75 each a year-2 years ago - $25 & 30 for a couple I got strictly for parts.  These were state of the art 10-15 years ago costing upwards to $450 & are still better than anything under $300 today.   I've been looking to get a couple more but now see that they are going for over $100-150 now.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

When VCR's hit their peak, you had 4 manufactures, Mitsubishi, Mitshushita, JVC, and Sony. Sears, JC Penny, Panasonic, etc(whatever company name was on the box) was made by these four companies. It was all contract work according to each retail outlets specifications. It wasn't until the Korean market hit that we came up with the term, 'disposable purchase' where it meant that it was cheaper to buy another one than to have one serviced. I bought my first JVC poptop for 800 bucks, and even then it was a demo. Remember the 'Reggie Vision' sales ploy, folks were paying over a thousand bucks for those units. Of course now you can buy almost any VCR for less than 50 bucks. Same way with DVD players, of which you can thank Apex for the most part.
An FCC ruling came down about their machines having a chip that could be flashed, disabling the Macrovision in the unit, allowing it to be played both copyguard and region free. So what does Apex do with the existing units, they flood the Walmart market with DVD players for under a 100 bucks, 79 bucks to be exact. The next year, the market exploded with cheap DVD players. Everything is geared towards the mass market. The Asian market is focused on quantity, not necessarily quality. The quality is still out there, but of course so is the price tag. Look at your flatscreen tvs and computer monitors, those prices have dropped almost half in two years based on the competition in the Asian market.
Karaoke machines on the other hand, is a very limited market(within the USA) with a slower turnover than our other counterparts. Many of you folks still have the original machines that you first bought. Slower turnover, means loss of quantity sales, which in turn means limited incentive for companies to pursue further future investments.
So what eventually happens is that folks will in fact turn towards a computer based operation, not necessarily out of want, but out of lack of dependable hardware.
Anyways, enough of my economics bs.

After much debate and questions here at the forum, I did decide to go with the Acesonic DGX-105 unit. Purchase price will vary depending on vendor with the average price being between 100-129. It has played everything that I've thrown at it flawlessly, even my backups that the VocoPro and crappy home unit that I was using wouldn't play. I even did the Maninblack shockresistant test, by putting in a disc and purposely going up and knocking the crap out of it, and yet it played without skipping a note. So for my money and my particular needs it fit the bill. I had to have a unit that I felt confident could handle the constant moving around that my show has to do. Is it the best out there, probably not, but it was the best I could afford at the time, and that's what counts with me.
Sorry to be so long winded, and thank you for taking the time to read all this.

James
Maninblack

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I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

Maninblack,

  I tend to get the makers confused since so much has changed, yet certain things have also remained the same... I can't sort this out but these names ring a bell
in VCR technology,  and since the VCR is essentially a television tuner too, it makes sense that the TV makers would be in this..


Emerson
Sharp
Sony
Toshiba
Matsushita
Goldstar
Samsung
Sanyo
Motorola
RCA
Sylvania GTE
Zenith
NEC
Mitsubishi might have been Goldstar (not sure)
and I get really really confused with the Magnavox/Quasar connection. I think Matsushita bought JVC and Magnavox owned Quasar however Matsushita bought.  Quasar.  Panasonic-technic early on were Matsushita.  As was "national" radio.

Now sears I think was Samsung.  If it had the Sears name in the 80's that is.. But Sears of course carried other brands such as Zenith, etc

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

It was funny to watch the TV companies go at it in the mid-80's

Sony Trinitron
Sharp Linytron
Toshiba Black line tech
Mitsubushi  Diamond vision

They all went head to head with their patent dark matrix tech

(now ProScan,  I'll never quite know what their story is)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Yep !  Part of the fun for me is trying to speculate when to buy, Yet this requires techs tipping me on what will be respected down the road based on their electronic knowledge. Once the names and quality are known by many, you are going to pay big bucks.  These become the "pawn-shop" prizes, or garage sale gems everybody looks all over for.  Those of you that are more technical have an advantage, you can tell the quality of assembly, and componentry just by looking inside the casing.  and I'll tell you, I don't care what ANYBODY says about Peavey.  The classic series guitar amps are dynamite and have held and appreciated in value. Peavey is a great name because as most of us know, they do make a workhorse of a product..Classic 25, 30, and 50 are really nice, they last, and sound good,  what else matters ?.. fabulous products in fact.  In the 50 years Peavey has been around the name just gets more respected by all except the name snobs.. While they might not be Boutique quality, I haven't a clue what "bouteque quality" is. my income doesn't make boutique affordable, assuming it was in fact that much better quality and this is always questionable.  Especially considering the times you pay 8 times more for the name IMHO..  Really it's just knowing when to buy, and what's a well made product.. Living within my means becomes important since I don't have a "cutting edge" wallet.  Assuming I did, to me, not staying a few steps behind cutting edge is a waste of money anyway.  Only regret I have, was not buying alot more Tannoy in the 60's when it wasn't overly costly.


Bab's.  If ever you want to know what the good products were of our time, ask the older small repairman.  Somebody like Karyoker, who's seen tons of this stuff pass thru.. They know the inside scoop and can offer the most sage regarding what was a good product, and what years it was made..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Whew lord, lemme try to sort through all of this.
Motorola, RCA, Sylvania, Zenith all started out if I'm not mistaken as American companies, but of course couldn't compete in the current market against cheaper Asian products. Magnavox started out with American made parts, but quickly sold it's assembly plants to Mexico and in the final phase the only true American parts were the wooden cabinets, but of course when plastic became king, all of it was made in Mexico with Japanese parts. NEC, Toshiba, Sharp, Sanyo if I'm not mistaken, started out in calculators, but branch into full electronic lines, such as printers/copiers with TV's and VCR's included, with the exception of NEC which invested a short lived adventure into computers.
Sony of course sold the VHS rights to JVC, of which I do believe you are correct in JVC's being aquired by Mitshushita(or however you spell it). But of course we know Sony's stronghold in the electronics market, and even a couple of years ago purchased Sonic Foundry and all of their software technology. And for those of you in the know, the Sound Forge and Acid products were peanuts in comparison to the video applications Sonic Foundry was working on at the time. Next time you pick up a DVD, check for the Sony Accros copyguard protection logo, it's almost on every disc currently on the market. Sony's viewpoint, if you can't come up with better technology, then buy the company that does.
But back on subject(my bad)
Emerson, Goldstar and Samsung pretty much started out as cheap lead in products that stores could advertise to get folks in the door, but never intended to sell. But cash is king and folks want a bargain, so for almost ten years, these models dominated the market. This past year we've seen the rise of such companies as Durabrand take the lead as the low end consumer choice for home DVD players.
Use to be folks balked at buying anything Japanese, now they wish they could still buy it, since most of our consumer electronics come from Malaysa, Taiwan, China, Korea and even Vietnam.  
Dear god Kappy, my head hurts now, you made me think way too much this early in the morning..    I know I've missed some key points, but I'm pretty much braindead at this stage. Sleep is of the essence and it's time I get my share.
Sorry for the long post again, and especially for all the typos.
later,
James
Maninblack

P.S. and of course I may be completely wrong on some of my points, but it's funny how you remember so much from back then, guess it's contributed to my former life of retail, but thank goodness it's all behind me now.

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

I would be curious as to how many companies are really making the televisions we buy. So many brand names, but how many are coming from the same factory ?

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".