Does Brand Name Make A Difference? (karaoke)

I'm looking for your experience and knowledge. Some of my clients ask for karaoke at their birthday parties. Mostly kids, but sometimes adults too. I have a nice LCD monitor, but I'm having trouble with the player.

I'm looking for a componet piece, not an all in one. Does not have to be multi-disc. I've use VocoPro, RSQ, Nic and Karaoke.com, each with limited success. I've spent less than $300.00 on each unit. (is that too low?)

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome!

I'm looking for your experience and knowledge. Some of my clients ask for karaoke at their birthday parties. Mostly kids, but sometimes adults too. I have a nice LCD monitor, but I'm having trouble with the player.

I'm looking for a componet piece, not an all in one. Does not have to be multi-disc. I've use VocoPro, RSQ, Nic and Karaoke.com, each with limited success. I've spent less than $300.00 on each unit. (is that too low?)

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome!

Whatever my opinions of these various brands of players, if you have been having trouble with ALL of them, then my guess is that the players are not the problem. If you would describe the symptoms of your problem, as well as the rest of your hardware and media ( assuming disc, brands?) we may well be able to solve your problem.

Yes, thank you. I should have been more descriptive. The sound system is not the problem. I've never had any sound issues. I don't have a huge collection of karaoke songs, but the majority of them are the following brands on CD+G:

Supercore
Sweet Georgia Brown
Partytime
Sing It Now
SoundChoice (DVD)

The issues I seem to have are slow load times and lag times in cueing up tracks or forwarding to tracks. Sometimes, a disc wont even load. Granted, I need to do more testing to see if any one machine does better with any one disc brand, however I am still looking for opinions or experiences on good brands of karaoke players.

The thing you have to remember with karaoke discs is that they are different from standard audio cd's in that they have a data track that must be loaded along with the audio track.... some players this lag is longer than others...

I had the RSQ MV333 it has three trays that you can load up and it takes time with any tray system to switch from tray one to the next tray and then there is the time to load the disc... in essence the player is decoding the disc as it loads...

If you truely want to cut down on this a pro-dual deck such as a Numark or ADJ player with CDG read capability is the best way to go... if you don't want to convert to PC

If you convert to PC and use a hoster program such as AutOKdj you will cut this lag issue completely out....

I've got the RSQ 333 Triple Tray player........only $179.00 and came with a collection of 100 Chartbuster Karaoke tunes.

For the price, it was the best I could possibly expect since I'm only doing a handful of Karaoke shows per year.

I've got the RSQ 333 Triple Tray player........only $179.00 and came with a collection of 100 Chartbuster Karaoke tunes.

For the price, it was the best I could possibly expect since I'm only doing a handful of Karaoke shows per year.

I don't think that was his question... he already has a few players and is battleing with the lag time it takes to load discs.... this lag of course could be solved by going PC.... with zero load times his problem would be solved... IF he wants to go PC....

What I think he's looking for is a player that can que like a DJ's deck.... and that just doesn't exist with CDG players because CDG's are different as most know they have a data track along with the audio so there is a certain amount of decodeing a player has to do before it will play....

OK, this is helpful info. I did not consider the decoding of the data track in the lag time I experience. Also, the worst it ever was, was at an outdoor gig, at night. It wasn't cold enough to see your breath, but it was cold. I guess that could have an impact.

So now, if I could simply get opinions on better quality brand names, or ones to avoid perhaps? Again, this is only your opinion and I will use it to better my research.

Interestingly, my kids are in the front room right now, using the Nic player (less than $100) and its only goofed up once in about 20 tracks. (it was an All Star Karaoke disc)

I find what you experiencing very odd.

I have used a $30 dvd player to play cd+g and it only takes about 20 to 30 sec to load a disc and song.

I still use it I have a disc based rental system I send out about 3 or 4 times a year.

OK, this is helpful info. I did not consider the decoding of the data track in the lag time I experience. Also, the worst it ever was, was at an outdoor gig, at night. It wasn't cold enough to see your breath, but it was cold. I guess that could have an impact.



OK, a couple of things: First, it seems that you just may not be used to the extra lag for CDGs. However, most DO cue up pretty quickly, so:


1) The cold outside gig may have caused either your discs, or the reader in the player to fog up. This is a very common occurance in both colder venues, or under air conditioned warm venues where humidity builds up, causing reading errors. For these venues, be sure to check and wipe discs, and carry a lens cleaning disc for the player.

2) Different disc brands do have different lag times based on the encoding process. This has no effect on music quality, so "top brands" CAN have longer lags or not. The longest lags that I have experienced seem to me with Music Maestro, the shortest with SuperCore. Either way, these lags are usually very short- a few seconds at most.

Since you have been experiencing problems with ALL of your players, my guess is that you might have a media problem as well. Your discs may have been exposed to excessive heat, corrosive gas ( even car exhaust ), or other things that will cause problems while showing very little visual indication. If older and hard used, it may be time for resurfacing or replacement. However, my very first suggeation would be to sit down and clean every disc and visually inspect them. Why all of them? Because even one with a foreign substance on it could be fouling ALL of the players...

My 4.5 cents...... Good Luck!

This may be a small thing but it is something that I missed when I first starting using karaoke.. If you're going to buy a DVD with karaoke on it, make sure you're player plays DVD discs as well as cd+G :sqembarrassed:


As to the lag times, I've never had any problems with my RSQ 333 except for that one of the trays seems to stick occasionally.. annoying as heck, but certainly not fatal. I've tried everything i can think of to fix it.. *shrug*

The only exception seems to be music maestro..those discs take forever it seems..

-James

This may be a small thing but it is something that I missed when I first starting using karaoke.. If you're going to buy a DVD with karaoke on it, make sure you're player plays DVD discs as well as cd+G :sqembarrassed:


As to the lag times, I've never had any problems with my RSQ 333 except for that one of the trays seems to stick occasionally.. annoying as heck, but certainly not fatal. I've tried everything i can think of to fix it.. *shrug*

The only exception seems to be music maestro..those discs take forever it seems..

-James

You might try running a pencil VERY LIGHTLY along the sides of the tray track. I repeat, LIGHTLY, else you may end up with graphite in places you don't want it. Funny thing though. I've noticed a sticking problem on an older player that's solved by leaving a disc in it. It only sticks when empty. Go figure.

As for Music Maestro, they have another strange effect over and above the lag. Some of them cause a weird vibration in the drive. It doesn't effect the music or graphics, just sounds strange....:sqerr: