In. A previous video about CD, video you might have noticed, this CD, player being used briefly for a couple of seconds, if you didn't um not surprised but quite a few people did, notice it and wanted to know more information about it so that's exactly, what this video is going to be now don't switch off just yet I know it's just a CD player but, it does have quite a few interesting, features I want to show you now, it just so happens as I was starting to put this video together I was contacted on Twitter by, this group candy apple blue who wanted to send me a free promotional, copy of their new album powers. Activate, on a, CD, and they said this wouldn't hit any YouTube, content, marshes in addition, it's got vocals, on here which is something I needed to be able to demonstrate a particular feature of this player and it's also got CD, text, as well which is something you don't see very often, so I've taken them up on their offer which, means they get some free promotion, and I get a disc which I can demonstrate the, various features and functions, of this device now, the machine in question, is the super scope PSD, 300. It's also sold, under the, marantz brand, but the super, scope wasn't seem to be more common but you'd be forgiven for never noticing. One of these before because they weren't generally. Marketed, to your average consumer they. Were sold through music, shops and to professional. Musicians, and music teachers. And people like that because it's got some features that are designed for that particular, group but before I go into detail, on those let's just have a general look around the device because it's a very complicated, looking, machine very purposeful, as well but I think a beautiful, design, and I'll break down the features one at a time we'll start around the back on the inputs and outputs on the far left we've got RCA. Output, for mix I'll explain what that is later on and then a line out at auxilary in the standard analog as well as digital inputs. And outputs over coax, rc5, remote control input. And a foot pedal socket, there so you can start to stop the playback remotely. We've got a proper. Power button at the bottom right as well as the input, for, the cable it's got a built in transformer.
In Here there's no external. Power bricks that just go straight into there there's no battery, power on this thing it does look like it might run on batteries but it doesn't you have to plug it in I'm plugging it into a set of external speakers. Here it does happy own built-in, speaker, but it's a little bit weedy so I'm going to demonstrate, it, through that, speaker, as well, as through the external, ones now it does have its own built-in microphone, at the back there but for best results if you recording over microphones, you're going to be using these XLR. Inputs on the front for the left and right stereo or the jack plug sockets, next, to them and. On the top here at the front you'll see we've got the display there which gives us a lot of information about the various features and menus and things you'll be seeing quite a bit of that later on now the top middle this is a CD, player a top loader the, controls for play pause stop fast-forward and rewind and next to that the track skip are operated, off the center, dial, in the middle of the machine now at the bottom right here these are the controls for this CD, recorder. You'll see we've got some additional controls, for record erase and fire dies there now the CD recorder, is a traditional, front loaded device down, at the bottom here it's a two time speed CD, recorder, now this machine is covered. In switches, controls, and dials and it does make it look pretty complicated, but, it actually simplifies. Things down in my opinion, because nowadays if you've got something like this it was recording onto a hard drive it had a large. Touch screen on it these, things would be buried down in sub menus of menus of menus whereas on here everything's, got its own position you can see just by looking at it what, you've, set, things to is it odd is it off which way is the dial pointing, I just prefer, this way of doing things but I understand, of course why things aren't like this nowadays the more buttons something has the more likely things, are going to go wrong where's this I've got to say it's working perfectly, but anyway let's just have a look what, happens when I put this CD in here because it's got CD text, on it which is something you don't see very much, and I was glad to see it on this disc because it enables me to demonstrate the CD text function now, before this discs arrived in a post I was looking for other CDs, in my collection, which I could use for demonstrating, the CD texture, the other ones I found it on with some hybrid, si CDs, and it wasn't even on all of, those now, if you look at the display you can see this title. Is going across it's quite a long one and it will display all the text that's in that title if you use the discs in the top drive in the CD player if you put the same discs in the CD recorder, at the bottom it only displays the first 20, four characters, of it now. As well as the CD title track title, and artist as included, on this disc using the CD text standard it is possible, to include a lot more text, information on, a disc it's just a shame that over the years this is a feature that's largely been ignored. Now. The built-in, speaker on this machine is really just there for monitoring, recordings, isn't something that you'd enjoy listening to your music through. Although. It does have controls, for bass mid and treble which not only affect the output through the speaker, but. Also over. The line outs as well. Now. If you want you can listen to the internal, speaker at the same time as using the line out so you can mute it by turning the volume all the way down or just flipping this switch on the right-hand side however.
I've Hooked up to these external powered, speakers, for this next demonstration, where I want to show you some of the features this machine housed that have been designed for people either, teaching, or learning, music. It's all regarding, these four, buttons that are below the screen. Much about, me. I was. Particularly impressed with that VR function, there but just wrapping a couple of these other features up we've got single that, will play just a single, track on a CD so you select the track and when you're in single, mode it, plays it all the way through gets, to the end of it and stop doesn't ultimately go, on and play the next track, and then of course you could if you wanted to play the next track just by pressing play, again, and. Then the final feature that I want to show you on here as far as playback, features go is change, your mode if we switch this on it will operate like a CD, changes so if you've got a disc in Drive, a and Drive B when it finishes playing, the first disc it will then start playing the second, and of course whilst it was playing that disc you could open. The top lid up swap, that disc out to something else so that then when it returned to it you, were keeping the party going with, a nonstop. Music megamix. And. I've got to mention these vac like hell of buttons I love, it backlit button because not only do, they tell you exactly what's, going on at the moment to what functions. Activated. I just think they look gorgeous, as well. Now. You might be aware that I always appreciate, a vu, meter on a piece of music equipments, of course generally you don't get them on compact disc players but this is a competition. Recorder, and it's really there to, monitor the recording, levels so plugging in a stereo microphone you can see I can bring the recording levels over, so it's peaking, out and, of course to reduce those down you can Swiss these dials here to reduce your recording. Levels or I can use the auto level. Control, switch instead, now. Earlier on I mentioned that mix outputs, on the left there if I was to take the sound out of that I get a mixture of the compact, discs being played together with, the inputs. That are plugged into the machine so in this case it's be singing. I'm using inverted, commas there over, a microphone and, I can turn the voice off on the original recording to make my own rather, unique version. Now. Up to this point I've only used the playback, functions, we've got this whole CDR, mechanism, to play about with yet so this will use, either CDR, or cd-rw. Discs, and I just want to do something simple to start with once we've press the record button we, can then use various different record modes I'll show you some of those but this first world I'm just going to do a simple thing and record, off the built-in microphone that's on the back of the machine just to see how, well that recalls, my voice. Right. I've just add a quick test I was very impressed with it the sound quality, is remarkably. Clear to say it's only coming through this little microphone. In the back let's just have a listen back to this. Right. I'll turn the speaker on and, we'll. Press play will select track 2. Now. We're going to move on and copy a compact, disc you can see we've got an original one in the top there I've got a blank in the bottom we could copy it to time speed and finalize. It afterwards if we want to we can create a half speed version which plays back at half the speed synchronize. Record ultimately starts recording when it hears sound through the inputs, and we'll, just go back to the standard copy two times and finalize, that just makes a a one to one disk copy now when we select that it goes into record pause mode, and all, that we have to do here now is just, press the record, button and, it will automatically.
Copy. The disk across and finalize. It for us and as you can see on the timer here it's running at two times speed, this is the maximum copy speed it says in the manual here this might be useful for a teacher handing out copies of what, a class had done to all the different people I'd, hope they didn't have too long a class because it would say them quite a long time to copy all those discs now you might notice when I press play on this and it's also copied, across that CD, text, information, now, there is a limitation, on, this it does truncate. It down a bit it only copies the first 24. Characters, of each field so you might remember track, 5 that we played earlier on had a really, long title is featuring. Someone and remix by someone else well in this case we just get at the beginning of the title but I still, ass much, better than nothing. Now. The CD text information only appears once you've chosen to finalize, a disk so if we copy the disk again but, this time choose not to finalize it we'll just leave it in the open, state that would then enable, us to change. That text now of course most CDs you copy wouldn't have any text on so this would be your opportunity to, add titles. Into those tracks. If you wanted to on this one I'll be editing the existing, text so if we just go in and look at the first one which is the title, of the, album powers, activate if I just do, a quick change to that because I'm using this dial, in the middle as you can see it's going to take some time so I'll, just change that one to towers' activate, just to show you this feature works and we're going to track for which is called Mad About You and I'll. Just do a quick change to that one as well so let's make that dad. About you so, to apply the changes, we've made we just click finalize, this then writes on the remaining section, of the, disc the blank section at the end there's only a couple of minutes left here so it doesn't take very long at, all and once that's done the CD text has been applied to the disc of it Coderre see the title. Of the album has been changed, as well as the title, of track for now. Because this is classed as a piece of professional recording. Equipment, it doesn't have to comply with the SCMS. That's something that's employed on consumer. Devices, like mini disc stats DCC. And CD recorders, which would prevent you from making, a digital. Copy of a, digital. Copy of an, original album. This, thing just doesn't care you can copy whatever the heck you want one. Handy feature if you are recording off an external, player is sync, record, this holds the recorder, in record, pause until such a time as the, signal starts coming through from your external. Device, it doesn't miss the start of the track off because in this case it's just looking for the digital signal, coming through over coax and, if you want you can monitor, recording. Over, the devices built-in, speaker, now, if you are recording a digital, source it might be worth switching auto track, on this reads. The track, indicator. That sent through with a digital signal, and inserts, it at the appropriate, place on the, recording, therefore, rather than having one long, recording, you get the individual, track, numbers coming, through as well now you can, use this feature when. You're doing something like recording. An analog source in this case a record. What. It does in this case is it looks for a period of silence, in the recording, the couple of seconds or so in between tracks, and, when it hears how it will incrementally, increase, the track number now this can also be used in conjunction with the auto stop, feature which is useful when, recording a record you record one side of the record and then when it reaches, the end and it gets to a section, where it's not played anything for quite a few seconds it will stop recording and it gives you the opportunity to take the record I turn, it over and record.
The Other side. Although. There is a limitation to this track identification. System, on an old record like this which is full of crackles, and pops there, isn't a long enough spell of complete. Silence between tracks for the recorder, to identify, that as a, break and therefore, it just records everything as, one long track. There. Is a solution, though but, it involves, having the infrared, remote control something, that I don't, have the. Infrared remote control includes. A couple of additional features, which aren't available on, the machine itself not too important, but I thought I should mention them if you look at number 28 that's the track increment, button that would solve our issue we were having when you get to that gap between tracks, press that and it will bring the track on by one, also on the bottom left there number 21, also music search which will play the first 10 seconds of each, track on a CD, is just those two features well I suppose in addition to the fact that we've got the number keys on here which might enable you to enter, the text information a little bit quicker than using that dial on the front of the machine now if you're the kind of person likes, reading through specification. Sheets well there's one on screen for this machine now but if you want to read the whole manual there's, a link to that in the video description text, box and that takes you through to the manufacturers. Website and they allow you to download it as a PDF. Now, the model I've been showing you that PSD 300. Came to the market in 2002. But superscope, had a range of these devices in fact they're still selling them but looking at this screen here at the bottom the 220. Is a simple, CD player the 230, as the ability to change the key as well as display CD text the 3:30, is a single, drive CD, recorder, 300, is what I've shown you and at the top there the 340. Adds the ability to play back mp3 s off CDs. There's a page here out of the B&H photo, catalogue, from 2007. Our link, to this in the video description text, box because it gives you a bit more information about, the machines and which, models had which features. You can see the 220. And the 230, machines, there but in this chart here you can see what each machine was capable of. Now. I mentioned, that they were still selling a variants of this machine it's the PSD 450, marked, 2 but, just look at those prices it's either 899.
Dollars Or 999. Depending. Upon the amount of internal storage but of course these are professional. Recording, devices these aren't your normal consumer, equipment but they do find, their way onto eBay, the, price is they're very wildly. For the machine I've got here you could pay. $700. Or you could pay a heck of a lot less in fact if we look at the completed, auctions, you can see some, people here have got some very good deals. If we look at this chap at the top he, only paid. $55. For this perhaps plus shipping and looking, at that auction that one was fully working, he said it had hardly been used so, that was a pretty good deal now, whilst I didn't get quite as good a deal as that when I bought mine in May, 2017. I did. Only pay 105, pounds 10 P including, delivery and it was already here, in the UK which meant I didn't have to pay any import, duty and importantly, it runs on, 230. Volts, if I was to import, one for the US it's a hundred and twenty volts now it says 60 Hertz it's quite likely it's 50/60, Hertz, but I'd have to use it through a step-down power transformer. So. There you go we've spent almost 18 minutes talking about a CD player and, recorder something. That you might not have thought possible when we first set out but given the amount of features this thing has and the fact it will only have been for sale in specialist, retailers I think, it warranted, it now if you want to get hold of your own PSD, machine I'll have a link, in the video description that will take you through to an eBay search one. Thing I'd say though just bide your time with, that would have a bit of patience because the cheap ones on the show up every now and then perhaps use a save surge oh and also I should say candy, apple, I've got a link to their website in, the video description text. Box but that's it for the moment as always, thanks. For watching.
2018-02-13