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In
Use
Impressive
though the DC300 is it's not exactly a silent operator,
there are no ultrasonic motors driving this puppy
that's for sure. There's a very definite low rumble
as the motor drives the carousel to its required position
followed by a higher pitched whine as the collection
arm lowers into place and the disk gets prodded out.
The noise is probably made worse because of the size
and shape of the case which more than likely acts
as an amplification chamber to some extent. The noise
isn't awful, but it'd certainly draw attention to
itself in a library.
Response
times are impressive with a maximum eject time measured
at about 5 seconds. Because the carousel can rotate
both clockwise and anti-clockwise the worse case scenario
is a 180 degree rotation to align the chosen slot.
As
with most hardware I can think of things that would
improve the DC 300 but they'd probably add to the
final price and none of them are so essential as to
be impossible to live without.
Conclusion
The
PC peripherals market is full of products from companies
trying to cash in on the computer boom with varying
levels of success and while some are genuinely useful
I've not reviewed many products that have impacted
the way I work in quite so fundamental a way as the
DC 300 has. I'm not sure how it could be done cheaply
but one feature I'd love to see implemented is for
the database to flag the empty slots, even those slots
that have a CD title logged for them but which have
had the disk removed for some reason. Some kind of
proximity sensor would probably be needed to do this
but it's certainly be useful.
As
a stand alone 12cm disk bank the DC300 is an excellent
product but it's when you couple it with the relatively
powerful database software that it really shines,
and with laptops coming down in price even potential
customers on the move like DJ's could build an incredibly
powerful storage system with the ability to search
a massive archive by artist, track, track duration
or any number of other parameters if they take the
trouble to log them.
Having
used the DC 300 for a few days now I have only two
worthwhile complaints, the first one being the size.
At 37cm by 39cm the DC300 is a large peice of kit
and you may need to scout out a home for it before
you buy but like I said earlier, there's really no
way to combat this so it's very much a necessary evil.
The second niggle is undoubtedly the price. At £139
delivered the CD300 is a fairly major purchase. It's
hard to put a monetary value on the convenience it
provides and the potential savings it will bring from
keeping your possibly valuable software collection
safe and sound, but my gut instinct is that it's too
expensive. Maybe as we see the DC 300 penetrate further
into the European markets (We believe The CD Manager
is currently the only European distributor for the
DC 300) prices will start to come down but I'd certainly
be far more comfortable paying a price that sits on
the good side of £100.
All
in all I'm thoroughly impressed with the DC 300. Good
quality, stylish looks, effective software, fuss free
USB interface and speedy operation all conspire to
make this the singularly most impressive and powerful
12cm disk storage solution on the market today, so
much so I've decided to send Bruce at The CD Manager
a cheque and hold on to the review sample! If the
price was just that touch lower I'd be showering this
thing in praise and awards but until it falls a bit
it'll have to make do with a solid rating instead.
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