Human CD Holders

The other day I ended up on Popgadget, which happens to be a site covering “Personal Tech + Innovative Life Style for Women”. I have no remembrance of how I landed on the site, but I assume it was when – once again – I was googling for some product. Although I certainly don’t have an innovative life style (and, just in case you were wondering, I’m not a woman either … not that it matters), I had this immediate “Want! Need! Will Have!” moment when I saw the photo of the “Human CD Holder” on said page. I then used Popgadget as a jumping board on my search for who produces and sends out this holder and similar products and ended up on both wrapables.com and then on Amazon.com that carries a whole lot of Wrapables’ products (affiliate link). Of course, as is always the case with these geek products, you can easily find a whole slew of sites covering them such as geekologie.com, haha.nu, technabob.com, and a trillion others. Of course, as is often the case, they got with the program about one year before I did. Continue Reading →

Deconomix LP Storage

After many a month online, the most popular search term that brings people to this site is “LP storage”, so much so that livingwithmusic.com has taken over the top spot with many search engines. Since November of 2005, I’ve covered quite a few (but not nearly enough) of the most popular storage solutions for the vinyl enthusiast, but my bookmarks are still filled with perhaps a bit more reclusive shelving units that may be less wide-spread but have garnered as positive or even enthusiastic reviews as have the widely-known solutions discussed on this site already.

One manufacturer with a rock-steady reputation I keep coming across, especially on European music forums and discussion boards, is UK-based manufacturer Deconomix.

As far as I could ascertain, Deconomix, founded by Stuart Fisher, has been supplying the more than huge UK-DJ market with vinyl storage solutions for more than 7 years, but it was the steady flow of highly enthusiastic recommendations that turned my attention to their expandable storage solutions that reach industrial vinyl archiving proportions. Additionally, and that’s where things get interesting for people with a thicker wallet, they can also custom-make just about anything you want, from curved consoles to floor to ceiling archiving storage. If you have enough LPs or other vinyl items to open a shop with … hell, they can outfit one of those as well. Continue Reading →

“Musikstapler” by Nils Holger Moormann

Design has always been a passion of mine. I know that lots of people don’t afford that aspect a second glance, at least not consciously, and here in Germany people often forgo the design aspect to opt for the cheaper variants, but often things catch my eye and stay on my radar, no matter if they are furniture, glass, china, cutlery or any other item.

Some months ago I came across an item which I thought might be of interest to music collectors who are looking for space-saving solutions, and Nils Holger Moorman’s “Musikstapler“, which could be translated as “Music Pile(r)”, fits the bill perfectly. Continue Reading →

Boltz LP Shelf Units

Usually I can’t even blink an eye before someone takes me to task for not including this or that in one of my posts and also this time, about two seconds after I put up a post about the nifty Boltz CD racks, Steve, hailing from the US, shot an e-mail my way, complaining that I had forgotten to include the Boltz LP shelf units, his – as he put it – “one true and only love” (did I ever mention that we collectors are a weird bunch?). In a post scriptum, he added that his wife had threatened him with divorce (no surprise, mate) if he ever bought another expansion set and, he tells me, he now has to resort to having them shipped to his office. Collecting can put a real strain on your life and relationship(s), can’t it? Continue Reading →

Boltz CD Racks

One way of adding products to write about to my ever-growing list of items is to simply surf through the list of referrers (for those not in the know, those are the “footprints” on my site left by visitors and kept track of via a small excellent programme called “Mint“, courtesy of Shaun Inman) which then usually takes me to longer or shorter posts referencing my site or discussing one of my posts.

Just the other day I followed another one of those links and was reminded again that I haven’t written anything about Boltz yet. Mind you, it certainly wasn’t the first time I was sent over to their site. It has happened many times because whenever people discuss storage options at some forum or another, the Boltz CD racks invariably pop up, usually by the third post or so … at the latest.

So, let’s see what all the buzz and hype is about. Continue Reading →

German Shelf System ‘max’

Note: This product is no longer available. Ther company now produces a rack system called “Rio”, which I will post about in the near future.

Continue Reading →

Gothic Cabinet Craft: LP Rack

Sometimes I think I should have kept most of my LPs, which I didn’t, but when that thought crosses my mind, I always remember how much space my old record collection took up. When I had LPs only, many years ago, I ended up with a really cheap metal basement shelf system that I could afford but which was also butt-ugly (brown and beige), and it took up an entire wall of my first rather spacious one-room student apartment. I just didn’t have the cash that time to get anything else, and just like today, I favoured investing my money into the music on the shelves instead of the shelf units themselves.

Today I don’t have many LPs left (some I have in storage to be sold one day) and they are housed in my old rock-solid IVAR cupboards. Whenver I come across some interesting posts on music forums discussing LP shelving units though, I always check them out and when I do, I always feel a tinge of regret about having sold or given away such a large part of my old vinyl collection. Continue Reading →

Benno and Billy dismembered

Years ago we had a runaway bestseller over here in Germany trashing “Nieten in Nadelstreifen“, which translates best as “Losers in Pinstripe Suits“. It was a real hoot and basically gave a detailed account of really bad business decisions instigated by seemingly incapable managers and outlined the full breadth of stupidity rampant in the upper echelons of German companies. Needless to say, nothing has changed since then, the German economy is down the drain, and we are chugging along as if nothing happened.

Enter IKEA, that leaping cheapo and cuddly family-oriented Swedish furniture emporium that likes to pride itself on customer relations which, if my experience is any indication, are simply non-existant. No matter, you think, after all I can get storage systems that cost less than the cardboard they are packaged in and, with a bit of experience, even the most untalented person can get them set up in no time. Who cares about (over here) their outsourced shipping and delivery which is usually so unbelievably inefficient that it hurts. You can’t take a day off? Then don’t buy from us! Who cares about the fact that quality control – at least in my eyes – has dropped significantly these past years. Just don’t think about it. If your order does arrive, and if it does actually contain what you ordered and if, last but not least, what’s inside hasn’t been shredded to bits, it was, err, cheap. We can take all the abuse, the stupid ordering system that let’s you know things are in stock when they aren’t, the friendly ladies that don’t answer the phone until you’ve heard each and every badly-recorded pop song of the last millennium (at full volume), and everything else that can cause a premature exitus. Continue Reading →