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 →

“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 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 →

Vismara’s Revolving Towers

Yes, I do have to admit to being anally retrentive when it comes around to keeping order in my stuff. After all, I am the person who has all of his books, films and CDs sorted alphabetically (and I mean each and every one of them), I used to write and rewrite notes on A5 cards until I got them right, I love designing calendars and forms with Indesign, and I like things aligned and neat-looking, no matter what they are. I have been known to unconsciously straighten out other people’s framed posters and photographs (it is beyond me how someone can slap a great photo of, say, Duke Ellington on the wall, only to have it hang crookedly next to another great photo) and I even have my pens stand at attention in a pen holder which holds each pen or pencil separately. Jeez, doesn’t everyone?

I’m not even going to get into Freud’s definition of this state of being; I will just adhere to the more modern metaphorical usage describing someone overly worried about small details. And, in that sense, Vismara’s “Revolving Tower” (site uses frames; see links at the end of this post) is an anally retentive’s wet dream. Continue Reading →

Rosendahl CD-25 Chrome

I think that it is a good idea to have a smaller CD-holder close to your stereo so that you don’t have to act the long-distance runner every time you want to put on a new CD, jogging back and forth between remote CD shelf units and your hardware.

The problem is that many of the smaller CD-holders start acting up when you try to load them up with anything but single jewelcases. If you have a whole lot of digipacks that do not adhere to standard jewelcase measurements or double-CDs in those fat, ugly and impractical jewelcases, you end up having to pile up the CDs next to the stero – not really the solution you were looking for. Continue Reading →

CD Sleeves

As a collector it doesn’t take all that long to reach the point at which your marriage is in danger and your social life falls apart, and all of that just because you are running out of space or, to say it differently, because your spouse has to retreat to the kitchen or your guests are caught out in the hallway. In short, your place is full of music, top to bottom, left to right … and inbetween.

The first solution seems to be the easiest for people not in the know. Invariably they’ll tell you that you don’t need 5000 or however many CDs you have, simply because in their minds, you can’t really have listened to all of them and will never be able to. Of course, we know better and being real collectors, we have serious problems parting with anything we have, even the crummy jazz reissue from some defunct budget label, the old scratched up one-hit-wonder recording we played all too often and now can’t stand anymore, the original CD release of some 80s band that has since been reissued three times (of course we have all three issues, just to compare), or the 60s hits collection which we actually have covered by three other 60s hits collections. So, another solution is needed. Continue Reading →

IKEA Benno gives more head

When I have a look at my site statistics (and to be quite honest, I rarely do that), I notice that my short description of using the IKEA Ivar system to store my CDs is by far the most popular post. Of course, people often reach this site trying to find assembly instructions, which I don’t offer, or a “free IVAR system”(?), which I certainly don’t have either, but a whole bunch of those accidental tourists actually decided to subscribe to the site’s RSS feed, so why not pull in the other half of the earth’s population as well, the one that goes for the other outrageously cheap IKEA system, the Benno CD/DVD/Video unit (and no, I did not forget the “Billy” fans … they’ll be served next week)?

I am a fan of cool designs, expensive storage systems and classy shelf units, but my budget is eaten up by what I actually put on the shelves or into the units, so until I win a million in the lottery, IKEA it is for me, and many others like me. Continue Reading →