Review of latest offerings from SLAPPA CD storage

General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Some time ago I posted up about what I thought about SLAPPAâ€™s offerings and was critical of their inflexibility. Well they obviously listen to what we say as their latest incarnation has a very good attempt at overcoming this.
There are quite a few very inexpensive offerings of various sizes available to store CDs in some sort of folder. However these are rather inconveniently inflexible in regards to changing the order of discs. Once in, there they stay unless you are prepared to shuffle a heap of them all around when the order needs to be changed because of new purchases or some other reason. I have a couple of the earlier SLAPPA packages and, although luxurious in presentation and implementation, they suffered from this same drawback.
But no longer. SLAPPA have come up with a most ingenious system whereby each pocket is interlocked and is easily moved to a different position. One could argue that to change this page is as time consuming as changing a CD, but not really as in a fixed page situation, a heap of CDs have to be moved whereas the new SLAPPA system you can swap individual pockets one or more at a time with a simple vertical movement which removes it from its â€œhingeâ€ which interlocks each pocket. Also as previously, the SLAPPA system has double pockets where each CD slips behind into the soft fibre section while the CD sleeve or booklet fits into the front transparent window. Alternatively each pocket can accommodate 2 discs. The difference is that now the positioning of those pockets in the folder is easily changed without having to touch the CD(s) inside. A picure explains better than a thousanmd words and the illustrations on their site show what I mean.
There are 4 capacities available, 20 double pockets, 40 double pockets, 120 double pockets and 210 double pockets. This last one, which I have not seen, is termed a crate and has room for headphones and other gear, even a 17â€ laptop.
But with many people putting their music into iPods and similar players rather than carrying around a heap of discs, who are these storage packages aimed at? One group who would appreciate them are music lovers with limited storage who have difficulty finding enough shelf space for all their record collection. Having modules of say 240 (the SLAPPA 120 pocket unit is sized 350 mm X 350 mm x 130mm or 13.75â€ x 13.75â€™ X 5â€) takes up far less space than the equivalent discs in their ironically named â€œjewelâ€ cases. My rough calculations are that 240 CDs take up around 250 cm or over 8 ft of shelf space so a big collection needs a lot of space with the added irritation that hunting down what you are in the mood to listen to is not always simple. So, sorting them out into a number of easily located SLAPPA folders with their excellent soft pockets becomes an attractive proposition. They make perusal of what you want to listen to a lot easier to find than thumbing through a lot of slippery plastic on inconveniently located shelves.
Another group who would be interested in these storage devices would be those who travel and have CD players in their cars, trailers, holiday homes or wherever. Just grabbing a couple of SLAPPA storage units is a no brainer.
So, bottom line, will I transfer all my CD collection into SLAPPA? The answer is no for a number of reasons. First up I am not short of shelf space after selling off all the vinyl and secondly there are a number of boxed sets which would very quickly fill up the SLAPPA cases and these boxed sets are easy to locate now anyway. OK, not ALL the CDs, but Iâ€™m planning on transferring some groups of discs into the SLAPPA system now that they offer more flexibility for moving them around to change the order.
John

Do not criticise the idiots in this world - we need them as they make the rest of us look so much better :-)

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Topic - Review of latest offerings from SLAPPA CD storage - John C. - Aussie 20:06:38 04/14/07 (2)

Now, if they could do that for LPs.... - Rod M 18:50:31 04/15/07 (1)

How to automate LP playback?.... - feet's too big 05:18:02 04/16/07 (0)

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