Each time I'm in the music store I hear a new DJ asking the sales person, "I'm just getting started, What should I buy?". It's a tough question, especially for new DJ's, but I think with this guide I can help shed some light on the situation. The 3 biggest questions you need to ask yourself when looking to purchase some DJ CD/MP3 players are "What's my budget?", "How will I be using them?", and "Where will I be using them?". "What's my budget?" Budget is extremely important when looking to purchase new CD Players, since they can range from $50 to $3000 each. Budget also goes hand in hand with experience and skill level. A new beginner DJ is not going to set their budget as high as an experienced professional DJ will. A beginner DJ should start their budget smaller and then once you start actually getting gigs and making money from being a DJ, then , start upgrading your equipment. A good starting point for a beginner would be around $150 to $300 per CD player, most dj's use at least 2 CD players, so $300 to $600. I would recommend starting with a used set, majority of professional CD players are good quality and therefore you can get additional years of use out of a CD player that has already been used a couple years. It saves money and gets you a better quality CD player for your money compared to buying new. Most music stores that carry DJ equipment will have some used items in inventory, however, I have found that Guitar Center and eBay have the better condition used equipment. In my opinion Pioneer, Denon, and Numark would be the three brands that are the safest bet when purchasing used equipment. All three produce high quality DJ equipment that will hold up for many years. Also, as a reminder, when setting your budget be sure to keep in mind that you will also need a DJ mixer and depending on where you will be spinning, a set of speakers, power amp, microphone, etc. "How will I be using them?" This is a great question! What I mean with this question is; Do you want to scratch, mix, or just play at weddings and party's? If you want to scratch you need to make sure that the CD player has that function/ability. Pioneer, Denon, and Numark all manufacture CD players in the beginner price point that allow for scratching. I will have a guide just for scratching on here very soon. If you are not interested in scratching but more into mixing you have many more options. A few major things to look for in a CD player for mixing is looping, cue points, tempo adjust, and effects. I'm going to briefly explain these terms first and then get into my suggestions for a starting point. Looping is when the CD player automatically repeats a specified area and period of time in a track that you select. It gives you the ability to creatively remix a song or mix from one song to another. A cue point is a specified part of a track that you set so when you hit play the track starts at your cue point instead of at the beginning. This is great when there is silence on the first few seconds of a track or when someone is talking and you want to skip past that to start the track where the music begins. Tempo adjust is just simply speeding up or slowing down the track. You want to make sure that the CD player has the Key Lock option, this means that the track will stay in the same key when speeding up or slowing down. Without it you will get the chipmunk sound when really speeding up a track or the darth vader voice when really slowing a track down. Lastly, effects are good to have but not as much of a must have as the previous three. Effects add an extra touch to your mix by effecting different parts and parameters of a track. Some examples of effects are echo, reverb, flanger, delay, etc. Some of the newer model CD players out now include effects right on the player, its a fun tool to have when you want to just add that extra touch to your mix. Finally, if you will not be scratching or mixing at a club and want to do like weddings or party's, you want to look at a different style of CD player. You still may want to consider some of the tools that I mentioned above but they are not really a necessity for this style of DJ. My suggestion for this style would be a dual CD player unit which is 2 CD players in one unit. This is a smaller more mobile set up where your CD players, mixer, power amps (if applicable), etc. will all go in one very convenient case/rack. "Where will I be using them?" Location actually plays a big part in which CD player is right for you. "Tabletop" CD players are just like the name, they are individual units that sit directly on the table. "Rackmount" CD players are mounted in a rack or case. If you plan to DJ in a club, bar, radio station or maybe in your make shift home studio you most likely want a front loading tabletop CD player. They have extra skip protection, more features, and are geared more toward the scratch/mix DJ than a mobile DJ. Rackmount CD players are better for mobile DJ's they are not really designed for the scratch or mix DJ, however, they offer some of the same features as tabletop CD players but with the compact portability that Mobile DJ's require. A Few Product Suggestions For The Beginner Tabletop CD Players Numark AXIS-4 $199.99 each new. Gemini CDJ-02 $199.99 each new. American Audio CDI-300MP3 $299.99 each new. American Audio CDI-500MPS $299.99 each new. Numark AXIS-9 $299.99 each new. Pioneer CDJ-100S $349.99 each new. (Great quality CD player. Look used, you can get them at a beginner price point with many years left on them) Pioneer CDJ-200 $399.99 each new. (These are replacing the CDJ-100S. Best bang for the buck, look for used if you need to get the price point down on them. They will last.) Dual CD Players Stanton C.502 $299.99 new. Numark CDN-35 $369.99 new. Numark CDN-88 $499.99 new. Tascam CDX-1500 $499.99 new. American Audio VELOCITY $599.99 new. Denon DN-D4500 $629.99 new. Above are just a few suggestions/options for you to start with. As always the best way to decide is to go into a music store and play around with a few of the options listed above. Get a feel for the units and then decide which feels more comfortable to you. The better quality CD players (ie: Pioneer, Denon, and Numark.) are going to have better skip protection and disc reading ability. Once you find a CD player that you like, check out some online reviews on it of people who actually own it, you will be amazed at the amount of information you can get from this. Making sure that a CD player will play burned CD's is a must, the manufacture will tell you that it does, but how well it does is what you need to know and online reviews are a great place to find that info. I will get some product reviews up as soon as I can. If you have any additional questions feel free to contact me, I hope this was helpful, and as always "Thanks For Looking."