Even more useful than I thought..
Written: Feb 08 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great music for days at a time, easy interface
Cons: CD's can only be in one group
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| nicpottier's Full Review: Sony CDP-CX350 300-Disc CD Changer |
I needed a CD changer, and was deliberating between a 5 disc changer and one of the newer 300 disc changers. In the end I decided to go with the Sony CX-300 as it's a great bargain, and since it was a Sony like my receiver (STR DB-930) I could use my receiver's remote to view the disc titles. (just like the remote that comes with the more expensive CX-350)
The unit isn't as tall as I expected, maybe twice the height of a normal CD player, though it is very deep (~18"). It feels sturdy and solid, and looks like it ought to last a while. Loading CD's and entering their titles (as others have said, CD-Text does not seem widely adopted at all, so don't count on this to save you time) was painless, provided you hook up your PC keyboard to do so. I loaded about 60 CD's in 20 minutes without any problems.
The controls on the player are nice, it uses two main knobs to control what disc and track is playing. You also use these knobs to enter in titles for CD's if not using a keyboard, which works relatively well if you're just adding one CD at a time.
You can assign each CD to a group, and name that group. For example, I have a group containing all my Sting and Police albums. You can then have the player shuffle all the discs in that group seperately, or just play through them all. Like all the other jukeboxes I've seen, the CX-300 allows CD's to belong to only one group, which is somewhat annoying. However, it's easy to move discs to different groups, so if you want to arrange a group of CD's for a dinner party or whatnot, you can do so in a couple minutes.
The remote is plain but functional, it appears that it will control 3 of these units daisy chained together. (I need a lot more CD's to make this worthwhile however)
One caveat for those planning on using this player with an A1 compatible receiver as I am. My receiver (Sony STR-DB930) automatically switches to the CD RCA input when it get's the 'play' signal from the CD changer. Unfortunatly, this leads to somewhat lower quality than the digital input, but if you plan on being able to view the titles of CD's, you need to allow for this. I've gotten around it by connecting both the optical digital input and RCA jacks. Once I get the player going on the music I want (and once you get it going you don't need to touch it for hours at a time) I switch the input on my receiver to the optical cable for the best sound. This is an inconvenience, and I'm not sure why Sony designed things this way, but it's a relatively minor one for the gadget factor of being able to see the CD titles on my remote.
I would highly recommend one of the newer jukebox players like the CX300. You'll end up listening to music you had long forgotten about, without any repetition, and with less wear and tear on the discs themselves. I just press play and go about my business these days, and the player chugs along feeding me good tunes... that's how it should be.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
nicpottier
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Member: Nicolas Pottier
Reviews written: 1
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