Sony MegaStorage CDP-CX355 300-Disc CD Changer

Product Rating
4 of 5
5 reviews

Price Range
$164 - $220

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Product Description

Summary

This device is all about convenience. It is nice to listen to any CD in my entire collection with a touch of a few buttons. With a digital output to the AV receiver, you get a perfectly accurate feed. It also has a lot of great features that take random play and song organization to the next level. It does have some short comings but most can be overcome. It provides for keyboard entry of CD text and will automatically read Sony CD's. You can also hook up two or more of these players and control them from one remote with one caveat (read below). The text display is very easy to read and logically layed out. It is nice to see the song titles scroll by once data is entered or the disc info is recognized. Too bad there is no ethernet connection. It would be nice to download the CD text data from the internet instead of using a keyboard or reburning your CD's. They make a 400 disc unit but its dimensions made it too dificult to incorporate into my current rack so keep this in mind should you decide to get a unit like this.

Strength

The convenience of having all your music in their full bandwidth resolution glory at your fingertips is something I have really grown to appreciate over the last month. This unit is full of features like next song, 8 separate groups, cd text, and several combined and programmed random play alternatives. This unit is a real pleasure to own and has made it possible to listen to any CD, or part of a CD, whenever I want without the hastles of jewel cases, misplaced CD's, exposure to the elements and potential damage from constant handling, and the amount of valuable real estate I have saved not having the cases around or in the the AV system rack. It is also priced at a level that makes its purchase a no brainer.

Weakness

The biggest fault of this unit is not having non volatile memory to store the CD text data when one loses power. I would strongly suggest holding off putting in a lot of text data until you have acquired a UPS or similar device. I decided to burn copies of all my CD's using CD text and this has made the data entry and worries of lost data from a power outage a non issue. It also makes searching for songs using the text display more enjoyable since Sony feels that they should only support Sony CD text formats(strike one for this proprietary thinking). Another weakness is that the daisy chain feature is only supported via analog connections. Not the ideal situation and pretty much nullifies the dual command features should you decide to buy a second megachanger from Sony. Believe me, you want to keep the feed to your preamp digital from this source.

Summary

I have to say that I have never been a fan of many Sony products but the low cost and the shear convenience of a 300 disc CD Player made it hard not to give it a try.
The price reflects the extended 4 year warranty I bought, just in case it starts having feed problems later down the road.

I have not entered much data because I have not hooked up a battery back up system yet, but once in place, I will complete the data entry.

It really works well and with optical digital output to my receiver, it sounds great. Do not use analog any more so I have no concern for the DAC's in the unit. I just want it to work reliably.

I also like the idea of daisy chaining multiple units together. For US$200, what else could you ask for. Just set to random play and listen to songs you forgot you had.

Strength

Cost, convenience, size, and sound quality.

Weakness

Would have been nice if it had a network connection to download title and song information. Not having non-volatile memory is also a poor decision. I would have gladly paid $50 more for this feature alone.

Summary

I bought this model just a few days ago, but feel I have enough info to write a short review. My Yamaha CDC-685 (5 disc changer) had been in the shop for 4 months - the terms of the warranty forced the underwriter to replace my unit with a new one. I decided to upgrade to a 300 disc changer, in order that I could listen to the cds in my collection that get very little play. This unit was fairly straight forward to load-up, but did need some prep. I decided to alphabetize my discs before inserting. I soon realized the dilema of what would one do upon the purchace of another disc? So I left spaces between letters and where I felt I might add to my collection. The album title procedure was not too much of a bother with a keyboard (I did not have the problem others have had - shift resetting...), except that the player can only record up to 13 characters. This made the project kind of fun, since every title was a lttle game - having to figure out how to abbreviate each one. The main problem I had with the titles is that I cannot scan through disc titles with the remote like I can with the jog dial. For example, I can turn the knob and find another disc I would like to listen to very easily, but while sitting down away from the player, the remote 'disc skip' buttons will not display the disc name on the screen before it loads it up and scans the slot. This is very frustrating since I am forced to (!) get up off the couch to find a certain disc. This to me seems like a simple feature Sony should incorporate, if I can scan titles with the Jog dial, why not the remote? That is my main problem. Apart from that, I have some other small issues: 1. Will not diplay time remaining. 2. A little slow, but hey, what do I expext? 3. Only 13 characters. When it detects a "CD TEXT" disc, it scrolls the info across the screen, so it clearly perform that function. Sony should make the memory larger, doesn't 1 character = 1 bit? The total memory must therefore be around 5kb. 4. The prospect of losing the info I inputted scares me... (I wish it had a memory backup to memory stick or something like that) But.. it does plays very nicely with my Yamaha RXV-800 and Mission M7s with an Energy S10.2 - I run it out optically (have not compared with the RCA cables). I would reccomend this product to someone who is looking for a way to play all (or many) of the discs in their collection, but remember this player is good value, falls short on some convenience features.

Strength

Good sound, value, ease of use, nice to shuffle through 300 discs, or through groups.

Weakness

No instant CD text when skipping with remote, kinda slow, does not display time remaining, only 13 characters of input

Summary

Great product, not a lot of characters to enter titles so you do have to get creative sometimes but that was really no big deal, my only complaint is entering the letteres with a keyboard took forever because it's not a good prossesor it would give the wrong letter or reverse the shift so you are constantle unpluging the keyboard to reset it. This was really annoying and took quite some time but you only have to deal with this when transfuring your collection then it's done. It only counts time up for each trak . It doesn't count(time remaining) down at all or add disc times or track times wich can be important especally for people who will use it to record from.

Strength

Price Price Price,it sounds good to.

Weakness

totally inflexible time counter.

Summary

I have nothing but praise for this unit.It sound as good as any CD player I've heard.I have hooked up an external D/A from the optical output without noticable difference!.This unit operates fast and smooth.This is the way to go!How can Sony give you so much for so little?

Strength

Price, Sound, Convenience

Weakness

Size