I bought the CDC-X227 about 4 mo ago and until now it's been worth every penny.

Looks: so, so... not the greatest but for the price I find it's pretty nice. It has the option to change from a fixed blue to a fixed red. Note>>> it comes by default in a demo mode that's VERY annoying (switches back and forth from red to blue illumination). I know others have explained how to stop this but here go the instructions again:
1) Press (for a few secs) the SRC (source) button until...
2) A screen saying ILL1 or ILL2 comes out...
3) Press the Tune up or Tune down button until DE comes on
4) Rotate the Volume knob until you get DE 0 and wait a few secs for the change to stick.
5) Repeat step 1 and pick the color you want (RED or BLUE)... wait a few secs for the change to stick.

Sound Quality: pretty good... I haven't gotten it hooked up on a better base so it's been distorting the garbage speakers I've got. I heard it connected, though, to better speakers and a better sound system and it was definitely a lot better. It allows you to put on "Super Bass" and that really pumps up that bass... unless your sound system is really good (including speakers) I suggest you lower your normal Bass.

Functions: you'll find a good feature is the capacity to act as an equalizer. Select Treble, Bass from -7 to +7 and see definite results. Personally, my favorite, though is it's capacity to connect to any auxillary sound source like a discman, walkman, etc. (I use this to connect my mp3 player since the CDC-X227 can't read them). It reads most CD-R/CD-RW but I haven't found any CD's it won't read. It does skip around a bit on any scratches but overall it reads quickly and efficently.

Use: it's very easy to use... everything seems to be where it should be and it takes the intelligence of a 12 yr old to figure out the function of the buttons.

Well, I'll try to keep this updated so if anything new happens I'll keep you covered.