RCA RP8065 5-Disc CD Changer
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- Device Type: Changer
- Number of Discs: 5
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206
Wow!
Pros
Great sound and low low price that will have audiophiles scratching their heads!
Cons
The unusually low price will invite many to perceive low quality.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
At this price level, the RCA is the "World Champ"!!
It is Christmas of 2000 and we need a good CD player for the stereo as our Harman Kardon unit has been borrowed permanently by my brother. As I am the king of cheap, my wife and I and our six children stroll into 6th AVE in W.Paterson, NJ.
Right smack up front is this pile of RCA RP-8065 5-Disc CD players on sale for the absolutely rock bottom price of $49!!! Yes, this is not a typo! I said $49!!
Obviously I neither hesitated or balked but rather took full advantage of the situation. No, I did not even audition the unit in the store and probably made my purchase in record breakingtime! Everyone, including my most beautiful wife agreed that this was simply too good to pass up!
When I got it home, I hooked the darn thing up to my Parasound amp and Boston Acoustics A-70 speakers. I used the supplied patch cord.
Now, I am simply an audiophile with a very trained ear and an open mind. I have found over the years that one should be open to the fact that good components can be had at all price levels.....especially compact disc players.
I also know that quality patch cords can make a budget unit like the RCA play at its best! Sure enough, setting up the unit with the supplied patches was ok but revealed some slightly unwanted treble harmonic as I expected. Replacing the supplied patch with good quality gold plated babies solved the problem immediately!
I have found the much more flexible clear high end wire by "biggest_toys" on EBAY to be superior sonically and physically...a much better choice at a lower price. The RCA ends are better too! They are not as HD as the Audioquest but give a bit more. This is ideal as they are gold-plated and don't pull either your amp's or CD player's RCA jacks out when disconnected! Please visit this EBAY seller for more details.
The Sound Itself!!
Ahh, but what about the sound itself? It has just a slight tendency toward sweetness when reproducing the high frequencies [I am really being picky here!] but listen....at the risk of being scoffed at by the so-called purists, the proof of the pudding is in the eating! The RCA RP-8065 sounds clean clear and detailed with good resistance to skipping. It is also very neutral sounding!
When used with quality patch cords [such as the gold-plated clear chords I recently purchased for pittance at Ebay's "Biggest Toys" store] the unit will give hours and hours of great listening with not a trace of fatigue! My Telarc CD of Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'sounds terrific with great Dynamic Range.
Everything came through cleanly and with much space around the music regardless of genre from Rock to Bach! Granted the patches cost more but as I had already purchased them a year before, why not take full advantage of the situation? So I did!
Even if I had not owned them beforehand I would still have purchased quality patch cords later on anyway. It has been proven to me over and over by my good friend John Rutan of the now famed Verona Audio Connection just how dramatic a difference these great cables will make! They are also oriented for a directional flow by arrows on the plugs themselves and are quite serious in their performance.
The RP-8065 itself has six clearly lit oval shaped buttons located at the top of the deck itself. They are for disc change and direct access to discs one thru five and also indicate which of your CDs is playing. When pressing one of them they flash.
The handy little remote works perfectly and our unit itself has never failed. The player has never jammed. This is quite an amazing feat in itself at our household! Sometimes eager little hands that want to change a disc immediately while another disc is playing can send some CD players into a frenzy! But not the RCA...very commendable indeed!! The unit simply will not allow you to make the mistake of trying to load the slot that's in use!
Of course there are the usual programmable functions and the random modes including a ten second sampling of each track. All functions operate as they are supposed to.
Although the information display is a bit small,the unit itself has a wonderful feel to it and gives the impression of good construction. Don't expect a whole mess of audiophile type outputs on the rear of the player as there are just the basic RCA Type LEFT and RIGHT connections. This is a very Spartan but well laid out design.
The RCA will definitely give some higher end units a real run for their money! I would buy another one in a minute! As for the overall quality of the unit you can't beat it! It justs keeps playing and playing and never dies.
Believe me when I tell you that our unit gets heavy use each and every day! Furthermore, the room it is being used in has no air conditioning or climate control other than a radiator.
Here on the East Coast humidity levels can reach quite extreme levels as it did recently this past Summer!! Plus every once in awhile the kids and I accidentally slam into the unit. Jarring it only makes it skip a bit and then it recovers shortly afterward.
It can also get quite cold during the Winter. I'm telling you this so that you understand that our listening environment is somewhat hostile to life expectancy of electronic components. Still the RCA plays on ... even on the worst of days!
Now if all of this jargon hasn't convinced you yet just how good this unit is, maybe this will...It can handle your CD-R CD's from your burner without any problem or sign of distress! Those that have burned their own CDs only to find them incompatible with their stereo's CD player understand fully what I mean. Not all CD players can do this!
In fact some purposely block the user from playing these CDs for fear of copyright infringement so beware if this feature is important to you. The RCA is CD-R capable.
By the way, this player is still very much available even though my review arrives late to the scene. Even if it has been replaced by a newer model I'm absolutely sure that whatever that model is...is just as good if not better!
I really have to hand it to the engineers at RCA. They have come up with a well designed and constructed compact disc player that will not leave a poor man broke! Henry Kloss would have loved this one! Bravo!!!!!
Right smack up front is this pile of RCA RP-8065 5-Disc CD players on sale for the absolutely rock bottom price of $49!!! Yes, this is not a typo! I said $49!!
Obviously I neither hesitated or balked but rather took full advantage of the situation. No, I did not even audition the unit in the store and probably made my purchase in record breakingtime! Everyone, including my most beautiful wife agreed that this was simply too good to pass up!
When I got it home, I hooked the darn thing up to my Parasound amp and Boston Acoustics A-70 speakers. I used the supplied patch cord.
Now, I am simply an audiophile with a very trained ear and an open mind. I have found over the years that one should be open to the fact that good components can be had at all price levels.....especially compact disc players.
I also know that quality patch cords can make a budget unit like the RCA play at its best! Sure enough, setting up the unit with the supplied patches was ok but revealed some slightly unwanted treble harmonic as I expected. Replacing the supplied patch with good quality gold plated babies solved the problem immediately!
I have found the much more flexible clear high end wire by "biggest_toys" on EBAY to be superior sonically and physically...a much better choice at a lower price. The RCA ends are better too! They are not as HD as the Audioquest but give a bit more. This is ideal as they are gold-plated and don't pull either your amp's or CD player's RCA jacks out when disconnected! Please visit this EBAY seller for more details.
The Sound Itself!!
Ahh, but what about the sound itself? It has just a slight tendency toward sweetness when reproducing the high frequencies [I am really being picky here!] but listen....at the risk of being scoffed at by the so-called purists, the proof of the pudding is in the eating! The RCA RP-8065 sounds clean clear and detailed with good resistance to skipping. It is also very neutral sounding!
When used with quality patch cords [such as the gold-plated clear chords I recently purchased for pittance at Ebay's "Biggest Toys" store] the unit will give hours and hours of great listening with not a trace of fatigue! My Telarc CD of Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring'sounds terrific with great Dynamic Range.
Everything came through cleanly and with much space around the music regardless of genre from Rock to Bach! Granted the patches cost more but as I had already purchased them a year before, why not take full advantage of the situation? So I did!
Even if I had not owned them beforehand I would still have purchased quality patch cords later on anyway. It has been proven to me over and over by my good friend John Rutan of the now famed Verona Audio Connection just how dramatic a difference these great cables will make! They are also oriented for a directional flow by arrows on the plugs themselves and are quite serious in their performance.
The RP-8065 itself has six clearly lit oval shaped buttons located at the top of the deck itself. They are for disc change and direct access to discs one thru five and also indicate which of your CDs is playing. When pressing one of them they flash.
The handy little remote works perfectly and our unit itself has never failed. The player has never jammed. This is quite an amazing feat in itself at our household! Sometimes eager little hands that want to change a disc immediately while another disc is playing can send some CD players into a frenzy! But not the RCA...very commendable indeed!! The unit simply will not allow you to make the mistake of trying to load the slot that's in use!
Of course there are the usual programmable functions and the random modes including a ten second sampling of each track. All functions operate as they are supposed to.
Although the information display is a bit small,the unit itself has a wonderful feel to it and gives the impression of good construction. Don't expect a whole mess of audiophile type outputs on the rear of the player as there are just the basic RCA Type LEFT and RIGHT connections. This is a very Spartan but well laid out design.
The RCA will definitely give some higher end units a real run for their money! I would buy another one in a minute! As for the overall quality of the unit you can't beat it! It justs keeps playing and playing and never dies.
Believe me when I tell you that our unit gets heavy use each and every day! Furthermore, the room it is being used in has no air conditioning or climate control other than a radiator.
Here on the East Coast humidity levels can reach quite extreme levels as it did recently this past Summer!! Plus every once in awhile the kids and I accidentally slam into the unit. Jarring it only makes it skip a bit and then it recovers shortly afterward.
It can also get quite cold during the Winter. I'm telling you this so that you understand that our listening environment is somewhat hostile to life expectancy of electronic components. Still the RCA plays on ... even on the worst of days!
Now if all of this jargon hasn't convinced you yet just how good this unit is, maybe this will...It can handle your CD-R CD's from your burner without any problem or sign of distress! Those that have burned their own CDs only to find them incompatible with their stereo's CD player understand fully what I mean. Not all CD players can do this!
In fact some purposely block the user from playing these CDs for fear of copyright infringement so beware if this feature is important to you. The RCA is CD-R capable.
By the way, this player is still very much available even though my review arrives late to the scene. Even if it has been replaced by a newer model I'm absolutely sure that whatever that model is...is just as good if not better!
I really have to hand it to the engineers at RCA. They have come up with a well designed and constructed compact disc player that will not leave a poor man broke! Henry Kloss would have loved this one! Bravo!!!!!
