RCA RP8070 5-Disc CD Changer
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- Device Type: Changer
- Number of Discs: 5
- Outputs: Digital Audio Optical x 1 Headphone Jack
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1459
Gives CD Players A New Meaning?Of Frustration
Pros
You'll see when you...
Cons
...read the review
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
-
The review I'm about to write will be so hard to write that I may get off track or lose momentum after a while, but just bear with me until we're down, m'kay?
I bought the RCA-RP8070 after I was sick of listening to my little Sony boom box that I had had since 98' so I went to Best Buy and browsed for CD players but most good ones had overly expensive prices so I picked a nice, cheap 70 dollar model, which you are reading about now. I hadn't had past experience with any RCA products so I gave them a shot and brought it home. After hooking it all up to speakers and a receiver, I gave it a shot and loved it, but now that I've had it for a half a year, there are some things that annoy me about the machine.
Price
RCA stands for "Really Crappy Appliances" mainly because they are not dependable and never work as long as Sony or Panasonic machines, but they are affordable and that's a big turn on for me because I don't spend any money on anything really expensive. The RP8070 is in a great price range because most CD players (good ones) cost 100 and being a person who's a cheapskate and only spends money on CDs (really), I don't want to spend that much on a CD player (even if it has the 15 CD Changer) so this one was in my crosshairs, but it wasn't really about price. I wanted it to look well in my room and actually fit in my room…so that's where Size comes in…
Size
The size is modest and really the perfect size for my room. I had a big entertainment center with my video game systems in a drawer in the large wooden clunky thing with my TV above it while on the sides there are my video games and movies and CD cases and stuff and on the very top I have my RCA CD player with a Technics receiver on top and two large KLN speakers on the floor both sides of my room. It is a perfect fit and can really fit into an entertainment center like mine fairly easily, but if you keep all of your electronics on top of each other (like a VCR on top of a DVD player that's on top of your Cassette player, etc.) then I wouldn't recommend it because the frame of the player is plastic (and cheap plastic at that) and it can crush really easily given a lot of weight on it. And that's where the design comes in…
Design
The front of the CD player is 17 inches, the sides 14 and a half, and the depth is 4 inches so you can pretty much sum out how it would look in your entertainment center. The majority of the player is plastic…in fact the whole thing is plastic and that's a turn off for me since it's more likely to break down after a while and the tray that pops out to place the CDs in might get poor easily and also, plastic isn't a good element at all when crammed in between two metal devices such as a DVD player and a receiver. The frame is so thin and wiry, that it could cave in given enough pressure on the top and crush your whole player. It's a hazard.
The design is so well that it's simple to learn all of the buttons. On the bottom right side, you have the traditional play/stop/skip track buttons that are shaped at a perfect size to press, above it to the right is the disc open button so that you can open the big tray to put in more CDs, in the upper part of the unit you have the buttons that you press if you want to change your CDs, you have the power button to the far left, which puts the player on standby (because you have to turn off the receiver in order to completely turn off the machine), and then in the lower left corner, you have a series of small buttons where you can program your player, put "repeat" on a song, or shuffle the tracks, and lastly you have a headphone jack and next to it there's something interesting and that's a "phone control" button where you can control the sound that's coming through the phones.
In the middle of the RP8070, you have a little screen, which tells you the commands. It shows whether you have CDs inside and how many. To the far right, it displays how many tracks are on the record but it does it poorly. Because of the little screen, it can only show you fourteen tracks and then on the fifteenth little circle graphic, it clicks on and off showing you there are more than fourteen. This isn't useful at all. There are messages that pop across the screen whenever you do something like open the tray or close it or when it's changing discs it tells you what it's doing and stuff like that.
Remote
In each electronic I buy whether it's a TV or a VCR, I have to have an easy-to-manage remote since I watch movies or listen to music in the dark with the lights off and stuff, so it's a must to have a remote that's easy to command even when you aren't looking at it. RCA does it perfectly with an awesome remote that's small and just fits inside my hand perfectly and it's easy to change the tracks. There aren't that many buttons on it, so that helps matters a bit, but something that sucks about the controller is how easily it absorbs batteries and how sometimes the buttons lock up. I like putting batteries into remotes and forgetting about them until it runs out months and months later, but with this remote it takes two-three month to eat batteries and that's not good for a person who's in a financial squeeze (or is too lazy to get off the couch to change the track like I am). And as for the buttons sticking up, that's just terrible. I don't spill drinks on it or do anything of the sort. It just freezes and you can't do anything but mush the buttons for three minutes to get them to work. That's unacceptable.
Volume Control/Sound Quality
The worst thing about the RP8070 is that you can't control the volume if you don't have a matching RCA receiver to go with the player. That's ridiculous. You have to manually get up and change the volume rather than switching it from the remote and I hate that and I'm sure you will too because I don't want to go out and buy a Really Crappy Receiver. I have to give RCA a kudos for the sound quality of the machine. Coming out of the right speakers, it sounds clear, crisp, and cool, but one thing that they could have had with the system is the ability to switch the sound quality to what would most fit the band like some Sony players do. If a rap group is playing, then you could switch the sound to "rap" and the treble and base would be fantastic, but surprising RCA didn't have that on the RP8070.
Plugging It In/Changing CDs
It's really easy to plug in, but the directions in the booklet sort of suck and you will get more confused. Just look at the cords and plug them into the correct sized slots and you will be fine. Setting up the player was easy and takes 15-20 minutes, but it's worth it afterwards. I think that any newbie to connecting things will get the job done fairly easily. If you've had experience with plugging in televisions or computers, than you already know your grounds. To connect it to speakers and a receiver isn't difficult at all, but it requires patience and time.
When a CD changes it makes the loudest noise and it wakes me up each time that a disc stops and it's annoying. I usually fall asleep with some slow tunes like Ani DiFranco or Jimmy Eat World, which gets me to sleep at night, but when being woken up by a crappy squeak of the CD changing, it bugs me out. And another thing I don't like is if you want to change CDs when a CD is already playing. You can change all of the CDs that aren't playing and then press "Stop" so that the disc that's still spinning can get shelved, but you have to wait and after you wait it does nothing so you have to select another CD to start playing so you can take the troublesome remaining CD out. It sucks.
Ending Statements
Sure, the RP8070 is really bad, but if you are in need of a player that plays good but has some low-quality features, then I would say that this is the perfect player for you, but for me, if I could go back in time, I wish I could have spent 20 more bucks to get a really good Sony player, but that's just me. The player hasn't broken on me yet, but the warranty isn't good either so if you want a really good player where you can control the volume, have a remote that saves battery power, and want to change CDs seamlessly, then you should check out a CD player by Sony, Panasonic, or one of those other leading electronic makers.
Jason
I bought the RCA-RP8070 after I was sick of listening to my little Sony boom box that I had had since 98' so I went to Best Buy and browsed for CD players but most good ones had overly expensive prices so I picked a nice, cheap 70 dollar model, which you are reading about now. I hadn't had past experience with any RCA products so I gave them a shot and brought it home. After hooking it all up to speakers and a receiver, I gave it a shot and loved it, but now that I've had it for a half a year, there are some things that annoy me about the machine.
Price
RCA stands for "Really Crappy Appliances" mainly because they are not dependable and never work as long as Sony or Panasonic machines, but they are affordable and that's a big turn on for me because I don't spend any money on anything really expensive. The RP8070 is in a great price range because most CD players (good ones) cost 100 and being a person who's a cheapskate and only spends money on CDs (really), I don't want to spend that much on a CD player (even if it has the 15 CD Changer) so this one was in my crosshairs, but it wasn't really about price. I wanted it to look well in my room and actually fit in my room…so that's where Size comes in…
Size
The size is modest and really the perfect size for my room. I had a big entertainment center with my video game systems in a drawer in the large wooden clunky thing with my TV above it while on the sides there are my video games and movies and CD cases and stuff and on the very top I have my RCA CD player with a Technics receiver on top and two large KLN speakers on the floor both sides of my room. It is a perfect fit and can really fit into an entertainment center like mine fairly easily, but if you keep all of your electronics on top of each other (like a VCR on top of a DVD player that's on top of your Cassette player, etc.) then I wouldn't recommend it because the frame of the player is plastic (and cheap plastic at that) and it can crush really easily given a lot of weight on it. And that's where the design comes in…
Design
The front of the CD player is 17 inches, the sides 14 and a half, and the depth is 4 inches so you can pretty much sum out how it would look in your entertainment center. The majority of the player is plastic…in fact the whole thing is plastic and that's a turn off for me since it's more likely to break down after a while and the tray that pops out to place the CDs in might get poor easily and also, plastic isn't a good element at all when crammed in between two metal devices such as a DVD player and a receiver. The frame is so thin and wiry, that it could cave in given enough pressure on the top and crush your whole player. It's a hazard.
The design is so well that it's simple to learn all of the buttons. On the bottom right side, you have the traditional play/stop/skip track buttons that are shaped at a perfect size to press, above it to the right is the disc open button so that you can open the big tray to put in more CDs, in the upper part of the unit you have the buttons that you press if you want to change your CDs, you have the power button to the far left, which puts the player on standby (because you have to turn off the receiver in order to completely turn off the machine), and then in the lower left corner, you have a series of small buttons where you can program your player, put "repeat" on a song, or shuffle the tracks, and lastly you have a headphone jack and next to it there's something interesting and that's a "phone control" button where you can control the sound that's coming through the phones.
In the middle of the RP8070, you have a little screen, which tells you the commands. It shows whether you have CDs inside and how many. To the far right, it displays how many tracks are on the record but it does it poorly. Because of the little screen, it can only show you fourteen tracks and then on the fifteenth little circle graphic, it clicks on and off showing you there are more than fourteen. This isn't useful at all. There are messages that pop across the screen whenever you do something like open the tray or close it or when it's changing discs it tells you what it's doing and stuff like that.
Remote
In each electronic I buy whether it's a TV or a VCR, I have to have an easy-to-manage remote since I watch movies or listen to music in the dark with the lights off and stuff, so it's a must to have a remote that's easy to command even when you aren't looking at it. RCA does it perfectly with an awesome remote that's small and just fits inside my hand perfectly and it's easy to change the tracks. There aren't that many buttons on it, so that helps matters a bit, but something that sucks about the controller is how easily it absorbs batteries and how sometimes the buttons lock up. I like putting batteries into remotes and forgetting about them until it runs out months and months later, but with this remote it takes two-three month to eat batteries and that's not good for a person who's in a financial squeeze (or is too lazy to get off the couch to change the track like I am). And as for the buttons sticking up, that's just terrible. I don't spill drinks on it or do anything of the sort. It just freezes and you can't do anything but mush the buttons for three minutes to get them to work. That's unacceptable.
Volume Control/Sound Quality
The worst thing about the RP8070 is that you can't control the volume if you don't have a matching RCA receiver to go with the player. That's ridiculous. You have to manually get up and change the volume rather than switching it from the remote and I hate that and I'm sure you will too because I don't want to go out and buy a Really Crappy Receiver. I have to give RCA a kudos for the sound quality of the machine. Coming out of the right speakers, it sounds clear, crisp, and cool, but one thing that they could have had with the system is the ability to switch the sound quality to what would most fit the band like some Sony players do. If a rap group is playing, then you could switch the sound to "rap" and the treble and base would be fantastic, but surprising RCA didn't have that on the RP8070.
Plugging It In/Changing CDs
It's really easy to plug in, but the directions in the booklet sort of suck and you will get more confused. Just look at the cords and plug them into the correct sized slots and you will be fine. Setting up the player was easy and takes 15-20 minutes, but it's worth it afterwards. I think that any newbie to connecting things will get the job done fairly easily. If you've had experience with plugging in televisions or computers, than you already know your grounds. To connect it to speakers and a receiver isn't difficult at all, but it requires patience and time.
When a CD changes it makes the loudest noise and it wakes me up each time that a disc stops and it's annoying. I usually fall asleep with some slow tunes like Ani DiFranco or Jimmy Eat World, which gets me to sleep at night, but when being woken up by a crappy squeak of the CD changing, it bugs me out. And another thing I don't like is if you want to change CDs when a CD is already playing. You can change all of the CDs that aren't playing and then press "Stop" so that the disc that's still spinning can get shelved, but you have to wait and after you wait it does nothing so you have to select another CD to start playing so you can take the troublesome remaining CD out. It sucks.
Ending Statements
Sure, the RP8070 is really bad, but if you are in need of a player that plays good but has some low-quality features, then I would say that this is the perfect player for you, but for me, if I could go back in time, I wish I could have spent 20 more bucks to get a really good Sony player, but that's just me. The player hasn't broken on me yet, but the warranty isn't good either so if you want a really good player where you can control the volume, have a remote that saves battery power, and want to change CDs seamlessly, then you should check out a CD player by Sony, Panasonic, or one of those other leading electronic makers.
Jason
