Sony CDP-CX235 200-Disc CD Changer

Some time ago I decided that I needed a new CD player, since mine only worked if I held it at an angle... and even then it was very ticky about which CDs it would allow me to play. At that point in time, I had just over 100 CDs so I decided that I wanted a 300 CD changer. (I don't buy that many CDs, but I did want to count on the future growth of my collection.)

After doing quite a bit of research (some of it even here on Epinions) I realized that there was no way I could afford a decent 300 changer. It was looking like I would have to make do with a 100 changer, but I really didn't want to have to decide pick and choose which CDs were 'cool' enough to get to live in the player.

So I worked a little over time and didn't eat for a week and finally had just enough to get a 200 changer. I drove over to the local Best Buy and spent the next two hours jerking back and forth between the three changers they had on display. Such a big decision... [grins] I finally went with the Sony because it had the little extras that I thought I wanted and it was a known brand name. I figured it was safer to trust that a Sony would work properly than whatever the others were.

If only that were the only thing I had bought that day I wouldn't have spent the next week bouncing checks. The salesdude convinced me to buy a massively overpriced surge protector for my new CD changer and I also bought a graphics tablet. Eek. Remind me not to do that again.

The most awesome thing about this player is that it just works... and works and works and works. I brought it home, plugged it in, filled it up... and it has been playing 90% of the time since then. I very carefully did not put the discs into the changer in any order so I have the most eclectic mix known to man playing away for my personal pleasure all the time.

The CD Memo feature seems really cool. You get to program the player to remember that slot 151 is Faithless - Outrospective by pushing the Memo button and then rotating the big dial to select letters. Yeah, it is as much a pain in the rear as it sounds. It is a lot faster to use the remote for that feature. However, the only time I ever make usage of it is when I want to take a CD out for work. The only way to find it is to go by my Memos.

A bit of explanation. The CDs are slotted into the player standing upright, and are tightly packed together. You cannot see the label on a CD that is inside the player. The only way to know what CD it is, is to:

A: Play it.
B: Remove it.
C: Read the Memo.

If you haven't assigned a memo to it, then it can be really hard to find a particular CD out of your collection. On the other hand... If you have assigned a Memo to the CD, when you go to put it back into the CD player after listening to it in the car, you have to go spinning the wheel control to find your Memo spot so that you don't get your CDs all mixed up.

Another concern with this CD player is one that I have not personally experienced and more than halfway believe to have been pure salesdude boosh. He wanted me to get the extended warranty and was saying that since the CD tray is plastic, leaving the player on random disc shuffle could cause the tray to warp or shatter due to heat/cold contractions. I personally don't like the delay time between tracks using a random disc shuffle so I can't say whether or not the tray would experience trauma from it.

The ability to pick certain tracks to always skip over is very nice. Some of my CDs have the very old data tracks that play as (approx) thirty minutes of silence. Others have 'bonus' tracks hidden by twenty minutes of silence. All I have to do it is tell my player to skip those tracks and voila! No more aggravating silence. (I can hear myself thinking in the silence and that is a very scary thing indeed.)

On the ... erm... to be aware side of things, a brief power flicker can cause the player to be unable to read discs until it has been powered off for a few seconds. After that things return to normal.

The heads are great. I ran this player nonstop for several months before getting a head cleaner for it. Now the heads get cleaned once per tray rotation or about every 100 hours of play time. Before I got the cleaner I did not notice any problems with reading discs, playing discs, or with the sound quality of the discs being played. After getting the cleaner, I noticed no difference.

Skipping. The only time a non-scratched disc skips is when my insane cats play leap frog on it. Scratched discs are another matter alltogether though. Discs that will play perfectly fine in my computer's player or even in my PS2 get infernally stuck in techno repeat land. I am not sure if this is a player defect or merely my inability to leave CDs in pristine condition.

Over all, I love my CD Changer. I haven't had to listen to bad radio DJs, bad radio music, or bad radio advertisements in a very long time and for that I am most thankful. Better than even that gift is the ability to listen to music from all the genres of my expansive tastes without lifting a finger. I have trip hop one hour, europop the next, then punk, then 'modern rock' (read: metal), then country, then Tori Amos, then... and on my changer spins.

Now my main problem is trying to figure out where to stuff bunches of useless jewel cases...