Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Bought this Player for my 15 year old daughters first stereo system Christmas of 2001. I owned multiple Kenwood products in the late 1970's which were all fine performers and survived for many years without a hitch before giving up the ghost. Kenwood still seems to be putting out quality products. This changer has survived 15 months of "teenage" use without problem.

Strengths:
Unlike the Sony products that I have owned which seem to loose feature after feature then eventually die. The Kenwoods have been much better in the durability at similar price.

Price Paid:  $299.00 from Powerstore

Summary:
Bought this because I wanted a decent multi disc player that could play randomly. I got a decent multi disc player that plays randomly, up to a point. Sometimes this point is 5 tracks in, sometimes its 3hrs in, but invariably it stops dead before it plays all the tracks on all the discs (unlike it says in the instruction book). I thought this was the point of multi disc players to be able to push random and have a days worth of music played to you. Powerstore tried to fix it but in the end the Kenwood rep said they are not built to be able to randomly play all the tracks ?? I gave up in the end and kept it as otherwise its fine. The sound can best be described as accurate.

Strengths:
Its cheap. Sounds fine.

Weaknesses:
Random doesn't work. Red stand-by light pointless.

Price Paid:  $90.00 from Sams Club

Summary:
The sound is clean, natural, if not slightly flat. My Onkyo, and Technics CD players both add a bit more "soul" to the sound. They sound warmer, richer, and more lifelike. Of course, they both are at least twice as expensive. The Onkyo is in an entirely different league. I currently have this Kenwood CD player hooked up to my Onkyo TX-DS484 receiver, which has enough clean power to drive my JBL S38’s (very impressive). The receiver distorts at high volume levels, as would be expected from a low power output amp. It’s clean at low to medium SPL levels, and that’s all that my girlfriend cares for!

I purchased this CD player to give my GF something to play her CDR’s on, something that my Panasonic DVD-RV30 couldn’t handle. I have my big audio equipment at my GF’s house so we can watch movies together. (Her 13 in TV just wasn’t going to cut it.) Since I don’t ever watch TV, my 27 in Panasonic TV with component video inputs and black invar tube is at her apartment as well. Altogether the system sounds absolutely awesome.

The JBL S38, SCenter, and Yamaha SW90 (small 8in 90 watt compact sub) make for a very musical and brilliant ensemble capable of smooth transients and reproduce very believable acoustic environments of the original recordings. The SW90 is an extremely musical sub. It doesn’t thump like other subs, adding to the low end Sound Quality. I dislike thump and boom when it isn't called for. The SW90 is so transparent, it's hard to place in it's current crossover setting and position.

The sound output of the receiver is augmented immensely by 12 gauge OFC speaker cable purchased by 100FT roll (Sound King) for ~30 bucks from partsexpress.com. The RCA interlinks are all Acoustic Research Pro, from Lowes. The CD player is hooked up through analogue connections, because the DAC in my Onkyo is higher resolution than the cd player was meant to use and sounds slightly harsh. The sound is smoother and cleaner via the analogue output on the deck.

Overall, I would say the CD player is very competent. I’m only using the remote to program my Home Theater Master SL-9000 so I don’t have to use the small cheap remote. It sounds clean, and since my GF isn’t an audiophile, and since her previous system was an Aiwa bookshelf system which has the optical transport system dying, I figure this CD player in conjunction with the other audio hardware is an extreme upgrade!

This is a great bargain, for those looking for a cheap, decent sounding cd changer.

Strengths:
Price! This cd player is the cheapest 5 disc player I have been able to find except maybe the RCA piece of trash changer that is probably the worst sounding changer I have ever heard. I take that back, my sony discman hooked up through my receiver is slightly worse.

The sound is clean, natural, if not slightly flat. My onkyo, and technics cd players both have a bit more "soul" to the sound. They sound warmer, richer, and more lifelike. Of course, they both are at least twice as expensive. The onkyo is in an entirely different league.

Weaknesses:
The sound is slightly flat. Sound lacks richness and warmth of other higherpriced units. However, considering the price, it sounds very nice.

The remote is trash. Too small, the buttons are tiny, but the layout is fine if all you want to do is change discs.

Similar Products Used:
Onkyo, Technics, Denon, Harman Kardon