Remote and storage

Mem. loss and skips like hell!!

Mine just broke. I liked it alot when it worked; great remote and search function. It will lose cd names without power. Mine skips on any cd. These skips can go backwards in the track or forward and can span several minutes or the whole track. This problem has rendered the unit useless exept for the storage of cd's so you might want to look around for another unit.

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10 other cd units.

As far as playback is concerened, there has been no problems with this unit. However, the memory erases on every other power outage. I would hesitate to recommend this product, as the time required to enter the data back in is beyond aggravating.

great for organizing large music collections.

Has a tendancy to break. A lot.

I have owned two of these units over the last two years, and if they would work properly, I would be very happy with them. Unfortunately I had to return the first one because it started making scratching and fuzzing sounds. SONY replaced the unit, but that unit also has problems. It has trouble playing any burned cds that are no problem on any other player. It’s always a gamble when I put a cd in, sometimes the unit will not play a cretin cd and other times it will play it. It will even refuse to play some regular cds. It also has a tendency to forget all the names of the cds when the power goes out. This only happens occasionally, but it is very frustrating because I have over 300 cds in it. If the unit functioned properly I would be very happy with it, however this I the fourth product I have purchased from SONY in the last three years that has broken. I for one will NEVER buy anything from SONY again.

Everything

None

There''s nothing not to like about this unit. I have about 200 CD''S that will continue to expand. The unit works flawlessly. There''s no "hangups" when the discs are changing, and the sound is perfect. So long to all those Jewel cases stacked on a rack or shelf. Some people like to put the CD covers in an album, that''s fine but I prefer just to have a single page list with the Artist''s name and CD title. This unit is wonderful and If I buy more than 400 CD''s I''ll buy another to piggy back onto the original. My old Onkyo 6 CD changer played well, but who wants to mess with changing CD''S in this day and age. You can keep your "jukebox" full and party with great sounds into the next week!

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Onkyo- 6 CD Changer

PRICE/WARRANTY/400CDS/GOLD CONNECTIONS

NONE

I am totally happy with this 400cd mega changer! 5 year warranty and all the inputs and outputs you need.

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KENWOOD/PIONEER/SONY

Too much fun with 400 discs. Good build, good user interface. Fair value.

Entering 400 discs via keyboard is too much (see review)! Trouble with it's memory (see review)!

With a very large CD collection of almost 1200 discs, I recently purchased the CDP-M333ES from a local dealer at a very good price. The dealer had a demo unit available for $340 and after finding out that the MSRP is $600, I took the plunge, and it damn near happily drowned me! It took me very little time to make the realization that I would require two changers to acommodate my library. Soon thereafter I purchased a slightly used CDP-CX400, again at a great price. What spurred me on to purchase the second changer was the new knowledge that by connecting two changers up together with Sony’s "Mega Control", it would allow cross fading or no-delay play between the two changers.

After spending an inordinate amount of time selecting, inserting and arranging discs between the two changers and trying to figure out such details as how to enter disc information and how to arrange the disc load (mostly alphabetically between the two changers) using keyboards, I almost gave up in exasperation...until I found "Slink-e", an S-link hardware controller with free "CDJ" software expressly made for CD changers, especially Sony Slink units.

Once the Slink-e was connected and I read the help instructions to figure out how to use the software, it was downhill from there. Although the cost of the Slink-e was not inexpensive ($250), considering the amount already invested in the two changers ($220 for the CDP-CX400 and $340 for the CDP-M333ES), and the value of my time, it was more than worth the extra credit card expenditure. The Slink-e did accurate CDDB lookup on each disc and uploaded titles to the player in a few easy steps (artist upload is promised to be coming soon). It can even find album covers and lyrics automatically- although the databases for these extra features are incomplete; it's still a great perk. The best part is the ability to easily search and sort through the 800 discs and create custom playlists or easily find and play a selection or CD with ease. The device attends to most every detail you could want in this situation. Check it out at nirvis.com. The only downside is the reliance on use and connection of your PC and a serial port. They also have some additional products and programs to allow for digital switching and display of album covers as screensaver.

Back to the players-after purchasing the CDPM333ES, I soon found the CDP-CX400 on ebay at significant savings still. I had been playing with both of them stacked up on my kitchen table for the past 3 weeks, and found little difference between them. It is fun just to watch the changers smoothly move, blink and display all those discs, especially automatically with the Slink-e! The ES model does a five year warranty, which is noteworthy, but the 400 seems to mechanically look , sound and operate the same as the ES model, although the audio may be a tad stronger and more stable on the ES model, probably due to the claimed improved power supply. They are physically identical except the ES model has a three position digital converter filter switch that changes the sound character slightly and the frontpanel design that is ever so slightly different between them. By the way they both play CDRs OK.

I used them together in Mega control mode for awhile, but found the operation to be adequate at best. It was confusing to determine which player was actually working as the front panel displays will show the same information depending on if it is the master or slave player. Also the Mega control switch would light up only to show you that the slave player is in Mega control. This is not intuitive and can be confusing. I became a bit frustrated due to the lack of good documentation regarding the details of operation, and limited ability to control the players with much more than basic control during this mode of operation.

I began entering disc information for the first 100 discs-50 on each- it was a Herculean effort to get started. Not only that, but after unplugging the ES model overnight accidentally, I lost the entered data. Although the CDP-CX400 did not loose it's data during the same time period. Beware of this. I arranged my discs by artist alphabetically, staggering between player 1 and 2 and leaving some space in for future expansion, filling that space in after the fact with various artists’ discs. I also started to enter artists’ names in but found that to be troublesome as the sort order was somewhat unpredictable. Also annoying is the fact that the 20 character is accessible only by pushing the “scroll” button on the front panel. I would recommend that in future models Sony reconsider scrolling the text at least once when a new disc or track is started to display all of the current data without having to manually select it.

Overall, I think at the price I paid, both changers are a great value and do an admirable job of handling the discs; the sound quality is as good as any modern CD player. At a retail price of nearly twice the standard model, if the user does not desire the Slink-e solution described, it is probably worth it to look to the CDP-M555ES with its advanced video display and LCD remote capabilities. I suggest those users read the Epinions reviews on that model. Personally, I learned to let someone (in this case someTHING) else do the "heavy lifting" (control of the players via PC). These players and Slink-e will proudly be part of my large "industrial design" home system that I am working on finishing up, and I invite you to ask me about it, so I can show it off.

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CDP-CX400

400 disc capacity, cd text, music groups, reasonable build quality, sound quality

extremely large unit, slow switching b/w discs

I love it!! Though I've been an ardent audiophile (eg., stereo-snob) for years, I bought this unit because I finally admitted to myself that the convenience that a mega-changer affords more than offsets the small concession it makes in sound-quality.

I noticed some time ago that I had grown too lazy to load a cd unless I loved nearly every song on the disc. I knew that once put in the CD player, a disc would likely remain there for months. Hence, the same 10 or 15 cd's kept getting rotated in and out of my 6-disc Rotel changer. Though I loved it's smooth, involving sound, I just didn't have the time to fiddle around the jewel boxes just to hear one great track on an otherwise mediocre cd.

This changer has changed that. I'm now rediscovering discs/ songs that I haven't listened to in years. Prior to buying this I had considered several other units. The current Pioneer Elite model, and Kenwood "internet-linked" changers were briefly considered but were dismissed because of their capacity of 300 CDs (I have 375+ discs). I also considered the cheaper Sony units but opted for this ES model because of what I perceived to be better build quality (the mechanism is quieter and seemingly smoother) plus it has a 5 year warranty. Nontheless, I remain somewhat sceptical about the longterm reliability of ANY mega-changer unit; it just seems to me that there is a lot going on inside them as they switch b/w discs. ...Nonetheless, for less than what I paid for my CD cabinet (a mission-style lingerie chest with extension sliders and dividers added) I figured it was worth a chance. I'm trusting that If it breaks, Sony will fix it fairly promptly. Of course, it would be a HUGE hassle to pull all the discs out and then rename all of them if Sony sends me a replacement unit

Some have griped about being limited to 20 characters when naming discs. I don't find this to be such a problem. ...Simply abbreviate and it's easy to recognize the disc title. Of course, some recently released discs are already encoded with disc and track info.

Anyway, I love the unit and will buy another to daisy-chain to it when my collection has grown beyond 400 discs. If I have any reliability problems, I'll report back with another review.