SONY Produced 100/200/300/400 CDs Jukebox CD Players! But most are provided regular sound quality. But this SONY CDP-M555ES can provide 95% Audiophile Quality Sound. Because this is a ES Series CD player. 400CDs loaded . Easy to use. Made in Malaysia. MSRP USD$700.00. If you get a chance to buy this model, don't think twice. Buy it! You will love it!

I would like to say this SONY CDP-M555ES is the best of the SONY's Jukebox CD Changers. Most of the SONY Jukebox CD Changer are actually they can provide regular sound quality. But this SONY CDP-M555ES is not like that. It can provide 95% Audiophile Quality Sound and really easy to use. This one has build in 3 step sound filter function. If you get chance to buy this sony CDP-M555ES, don't think twice. I would like to recommend for this SONY CDP-M555ES Jukebox!

This thing has great sound with the right system backing it up. Great remote and the CDText feature is probably one of the coolest features of any new audio equipment.

Just the time it takes to enter info but that's part of life when you want a great setup. Again, use the CDText feature when burning cd's and you'll see!

I am somewhat shocked to read some of the other reviews for this product. Guys and gals, this was the best unit Sony made in the cd changer catagory until the recently arrived 777ES, which acts as a DVD & CD changer. Yes, it can be time consuming and laborious to enter names and info but if you burn or buy cd's with CDText on them you won't have to do that. This is but one of the best features of this machine! This product is considered more on the high-end scale and people that don't want to spend the time that serious audio listeners' do to upgrading their system should not consider this product. For starters, you can use any keyboard with this unit. It is not Sony specific by any means. Just plug it in and enter away. Also, someone even said that the system's sound was okay! Not true. To get great sound from any product, use optical cables and with a good reciever you will get amazing sound with this unit. Also, once you lose the info it is gone, sorry. Make sure that you're using good wiring and not an extension cord with a billion plugs in it, etc. You may have had a power surge or lost power at one point but honostly it sounds like you might have just deleted the info. Machines are tricky sometimes, that's just the way it is, no matter who makes it. Also, the video output is a very useful feature. Great for sorting your collection instead of looking at a small display. When CD Text is used all the info is displayed on the remote, the display and the tv out, awesome!

Great to have 400 CD's in one changer. Sound quality is good - not great. Manual is typical Sony poor and confusing.

I've been looking for the Keyboard for this unit to enter cd information. Am I able to use any keyboard, or is a specific keyboard required? If so, where are the keyboards sold? I have not been able to find one.

400 CDs in a box!

User interface could be improved. Documentation does not describe all the buttons and features.

I agree with the other reviews presented here, but wanted to add the following gripe: If you want to lookup a disc name, you must supply the first letter and than you can scroll through the list of disc names than start with that letter. That is reasonable. It certainly helps to narrow down the list from 400 CDs to a more reasonable number. But if you want to select an artist (and when I pick music to play, that is what I think about first) you cannot narrow the list by first initial and must scroll through up to 200 names of artists. And get this; the "artist file" is kept in the order you entered it and is NOT placed in alphabetical order when scrolling. That is really akward because scrolling through a lot of artist entries is cumbersome, but having to look at each line is even worse. So you had better decide up front which artist names you are going to enter and enter them in order (unless you feel like re-entering the whole list when making an addition). And note that the slink-e (www.nirvis.com) box cannot help you here since this player does not allow the artist names to be written through the slink port.

I have decided to only add an individual artist name into the artist file if I have two or more discs from that artist. Otherwise I assign them a "name" that equals the first letter of the artist name. That way I can still find all albums of all artists with names starting with - say - "B" while the "Beatles" have their own entry in the artist file for easier selection.

Convenience, well-engineered

Marginal owners-manual, jog-knobs could be a bit heftier.

Earlier this year I reviewed the CDP-M333es which I had bought from Tweeter, etc. - a local Hi-Fi chain store. I returned the unit after I found that I could purchase it mail-order for hundreds less. In the past I might have felt guilty about doing this as I’ve always argued to friends and family that we should, whenever possible, give our business to the “specialized” small retailers because without them we’ll have no place to go to listen and learn about new products. I urged people to recognize that the small price premium paid to these “bricks and mortar” retailers was justified because of the better treatment you’d likely receive. Boy was I wrong. When I bought the first unit in a store, no one seemed interested in helping me. When someone was finally chased down to answer a few questions I got the distinct impression that they had received little (or no) training and was pretty much giving me whatever answer he thought I wanted to hear. Though I shouldn’t have, I bought the unit nonetheless.

A week later I read a review for a different unit (looking for tips on set-up) in which the person mentioned having bought his at Sound City. I gave them a call and was astonished to find that the unit I paid $599 (plus tax) for was being sold for $409, including S&H! Plus, they charged no tax! Needless to say, I had no qualms about returning the 333 to Tweeter, etc. Their price is $190 more than Sound City and you’re given absolutely no better treatment for the extra price paid. That’s a 32% price premium for nothing! In truth, Joe at Sound City treated me better than my “live” sales person. He promised the unit would arrive at my door-step the very next day and it did! If your local retailer is no more motivated than mine, by all means, call Joe at Sound City (1-800-370-3156, ext. 708). Wise up Tweeter etc.! If you're not going to offer a level of service which justifies your prices, you'd better start discounting your merhandise!

...Anyway, back to the review. This unit differs from the CDP-M333ES in that it comes with a two-way remote which features a small LCD screen which displays your disc names as you scroll up or down the list. Pretty cool!! Some of the reviews of the CDP-X450 have related tales of reliability problems with the remote, but for now it works great and was well worth the extra $50 I paid for it (the CDP-M333ES was $409 at S.C. and this was $459) The other feature this unit offers is that you can view your disc names/ artist names on your television via a video-out feature. I don’t find it to be all that useful, so I doubt I’ll use it much I haven’t used this much and probably won’t in the future.

As stated in my review of the 333, I really love these players. To expand on my small list of gripes I would add that the “jog” knobs should be a little more robust. I realize that molded plastic is cheap and is probably suitable for the task, but it’s just so light! A cheap metal knob would do much to give the unit a better feel and would probably help justify the added cost of these “ES” models. I can’t imagine that such a detail would add much more than $5 or so. The other small complaint is that if you’ve named a slot then remove the disc, the name will no longer appear assigned to that slot until a disc is returned to the slot. This is a problem if you remove discs for your car, discman, etc. When you try to put them back in the machine, you can easily find the empty slots, but you won’t know which goes where if you didn’t write it down.

Anyway, I haven’t had a single functional problem with the changer yet.

In terms of value, I give it 5 stars. When you consider what this thing does for $450 you have to recognize it as a terrific deal. To think that the audio hobby propagates the notion that $300 cables and $1500 D/A converters can “transform” a persons stereo system is ridiculous. To reiterate the point I made in the earlier review, any small concession that these changers may make in “sound-quality” is more than offset by the incredible convenience they offer. I’ve never enjoyed my CD collection more than I do now even if the player lacks some of the latest “tweako” technology which claims to wring a tiny bit more detail out of a CD.

Similar Products Used:

see review of CDP-M333ES

totally unreliable memory

i thought this was the coolest product when i got it, as i eagerly spent the ENTIRE day entering in my cd collection. a scant 2 months later, i turn on the system to enter in 5 new discs i bought, and imagine my utter despair when the system came up totally blank!! i had about 325 discs painstakingly entered, not to mention a huge artist file and group file -- all gone! i noticed that my remote still had the information in it, but i have no idea how to recover this back into the unit. if anyone knows how to do this, i would be eternally grateful. but let this be a huge caveat to anyone looking at this product.

ES quality and warranty, A1II control, Xfade between two units in continuous shuffle, keyboard data entry, 2-way remote, appearence.

Manual, time to change cds when operating just one machine.
Sony phone help is terrible, 40 minute waits.(800-222-sony).

This is definately the coolest Sony CD setup I've had. I have hundreds of cds and didn't listen to most of them before because of the hastle of changing single cds only to listen to one or two songs. I'm hearing material I haven't heard in years. Using the Delete Song feature helps too and you'll never handling the cds again. What to do with all the cases now?!?! I use the two M555ES's I have primarily in the Continuous Shuffle X-Fade mode with deleted files so I can play my 500 cd's and only hear "your" music (via A-1 control). The computer keyboard makes entering your titles and artists a lot easier than the tedious prospect of using the Jog wheel to enter info.
The filing system it uses is limited and surprisingly outdated (cicra 80's technology), but you can work around it. The Video out put is neat. I hooked it up to a 6 inch LCD Monitor, not the TV, so it's on when the decks are. Makes it cool when running the continous shuffle mode and someone wants to know "who's that". I highly recommend this unit, especially 2 of them working together.

Similar Products Used:

Numerous other Sony CD machines going back to 1983.

Holds all my CD's, I get to hear CD's I would probably not nomrally play

Can only assign a CD to one group, display is limited, not enough room for artists, a little slow

First let me say I really like this player/jukebox. I currently have it 95% full and it's great to just leave it on shuffle play and be totally suprised by what comes up next. Unfortunately like my previous Sony CD player it's got some nice features that are poorly implemented. In no particular order:

You can assign a CD to 1 of 8 groups. BUT only one group this means if I want to have a group for Party and a group for Techno I could only assign a CD to one of those groups (I want to do both).

While the player holds 400 CD's you can only store 200 artists?! Around CD 325 I ran out of artists thus making the play artists function essentially useless.

You cannot find out who the artist is unless the player is stopped or you have it hooked up to a TV and use the on screen display.

You cannot find out how many tracks are on the CD unless it's stopped. Also if you like to see time remaining instead of time played you are out of luck.

It's a little slow switching CD's. Probably 6-8 seconds.

My old Sony player let you save a volume level for a CD which was very nice for the occaisional CD that was very loud or quiet to even it out with all the other CD's. This is not available.

Some of the cool/nice features:

Holds 400 CD's!!!

Group play - Play all the CD's in a particular group (see
the drawbacks above)

Artist play - Play all the CD's by a particular artist (see the drawbacks above)

Slick two-way remote

Hit list - store your favorite 32 tracks for quick playback
Support for CD Text

Delete file - Really hate that track then just add it to the delete file and you will NEVER hear it again.

Optical out

Keyboard input available for Album/Artist information.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 5-CD Player (forgot the model number)