Price Paid:  $800.00 from accessories4less.com

Summary:
This is my centerpiece! It stores my entire CD collection plus room for my dvds and rental dvds. Unit is THX certified and it shows. It's solid. construction is fine. Similar to Pioneer and Onkyo units. Guts inside have Pioneer chips from what I've heard but Marantz always adds extra sound circuitry. The sound is phenomenal, especially DTS. The unit is easy to use. I use the random play a lot and it's a very fast mechanism for a 300 disc player. The remote has a shuttle wheel that lets you find disks quickly, especially with the on screen display - you can input disk titles and they show up. Input can be either from the front, remote or computer keyboard. The DVD functions and video capabilities are superb. Has component video, SVHS, and Composite outs. I use the SVHS outs and picture rendition is clean and smooth with no artifacts or dropouts. Many extras in how you set up the picture resolution - can be sharper or softer and it remembers your preferences. Unit is also pretty quiet. I owned a Sony 300 disk DVD changer and this unit is worth the extra bucks. Marantz is much quieter, quicker, sound is head and shoulders above it and picture is smooth. Was jagged and filled with artifacts on many DVDs on the Sony.

Strengths:
Excellent picture and quick access mechanism. Superb sound clarity and separation. The DTS processing is to die for.

Weaknesses:
I had to have the unit serviced by Marantz after 2 months of use. They had it back to me in 4 days and it works fine. They replaced the disk change mechanism. Excellent customer service.

Similar Products Used:
Sony 300 disk DVD Changer. Marantz 100 disk cd changer. Toshiba DVD player. Product overall is excellent unit. Well designed and does its job well. Works and performs as expected.

Price Paid:  $700.00 from online

Summary:
Fast loading CD and DVDs. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to play CD-Text CDs. I had no change to try my receiver with other player, but seams to have good sound and movie playback is also good. Good interface for selecting DVD or CDs. I'll like to try the sound quality of other products before making or not a recommendation.

Strengths:
Huge storage capacity. Quick to load media.

Weaknesses:
Blue ligth on the back of the CDs can't be turned off, anoying when watching movies.

Price Paid:  $820.00 from Accessories4less

Summary:
Excellent picture and sound. Plays any disk I throw in, a few that barely played in the SONY play perfectly in this unit. Fast loading for a 300 disk carousel, crystal clear scan-still mode images. Disk labeling input via any computer keyboard, plugs straight into the front panel of the player. Title & disk access through OSD. Memory of favorite playback setting for each disk, EG:DTS sound track, video settings, When you select a disk it automaticly plays your favorite settings instead of having to select them through the DVD's menus (sound track, language, captions, etc.) There are also six video presets available. Each video preset can be fine tuned for gamma, chroma, sharp, detail, more. Out of the box I thought it looked very soft untill I set the video adjustments up properly. Impressive player !

Strengths:
300 disk capacity, Video Adjustments, Memory functions

Weaknesses:
Perhaps the remote, works fine, feels kinda cheap.
Backlit would have been usefull, Hard to read small text when you need to access OSD menus If you want to play with tweaks

Similar Products Used:
Sony DVP530d single disk