Sound, ease of use, features, keyboard entry

Test and grouping, Shuffle limited.

On the whole, I'm very pleased with the unit, as it is a huge upgrade from my 10+ year old 5-disk carousel. No skipping, whereas the old one had gotten extremely sensitive to surface imperfections. I've been resisting buying for about a year, and I'm glad I went for 300 disks (as opposed to 200) and the keyboard entry, and the text.

Nitpicks:

Not enough text: like many, 13 characters - should've been 13 artist, 13 title, or somehing - memory's cheap. 13 is OK for me, but what about my wife and guests who won't know my abbreviations? I like the way CD text scrolls in, but I only have found one disk of mine that has it so far.

Suggest a strategy: Users should have been given guidance to ordering disks in tray and in grouping...I'm making it up as I go along, and it would be painful to re-order the disks from the text-entry point of view.

Keyboard entry is spotty: Excellent feature overall and absolutely necessary, but a little annoying for fast typers.

Limited shuffle: 3 programs are nice, but why no shuffle within the program? If I'm having a party and want to shuffle 5 disks (ala the unit this replaced), I need to devote a group to it, then shuffle the group.

Grouping disks: Would've liked to see 30 groups at least, and a disk belonging to multiple groups. Eclectic tastes, multiple users, crossover artists.

Bottom line, works as advertised, and a great step up, lots of good features, but they weren't perfected with user feedback

Similar Products Used:

Single disk players, and 5 disk carousel (sp?)

Capacity,optical digital output,naming cpacity

text input for titles, load time

This unit is great for convenience. Typing in the titles sux though. I am using the remote from the 333es and it displays the titles on it which is cool. The sound with the optical output is surprisingly good. My Mac keyboard wont work so I am typing them in from the front panel. So far no problems playing any of my cd-r's. The disc loading time between discs is kinda slow but I guess it has to shuttle between 300 discs. All in all a great place to keep discs and get rid of jewel boxes and sounds really good if you have an external DA converter.
PS I got it for 252 delivered from J&R

Similar Products Used:

sony 333es,paradigm mon 9's,cc350,ps2200,adp170,sony 5 disc

Capacity,price.

No digital In (only out). Confusing remote.

I'm using this as a master with another 200 changer and separate DA converter. My major complain about this unit is despite being a master the unit does not have digital in and out (only in). This makes connecting both units using optical connector impossible. Mega control is fine except there is no mega control button on the remote control. Once the slave is turn off and on again the mega control on the master has to be reset. That means I'm getting unnecessary exercise. Considering all cons and pros this unit goes back to the store.

Similar Products Used:

Sony CD changer 200 slave

large storage capacity

too many to mention -- see below

This is the worst piece of electronics I've ever seen in my life. Here is a run-down of all the problems I've had with it before I returned it.

-Takes far too long to switch CDs. More than 15 seconds. No way should it take that long
-Cuts into the song late! You miss the first second or so of the song, and it's really strange sounding when the song has started without you.
-The remote just stopped working about 3 days after I got it. No idea why.
-optical out had more static in the line than the regular RCA out. Seemed to have good connections and everything. Very odd, I can't figure that one out.
-Didn't come with any booklet to put your CD jackets in, so you have to depend on the programing the disc titling that you put into the unit.
-Limited number of characters when you program CD titles into the unit.
-Keyboard input was pretty spotty. I'd press a letter and sometimes it would put 3 of them on the screen and sometimes none at all. Minor detail I suppose, but still they should have fixed that.

DO NOT BUY THIS!! Very poor product with so many problems, I'd rather just hook my portable CD player up to my reciever.

Similar Products Used:

technics 110 CD changer, denon DCM-370

quiet

cannot be digitally connected to another one

Aside from capacity and keyboard input, which you can find in some other players I would mention
as strengths:
-smooth and quiet drive (better feel in general comparing to Pioneer and JVC),
-ability to skip tracks and save that info;

as weaknesses (number of characters in descriptions and number of groups already been mentioned by many people):
-disc change time (up to 18 sec), but from engineering point of view I can only see one way to overcome this problem – add another spinner and move $300 up in a price range;
-did not play one of my CDs, which is perfectly OK on any other CD playing devise (5) in my house, which means it is not really bulletproof;
-no manual (please HELP if you think I’m wrong, but according to my “manual” I should be able to change the letter in Memo Search with jog, but it does nothing in a Search mode on my player or another one in a store);

as a strong and unnecessary (easy to implement w/o significant price increase) weakness:
-NO DIGITAL INPUT!

Similar Products Used:

none

It holds 300 Cd's

It doesn't work!

I bought one, set it up, it worked for 1/2 hour then broke.
Got confused heard clacking. It scratched one of my CD's.
THen it wouldn't play anymore, wouldn't recognize any cd in the unit.

Went to store, (different store cause the other one was out of stock) and had them try this other new one before I drove home. It wouldn't play any CD. Their audio repair mgr stated he's seen lots of them come back within 3 months

I like the features, but the unit seems like junk for a Sony.

Sound quality of digital optical out, capacity, features, with my LCD remote I really like the disk name on the remote

time to change from cds (but not that bad), when typing disk names from the keyboard it sometimes has problems

Hi, my name is Mitchell and I am only 14 but consider myself a hardcore listener. I got this CD player when my CDP-CX240 didn't work when I tried to change tracks on a CD. I returned it and got the CDP-CX300. I am very pleased with it and it sounds terrific if not better than the CDP-CX240. The digital output is what I use and it sounds better than the RCA jacks. The neat features are good as well. I use the keyboard entry to name my CDs. I use my LCD remote from my Sony reciever to see the name of my CDs which is good because I have bad vision. Another good thing about having the Sony reciever is using the S-link because it siplifies using the 2 components. The memory of the CD player is good enough for me too. 13 characters is all I need to name my CDs. And the regular functions like random and program work well for me. As for the daisy chain I have no real reason to use it because I only have 30 CDs... yet... but its nice to chain up a couple of CD players to each other. Now for the bad. The worst is the time delay between changing CDs (still less than I expected) and sometimes when typing in CD names via keyboard it might mess up. Other than that I love this CD player and would only up grade to the ES line when I get the money.

My equipment:
Sony ES A/V reciever STR-DA30ES (has the LCD remote)
Sony mega storage CD player CDP-CX300
Magnepan MMGs as my front listening speakers
Dynaco A-25 as my vidio game and other purpose speakers
Audio Source powered 50 WPC subwoofer
Monster Cable optical digital inter connection cables

Similar Products Used:

CDP-CX240

- Capacity
-ability to connect with other changers
-memo input

I ahve read some of the previous reviews and one big complaint seems to be the lack of ability to input track names. I for one find it tedious enough to enter the Disc titles, though I certainly find it convenient to have the titles display on the unit. I can't imagine having to enter all the track names. I have a CDP-CX240 daisy chained with this unit and both are filled with CD's. I have better things to do than spend days and days typing in probably better than 5000 track names. IMHO, using the supplied books for the CD jackets is a much better option.

I love the ability to daisy chain the units together and run in shuffle play with no-delay-play or x-fade play. It really makes for a pleasurable listening experience.

I don't have an external D/A converter, so the optical outputs mean nothing to me.

I paid $350 last year for the CDP-CX240 (a 200 disc changer) and paid only $270 for this unit. I find no appreciable differences in the units.

I recommend this to anyone with a lot of CD's. Once you load them up and start playing, you realize how many good CD's you had that did not get played often enough (or at all).

Similar Products Used:

Sony CDP-CX240

Capacity. Keyboard entry. Grouping of discs. Random play, all disc shuffle is like owning your own radio station. Your suddenly reintroduced to that dusty stack of CD's in the audio closet.

I'm having trouble with the All Discs - Shuffle Play mode. After a few CD's, the changer locks up, scans and scans, but won't play. Turning it off and on again, resets the unit. Been back once for service on the unit (under warranty). Dread the thought of reprogramming a this monster again, so I'm crossing fingers they can fix this beast.

A great idea. Think about your investment in all those CD's in a stack in your crib, just sitting there. For the functions, price (approx. $270) seems more than reasonable. Some service problems.

Priced Right. Holds a lot of CD's. Easy to load.

Controls are confussing. Manual is a joke.

I like most that it holds all my CDs and with the shuffle on, I'm listening to CDs that I forgot I had.