400 CD's, great sound

Video

The sound is great. I love the different ways that the player can be programmed. The keyboard entry is well, key.
I do have one question. I have wondered if the video from the player can damage my TV set. Has anyone left the player on the screen for any length of time?

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sony cdp89es- 5 disc changer

400-disc capacity, text displays, sound quality

mediocre manual, complexity

First and most important, the sound is gorgeous! I'm hearing stuff I never knew was on some of my CDs.

The earlier reviews have described the pros and few cons well. I'd add that, IMHO, the ONLY way to really take advantage of the two-way remote and the disc and track title displays is to replicate all your CDs and add titling information to the copies. I'm currently about half-way through this process in my collection, using cheap bulk CD-Rs and a Sony CD-RW drive on my PC. Lots of work? Sure, but I'll be able to enjoy it for many years to come. Don't buy this changer if you're not willing to put major effort into the initial setup!

I haven't yet found a limit to the length of a disc or track title you can add to a CD. It's really neat to watch "Bach: Great Organ Favorites/E. Power Biggs, played on the Flentrop organ in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University" go scrolling across the screen with no effort on my part.

Now, if only it's reliable!

-K.

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Sony CDP-C535 5-disc changer

Sound quality, nice remote

Lack of track input, limit of 200 artists, on screen display only show output of controlling player.

This is a good sounding player, but the entry and search interface are too limiting and less function that previous, lower priced sony juke boxes. Previous models would display the title, artist, and track of both players (all were loaded into, or keyed into, the main controlling player). Sadly, the M555ES only loads the album titles from the second juke box, does not load the artist, and does not display anything through the video output for the second player. Also lacking is the ability to enter track titles. Another problem is that while you can enter store 400 CDs, you may only enter up to 200 artist names. I posted this review to mainly share a tip on how to connect to M555ES units together and still allow for artist search from the remotes for all 400 artists. It requires a great deal of initial setup, but some of you may find it worth the time.


If you will put artist names beginning with A-L only into player 1, and artist names beginning with M-Z into the second player you can then trick each of the two remotes to control one and only one player. The first remote will control the CD2 player and only load the artist names from player 1 (A-L), while the second remote will only control the CD3 player and only load the artist names from (M-Z). This allows you to store and perform artist searching on 400 artists instead of only 200. (Unfortunately to perform artist search on artist name beginning from M-Z you will have to use the second remote).

Here is the exact set up instructions (which you must follow in order) to all for 400 unique artists and artist search from the remotes for all 400 artist names.

1. Disconnect the S-Link cable between the two players.
2. Change player 1 to CMD1.
3. Enter all the CD's (from A-L) into player one, assigning name, artist, and group.
4. Change player 2 to CMD1.
5. Enter all CD's (from M-Z) into player two, assigning name, artist, and group.

Now that you have all CD's enter into the two players, you can now follow the following remote setup instructions....

6. Keep the S-Link cable disconnected between the two players.
7. Turn off Player 1, Turn on Player 2
8. Set Player 2 to CMD1
9. Clear the memory for Remote 2.
10. Load all data from Player 2 into remote 2.
11. Change Player 2 to CMD3.
12. Perform Player Check on Player 2 using Remote 2. (This will leave all the titles and artists loaded, but cause the remote to only control a player set to CMD3.

At this point Remote 2 in loaded and will only control Player 2, and still perform complete artist search on artist M-Z.

13. Now turn off Player 2.
14. Turn on Player 1 only (S-Link still disconnected).
15. Change Player 1 to CMD2 and reconnected the S-Link.
16. Turn Player off and back on so it will turn on Player 2 and recognize it.
17. From Player 1 press Menu and turn the dial until Load 2ndName appears. Press the Yes button.
18. Now all the CD titles in Player 2 have been loaded into Player 1. (Sadly it does not load artists....surely due to the 200 artist limit in each player...but at least it will store all 800 CD titles in Player 1)
19. Clear memory for Remote 1.
20. Press Select Player on Remote 1 until CMD2 shows.
21. Load All data from Player 1 into Remote 1....but here is a tip.....hold the remote directly in front of the infra red output of player 2....not player 1. In fact make sure that Remote 1 can only see Player 2's infrared.
22. Remote 1 will load all the Titles from Player 1 first, but then continue and load all the Titles from Player 2, followed by the Artists from Player 1, and the Groups from Player 1.

You are now finished. Remote one will control both players, allowing you the see the CD titles for all 800 players (You can use the select player button to switch between players when performing Title search). You can also perform Artist search using Remote 1 for all artists beginning with letters A-L (all 200 of them....they are all in player 1).

Remote 2 will only control player 2, because we did the player check on a CMD3 player. It will show only the 400 CD titles in Player 2, but will also allow you to perform artist search on all artist beginning with letters M-Z (all 200 of them....they are in player 2).

I have found this set up very convenient....allowing for 400 artists, and complete artist search on all 400 artists, as well as CD Title search on all 800 CDs.

I hope this info benefits some of you out there. Good luck and enjoy these units.

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Lesser model CD jukeboxes

Capacity, S-link interface, CD-text capable

Size, User Inerface, limited artist name space, touchy keyboard interface

Loading Artist and title information into this changer is very cumbersome - it took me many, many hours.

You are limited to 200 artist names, a limit which I exceeded. No track info is provided for anything other than CD-text discs, which are recognized.

The video out is a little gimicky, but handy when entering information or during a party.

The free keyboard that Sony sent me did not meet their current draw specification (!), and the Caps Lock seems to have a mind of its own.

The 2- way remote is nice for Artist mode, but not essential. You have to select which changer you want it to operate (when using the Megachanger feature).

I bought the 555ES vs. the CDP-CX450 due to the better DAC's and the longer warranty. Plus it was not that much more when bought from oade bros. (whom I highly recommend).

I just purchased a slink-e from wwww.nirvis.com, and will be using this to download CDDB data and manage my playlists. It fixes many of the limitations in the Sony user interface.

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None