Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony CDPCX455 400 Disc MegaStorage CD Changer

I owned a perfectly wonderful Pioneer, 100 Disc CD changer. Since my CD collection had approached the 400 mark, I decided to purchase the Sony CDP-CX455 unit, so that I could randomly listen to my entire collection, without constantly changing CD's. After reading some of the reviews on Amazon, I was reluctant to purchase this unit. Unable to find another unit that would accomodate 400 CD's, I decided to take a chance and went ahead with the purchase. Big mistake! After spending hours loading the CD's into the system and setting it to play on random(shuffle), I soon discovered that several of my CD's were skipping. I am meticulous with the handling of my CD's, so I know that the problem was not caused by my mishandling of them. I removed the CD's that were skipping, hoping that this was an isolated incident. The next day, I turned on the unit and again set it to play songs randomly. Once again, some of the CD's started skipping. When I removed them from the unit, I noticed that there were scratches on both CD's. I then called up Sony to explain to them that this particular CD changer has an engineering defect, and that it scratches CD's. Their response was that they have had no reports of such incidences. I asked to speak with a supervisor, who informed me that this CD changer has been taken off the market and is not being replaced with a similar unit. He said that stores still had them in stock, but once the stock was exhausted there would be no more available. I then asked him why they were not replacing this unit with another 400 CD changer model, and was told that they are getting out of the CD changer business, in favor of DVD/CD combo units. I offered the comment that the reason they are not replacing the CDP-CX455 with a similar unit, is because they know that the CDP-CX455 has an engineering defect, and they are not capable of building a 400 CD unit that is problem free. At any rate, I called the store where I purchased my changer from, and told them that I was returning it because it was scratching my CD's. I then started the long process of removing the CD's from the system and was astounded to find that almost 1 out of every 3 CD's had been scratched by this CD changer. I called back Sony, and their attitude was basically that they couldn't care less. Once you buy a Sony product, you are on your own. Their customer support is non existent. Despite the fact that over 100 of my CD's have been damaged by this unit, their response was that they were sorry, but there is nothing they could do about it. Based on this incident, I will never purchase another Sony product again. If you are planning to purchase this CD player, my advice to you, "Buyer Beware."

This machine plays discs just fine, but if you're really into music, this is not the machine for you. Here's some info they don't tell you:

--It does NOT hold title info on 800 discs ... When you enter a CD title, that title is assigned to the SLOT. So if you remove a CD from slot 99 put a new CD in slot 99, the player still displays the title of the original CD.

--To change play modes (e.g., Continuous to Shuffle or Shuffle 1 to Shuffle All), you must press Stop first. I have owned about 10 CD players in the past (most of them Sonys), and none of them behave like this. You can usually switch without interrupting the current song.

--Plan to spend many hours loading and entering CDs (even with a keyboard). It takes 17 seconds to change discs (!) even if you're going from Disc 1 to Disc 2. It's about 24 seconds if the carousel has to move half way around.

--It stores artist info, but not genre. You can use the Artist space for genre, but you can't do both. In other words, you can play all your Dave Matthews CDs or all your Rock CDs, but you can't categorize the same disc as Dave Matthews and Rock.

--Programming play is a little strange. It has three programs, and they remain when power is turned off. That's good, but three is not nearly enough, and you don't have the ability to program on the fly. To create a new program, you have to erase one first (assuming all three are full). Plus, if you're moving up from the 10-disc player, you're going to miss the Bank play feature (stores a program for each disc and remembers it when you take the disc out).

--The disc in slot 17 almost always comes up as the first disc played when I change modes from Continuous to Shuffle or back.

--20 characters is not enough, especially if you're using genres because then you have to cram the artist and title in 20 spaces (and then use the Artist entry for the genre).

--The tiny screen only shows 13 characters unless you press the Display button; then it scrolls the CD title, a slash, a keyhole-shaped separator, and the Artist. A player with this many discs really needs a bigger screen with separate displays for artist and title.

--There's no fast forward (>>) or rewind (<<). It only has skip forward (>>|) and skip back (|<<).

--It's DEEP! Check the measurements before you buy. This machine is about six inches deeper than my cabinet, so it sticks out the back.

--It's time consuming to move CDs from home to car to work or wherever. You have to find the CD by scrolling through all the names, and when you put it back, it has to go in the same slot. No problem for one or two CDs, but I generally pull out 10 at a time.

Does it do anything well? Sure. MP3 play is pretty cool. And having all your discs loaded allows you to hear your collection differently. I use Shuffle a lot, so I hear songs I wouldn't normally choose. The jog wheels (one for disc, one for song) are useful. It hasn't skipped yet.

Sony certainly didn't design this for people who have 400 discs. It was really disappointing.

Like a couple of other reviewers have mentioned, I have owned the older Sony 400 disc changer for many years without a single problem; I absolutely love it. When I purchased the updated CX455, I was excited that this would offer the same performance, while adding the ability to play MP3s.

I realized this was not meant to be as soon as I saw that Sony had done away with the "Group File" function which was by far my favorite feature on the old player. In retrospect, this should have clued me in that this was a "problem product." Why would you replace the Group Files with "Top Artist" files that only let you group discs by a particular artist? Listening to music by genre (eg: hard rock, party, dinner music, holidays) is the best feature on the old CX400. Who sits down and listens extensively to one artist? And if you like the Top Artist feature, you could have done this anyway on the Group File system, by assigning discs by the same artist to one Group. The answer is, Sony most likely could not get the Group Files to work properly on this unit, because the unit is a mess.

First of all, when you locate discs by artist (which is how I find most of my CDs), each time you press the "Artist File" button it goes back to the beginning. The old unit stayed with the last Artist played. Therefore, if you want to take out six Van Halen CDs, you need to start at "Allman Brothers" and scroll through the whole alphabet EVERY TIME.

All this could be bearable, but, as other reviewers have mentioned, the player at random decides to scramble your Artist File. Suddenly, without warning,many of the CDs become linked up to the wrong artist, or no artist at all. A great thing to happen after you spend hours programming the information!! I purchased one CX455 that did this twice, then returned it. The second unit was fine for about six months, then did the same thing. It was under warranty, so I called Sony and was told on the first call that the CX455 is "eligible for replacement."

Unfortunately, the CX455 cannot be replaced, because Sony has ceased to manufacture new units!! I foolishly gave authorization for the unit to be repaired. It has been repaired TWICE over the last three months and still does the same thing!! Obviously Sony knows what the problem is, but they are powerless to fix it. Therefore they have discontinued production of the unit. I have demanded that Sony either refund my purchase price or exchange it for a different unit (the CX355 does not seem to have this problem).

Every company has occasional glitches, but this is an embarrassment. Sony obviously had problems in the development of this unit, which led to them ditching the Group Files. This unit should never have been released; they should have kept the CX400 until they got it right. A RECALL is the only just way to deal with this complete dog of a product.

Ignore whatever criticisms you may encounter regarding the extremely rare "lemons" that inevitably exist with ANY mechanical/electronic product line from ANY manufacturer. [And notice that many other owners of this changer are as fully pleased with their units as I am with mine.] I've owned Sony 400-CD changers since January 2001, and none of my CDs have become unplayable, plus I've not experienced ANY operational or playback problems whatsoever with any of those changers--all of which amounts to a rather remarkable track record of consistent reliability. I currently own six such changers, including four of these great-sounding, dependable CX-455 models, which I've owned for nearly one year. I couldn't be happier! I regularly spend up to several hours per day playing these changers.

If, like me, you've got a CD collection that's truly huge, then you most likely aren't keen about the notion of ripping (converting) all those discs into (sonically inferior) MP3 files on your computer's hard drive (where your music files could be subject to eventual "crashes" and ultimate destruction). Such a conversion project could conceivably take many months or even years, depending on the size of your CD collection.

But why bother doing that? Just insert your CDs in one or more Sony CDP-CX455 changers, and enjoy full, linear, 16-bit sound quality.

Even if you don't (yet) have enough CDs to fill all the changer slots, I strongly recommend you buy (at least) TWO of these changers so as to instantly "link" them (via a very cheap cable per the user manual) and thereby enjoy their "no-delay playback" feature. (Why bother waiting up to 25 or 30 seconds between tracks when operating your changers in their "all-discs" and "shuffle" modes?)

Better still, consider connecting your Sony changers to your COMPUTER and thereby "supercharge" your musical entertainment! [Just use some special software ("TitleTrack" is the best choice, in my experience) together with a "SAVR2" or "SAVR3" adapter plus (if necessary) a modestly priced "USB to serial" adapter for connection to one of your computer's USB ports. By the way, if you own more than two Sony changers, you may additionally use a basic "mixer" so as to hear sound from any/all of your changers without having to continually fiddle with your amp/receiver's audio-input selector. I bought my mixer from Radio Shack, and I'm very pleased with it.]

Now that I'm able to emulate a colorful, infinitely adaptable/programmable, on-screen "jukebox" (via my computer), I can honestly say that I would never want to return to playing my Sony changers in the relatively limited, "old-fashioned" way (i.e., minus computer control with unlimited, savable, randomizable "playlists" of my favorite songs from multiple changers, etc.). In fact, I no longer have to resort to touching the changers' own "jog dials" to find and play any of my "zillions" of CDs. Moreover, the computer software can interface with a (free) on-line database that makes it unnecessary for you yourself (via attaching a keyboard to each changer) to enter (hardly) any of your CDs' "titles" and "artist names" into the Sony changers' respective memories.

Nevertheless, even "all by themselves", these Sony 400-CD changers are obviously impressively and conveniently powerful. If you have more than a few audio CDs, you absolutely owe it to yourself to own one (or, better yet, two) of these delightful, reliable CDP-CX455 changers!

P.S.: Don't confuse this Sony "400-CD" (audio only) changer with Sony's more recently introduced "400-DVD/CD combo" (video/audio) units. While the latter are undeniably "adequate" for playing (specifically) DVD VIDEOS, they are disappointingly limited as AUDIO (CD) players. This is because such "combo" units lack any truly easy-to-use playback-mode or music-programming features (not to mention no "artist mode" playback capability, no "linking to a second changer" expandability, and no disc names or artist names displayable within a single, teeny LED window). Evidently, Sony designed their so-called "combo" units primarily for playing VIDEOS, not music. MOREOVER, after one year, my 400-DVD "combo" unit (like many others that I've read about) lost all the on-screen data that I'd entered via a keyboard. It continues to PLAY DVDs okay; it just won't reliably display/retain user-input data on the attached TV's screen. Fortunately, NO such "data-loss" trouble has ever plagued any of my four CX-455 (CD, not DVD) models.

Sony had a good thing going with their CX400 MegaChanger. Unfortunately they tinkered with it and the end result is a nightmare. Gone are the eight music category buttons you could use to quickly categorize each music CD. Gone is the speed of the earlier units: this unit takes almost 30 seconds to change from one CD to another and about that long to initialize after it is powered-up. Gone is the ability to change from continuous to shuffle or one disc play to all disc play modes while the CD unit is playing; you must now first stop the unit before changing modes. Worst of all, this unit scrambles the link between artist names and their associated CD's. Sony is aware of this problem but cannot fix it and "officially" denies it exists. We should know: we've been thru four of these units trying to find one that works as advertised. None of them do.

Yes, this unit will play MP3 encoded CD's. Big deal. MP3's on a CD player are pretty-much worthless since you've no way to control the music selection within a given disc (no artist or album select options within the disc). Also, you cannot view the track title for the disc on this CD player until the track cues-up.

Save your money. Reject the Sony CX455.