Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony CDPCX355 300-Disc MegaStorage CD Changer

Having owned 150 and 200 disc changers over the past few years, I figured the engineering problems must have been worked out by now... why else would Sony keep making them? Unfortunately, I guess that the service centers don't ever communicate to engineering.

Here's my experience with this unit... Day 1 - I dutifully loaded ~230 Cds into the carousel, careful to match the slots with my reference book I use to find my titles fast. Day 3 - The unit dropped the first CD somewhere in the back of the unit, whirr - click - chomp - carousel will not move (been here, done that), unscrew the screws, unjam the Retail purchased CD, check for damage and reload it into the unit, put all the screws back in. Deja Vu. This looks like the beginning of a terrible relationship. Day 7 - Occasional skips, sometimes the song will start to play and then just quit altogether, moving on to a different disc entirely.I respectfully utilize the CD Lens Cleaner CD although I secretly doubt that it has any real effect whatsoever. Day 10 - Same problems as Day 7 except more frequent... This is not a good sign at all. Day 12 - Troubleshooting begins, I move a disk from one slot to another to see if maybe the slot has something effect on the behavior, funny enough, the same cd will play fine if requested from a different slot!? Confusion ensues. Day 13 - Some discs just refuse to play. I tried the Power Off, rest and Power Up routine. I have made sure the player is fully leveled. A decision is made... I'll be calling for an RMA in the morning. I am sure glad that I tested the unit enough in the first 30 days, to really get to know how it will operate over time. I could have lived with the single dropped CD, but coupled with disc access problems, this will not do. Not even at this price.

The last unit I bought from a local nationwide retailer was taken in for service 3 times and returned each time with a note saying they could fine nothing wrong with it... My old 200 CD Sony unit still sits around virtually unused, I'm ashamed to sell it even though it could pass for new. I only hope I get better customer service from our trustworthy on-line merchants.

I've had this unit for about a year now without any problems. It was originally on a shelf with my 40lb amplifier sitting on top of it. Once I removed the 40lb amplifier away, the CDs start skipping. So I put in this tweak which I learned from an audio forum. Put 4 round glass marbles under the cd player using a small bottle cap or something to under the marbles to keep it from rolling away. This stopped the skipping.

Conlusion: The skipping is due to the vibration of the unit when the CD player is spinning and the problem is amplified by unit being so lightweight. By either adding more mass to the unit like putting something heavy on top of it or isolation using the marble trick or buy one of those audiophiles component spikes or damping feet.

Update: 9/24/2009.
After 5 years, this CD player still works beautifully. I'm not a fan of Sony products but this player has been with me for a long time and will still be my primary CD player. I do not notice scratches on CDs like others have mentioned. If you have skipping problems please try the suggestion I mentioned above. If you have CD loading problems, make sure the CD player is leveled as this is a vertical loader not the horizontal tray type typical found in smaller players.

At first we were delighted with this Sony CD player, but it was not long before we determined that it was destroying our CD collection. Fortunately, we read a review on Amazon from another customer that lost many of his CD's to the same Sony unit. Over 20 of our CD's were damaged before we pinpointed the problem to the changer and replaced it with a Pioneer 200 disc changer (which we've had only two weeks but so far it appears OK). I am disappointed that Sony continues to market this defective equipment and as a result, we generally try to shop for other brands. If you value your CD collection, a Sony CD changer is likely to disappoint you.

I bought this CD player about a year ago.

What a mistake!

The trouble started when the CD player started putting CD's back into the wrong slots. It would place a CD into the slot next to where it had taken it from - even if that slot already contained a CD. As a result a CD jutted up from it's slot and was broken as the carousel turned.

After this the player would not play at all.

I had owned the player for about 2 months at this point, and was required to take it in for warranty repair. A month later I received my 'fixed' unit back.

Not trusting it I began putting CD's only in every other slot. Effectively turning my 300 disc player into an overpriced 150 disc player.

It was fine for a while. Then it started dropping CD's into the body of the machine.

It is no longer useable as I do not trust this machine to not destroy my valuable CD's.

As this is not my first problem with a Sony product, I will be avoiding the brand from now on.

Do not buy this machine.

Generally,it's a good multiple player will tons of features.
The sound is good,etc.

BUT, on two occasions it has malfunctioned - it does not replace the cd back in the tray correctly and you have cds
bumping and banging against each other. Very stressful indeed! I cannot trust it anymore. I'm sending it off for service after 8 months of use.