YOWZA! BUY ONE (OR TWO) OF THESE TODAY!!!!!!

It had gotten to the point where I rarely (if ever) even bothered playing my CD's any
more. Don't get me wrong, I love music, I love it a lot, but when hanging around the
house it was decidedly easier just to switch on one of the music channels on my Dish
Network system, kick back and listen to their selection of tunes through my surround
sound system than it was to get up and down to load and unload my CD's one at a time
from their jewel cases and into my five-CD changer. I got tired of getting up and down,
tired of taking them in and out of their jewel cases and tired of un-shelving and
re-shelving same. I was tired of having piles of loose CD's stacked all over the place
gathering dust while waiting to be put away, tired of the rows and rows of jewel cases
taking up valuable wall space and, well, basically just tired of the whole thing. I'd priced
home CD jukeboxes when they first came out a number of years ago and decided then to
wait until the prices came down and the storage capability went up. Seems my waiting
has paid off. In spades! After some Internet research (and in SPITE of some rather
negative reviews I found there) I decided to take a shot and make my move on the Sony
300 disc changer. Once at the store (Best Buy by the way) I decided that for the extra $49
they were charging, I'd go with the $249 Sony CDP-CX455 400 disc CD Changer/Player
instead. I've got to tell you, I simply could not be happier!

I have 250 plus CD's, some of them dating back to when CD's first came out. All of them,
even the old, old, old ones that spent years sliding around on the floor, getting dropped
behind the couch or piled one atop the other for weeks at a time, play flawlessly. ALL of
them. Initially organizing things and then loading up the unit took more than a few hours
to do but when the rubber met the road, in the grand scheme of things, it was more than
worth it. I'll never have to touch my CD's again! Like, not EVER! Prior to loading, I
alphabetized my entire collection and numbered them accordingly, leaving sufficient
numbering room between letters to accommodate future expansion of my collection.
Corresponding gaps were left in the units CD slots so when I buy new ones I can just slip
them right in without moving any others or missing a beat. I gave each CD a good
cleaning (BOTH sides) prior to loading them in, which no doubt accounted for a good
portion of the time spent during the loading process, but highly recommended
nonetheless. Think of it this way. Do it this one last time and you'll never have to clean
them again. Not EVER!

Once the unit was loaded, I was up and running, enjoying music, MY music once again,
in minutes. If you've read the other reviews, you've heard people complaining that they
couldn't monitor the unit through their TV, that they couldn't go online and download
lists of songs and titles and that it was hard to enter titles and song names and hard to
program playlists and the caps lock stayed on and Mommy, Billy won't stop looking at
me make him stop it and blah, blah, blah-bitty, blah, blah. Hey people, this unit also
won't wash your clothes, walk your dog, cook your dinner or send a man or woman to the
moon but hey, that's not the freakin' point here, is it?! Read the box! Read the instruction
book! They never SAID you could monitor it through your TV or download album and
song titles into it from the Internet or from Sputnik XXVII or from atomic radio beams
shooting through the ethos from Planet Exlaxx in the Myylar Constellation. It is what it
is, it is a CD jukebox for the home, reasonably priced, and it does what it does, it stores
and plays your CD collection. Flawlessly! You wanna program yours to play only every
other Wayne Newton or Liberace song in your collection the title of which begins with
the letter "Q"? That's your business, (you sorry little trooper, you) I mean go ahead and
knock yourself out, but c’mon, lighten up! Sheesh! Don’t go getting cheap on us, here.
You've spent less than three hundred dollars, less than THREE HUNDRED MEASLY
DOLLARS for a unit that stores 400 CD's for totally hands-free play, a unit which stores
and plays them flawlessly and you're whining and moaning because it won't program this
or that or wax your car or pay your bills online without ever having to pay postage ever
again. Am I gonna program mine? Nope. No need. I'll either hit random play on one (or
all) disc(s) and I'll pop me a cold one, kick back and enjoy. If I want to find one
particular album title to play, am I gonna type in all the titles with a keyboard? Nope. Not
a chance. Instead, I bought two 200 plus storage capability CD wallets, (each one way
smaller and way lighter than say, a phone book when full) I took all of the liner notes and
song lists out of the jewel cases and numbered them up and loaded them into the wallet
pages in alphabetical order with gaps between the letters just like I did with the CD's
themselves. As I buy new ones, I'll just slip them into the blanks, no harm, no foul. Then
if I want to play, say, "Liberace Live at Senior City" (I won't, but let's say that I will) I'll
open up the book, quickly flip to the "L's", note the corresponding number, punch it in on
the remote and then listen to my songs without ever leaving my chair or putting down my
beer. THAT'S the point here. No more jewel cases. No more slipping and sliding on a
CD-covered floor, no more getting up and down (and up and down and up and down) and
no more cleaning or re-shelving my CD collection. I've already given the CD racks away.
I've already trash-canned the jewel cases. Free at last, free at last, my CD collection is
free at last! Thank you, Sony. From the bottom of my song-filled heart, thank you.

Is there a down side? Sure maybe, one, if that, but it's one I can live with and one that you
can live with too. This is a large unit. It's tall and it’s wide and most of all it's deep.
Big-time deep. Did it fit in my Audio/Video rack? Yep. It was a close call but it made it
in and the glass door still closes without me getting out the Sawzall. If it didn't fit, would
I still have bought it anyway? You bet I would have. Con mucho gusto I would have. I
would have bought it and then I would have either modified the old rack to make it fit or
I just would have bought an entirely new rack that it would fit in and I would have smiled
as I spent the money on the thing. Do yourself a favor, Boys and Girls. A BIG favor.
Disregard the whiners. Disregard the naysayers. Buy yourself one (or two) of these things
TODAY. I assure you, you will not be disappointed!