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It works similarly, i.e., as soon as you select an artist different from the one that you are currently playing, the disc that you are playing stops. From the player, you press the "Artist Mode" button. Beyond that, you wonder why there isn't a similar capability to select an artist name instead of a disc title, and then peruse titles by that artist without stopping the play of the current disc until you press the play button.There are other nit-picks. But if you want to fast-forward or fast-reverse within the present track, you have to pick up the remote control. Either way, you use the keypad to enter a letter of the alphabet, which is done in a manner typical of entering text from a numerical keypad, and then you use either a pair of keys or the jog dial to scroll. You can also push that knob in, and the fact that the text "PUSH ENTER" is printed below it, causes you to wonder what effect that has. Press the Menu button, and then use the "Easy scroll" key to select "Name search" from the menu. It is an enigma.
A much better technique is to press the "Name Search" button on the player directly. I have owned and used the CDP-CX450 for a few years now. If you engage group mode by pressing one of the group buttons (or by selecting a group via the remote), discs not in that group will be skipped, and on the TV display, the discs not in that group will be "grayed out". You can scroll ten discs at a time on the TV display by using the right/left buttons on the navigation pad that is under the remote control's flip cover. You can use it to facilitate finding and selecting discs by a specific artist, but as soon as you select an artist different from the one currently playing, the disc currently playing stops, and the player commences playing the first disc by the other artist that you select. Additionally, you can press the "Name Scan" button on the remote, which will cause the titles of all the discs (or the discs in the group if group mode is engaged) to automatically scroll through the display on the player, in the sequential order in which the discs are physically placed in the player. After a while that becomes annoying and you wonder why you cannot select the artist name by first selecting a letter of the alphabet in like fashion as when you use the "Name search" capability of the remote, which is also driven from the menu and uses the file cache that you have downloaded into the remote control.
Additionally, whereas "Name Scan" on the remote scrolls the titles at a fixed rate, when you use "Name Search" on the player, you control it with the jog dial. You may wonder if it is possible to get around that by using Program Play, but the answer is no, because you cannot use either Artist Mode or Group Mode in conjunction with Program Play.You can also engage Artist Mode from the remote, via the menu and using the Easy Scroll button. The capability that comes closest is the Artist Mode. It has a much simpler remote control, which has a button labeled "Search". But you can't control the rate at which you scroll through the alphabetical list of artist titles the same as you can with the jog dial. This technique works reasonably well as long as you know the know the title of the disc that you want to play, but isn't useful if you want to peruse the titles by a specific artist.If you know the title of the disc that you want to play, the remote control provides a more direct way to find that disc.
For comparison purposes, I downloaded the user manual for the Pioneer Elite player. The title and group that you have assigned to the disc are displayed on the player. The player itself has a second large knob below the jog dial, a little smaller than the jog dial, which you can use to step through tracks. You then use the "Easy scroll" key to scroll through the letters of the alphabet plus the ten digits, and you select one of them by pressing in on that key, and then similarly scroll through the disc titles that have that letter or digit as the first character of the title. This is similar to using "Name Scan" on the remote, except instead of the titles scrolling in the sequential order that the discs are physically placed, they scroll in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, those instructions do not reveal whether, in the case of artist searching, you select an artist and then scroll through the titles by that artist. The Artist Mode capability is intended to give you a way to play multiple discs by the same artist, with tracks shuffled if you like. The TV displays the title and the artist name for ten discs at a time, always in the sequential order in which the discs are physically placed in the player, i.e., you cannot re-order the listing according to disc name or artist name.
If you press it once, you search by disc title, or if you press it twice in quick succession, you search by artist. This capability is useful, but is hindered by the fact that it is tied in to the Artist Mode. If I had known then what I know now, I would probably have bought the other one, and if I needed more capacity, I would have bought two of them and linked them together.You use the jog dial to peruse and select discs. The user manual doesn't mention it, and I was unable to discover any effect through experimentation.If you are getting the sense that this player has a lot of perusal capabilities that overlap in functionality and that don't fit together into a coherent, logical user interface, and that don't quite manage to give you a good way to peruse titles by a specific artist, then you have the right picture. This is aggravating when you want to peruse titles by a few other artists before making your selection. That engages Artist Mode, which changes the behavior of the perusal techniques that use the player's display (including the "Name Scan" button on the remote), so that titles not by that artist are skipped.
I recommend it with reservations, because I feel that there are substantial flaws with usability. You use the jog dial to scroll through the list of artist names, and when you find the one you want, you press in on the jog dial. I chose it over the competing product from Pioneer Elite because the Sony holds 400 discs whereas the Pioneer Elite only holds 301. This is also a good technique, but still assumes that you know the title of the disc.For me, the natural way to find the disc that I want to play is to begin by selecting the artist name, and then peruse the titles by that artist. You can divvy up your discs into as many as eight groups, but because you'll do this according to type of music, you'll still have many discs in your favorite groups, and these perusal methods just aren't useful for finding the disc that you want to play.The remote control gives similar perusal capabilities to those that I have just described, using the "Easy scroll" key of the remote together with the LCD display on the remote. You can stop that at any point and play that disc, but this is still a slow way to find the disc that you want to play.
But in the unlikely event that you have to scroll through all titles by all artists sharing the same letter for first name, doing that from the jog dial would not be bad, and at least it won't interrupt the play of the disc that is currently playing, until you press the play button.
i dont really feel the need to reiterate what several people have already said. would it be preferable if you didnt have to type in all of the disk information whenever you change anything. whether or not you'll like this product, simply put, is going to hinge on how it is used. yesare these units more valuable and useful when used in concert with another. this might not be the unit for you if:-you want to change or rearrange the cds in it every few weeks-you have limited space in your stereo cabinet-you hate having to wait more than a few seconds when listeing on shuffle (the mega-storage features might make getting 2 200-250 disk changers better for some folks than getting 1 400 disk changer)i havent run into problems with any of these things. i generally leave the same 550-600 disks in mine for 6 months to a year, and listen to them on shuffle, taking advantage of the mega-storage features. i do not yet own the cdp-cx450, 400 or 455.
and there have been a lot of positive comments made. nor have i ever had occasion to use one. but i am a long-time owner of 2 cdp-cx300s (i will be upgrading to the 400 disk versions soon), and felt compelled to review sony's line of 'mega-storage' units as a whole.there have been some very valid complaints about some of the features (or lack thereof) that come with these units. absolutelymight it be better if you could fast-forward or rewind through a song (>> or | or |
Otherwise a great unit. Also, wish it let you input longer file names, and had space for track listings. You can only put in 99 artist names - on a 400 disk changer, this is a BIG limitation. Don't know whether daisy-changing another unit gives you 99 more names or not (hope so). But don't toss those jewel boxes, otherwise you'll have a hard time knowing what's playing sometimes.
:) The remote is great once everything is programed into the main unit and that's the only real problem. The keyboard is limited to text input only. This baby comes with a keyboard interface and that certainly makes data entry easier than loading 400 cd titles in using the jog wheel. A small gripe, but I think Sony could have come up with a way to use the keyboard for all the functions, not just text entry. Unfortunately, the keyboard does not entirely replace the front panel controls. In order to enter artist information, group information and change modes, the front panel is still needed. I love this changer.
I'm looking forward to testing that out. It holds 400 CDs and can be linked to all of Sony's CDX line to gang multiple changers. A great selection of group and artist features.In shuffle mode, the change over between tracks seems to take a bit longer than seems right, but if you gang two units Sony claims the crossover can be cut to zero. I hope that by the time I need a second unit they will have addressed this nit-picky item and I'll have to call this unit perfect.
Initial set-up is easy--getting all of your disc information input is difficult is hard, but worth it. The 400 and 450 are identical except that the 450 comes with a remote control that features an LCD screen on which you can see all of the information about the discs in your player.
I agree with the other reviewer that wishes for a track listing feature--but who would spend the days required to type that all in anyway. Incidentally, on discs encoded with CDText (mostly recent titles from the Sony music label), the title and track text listings are read automatically.My strong recommendation is to go for this more expensive model CDPCX450--as opposed to the CDPCX400.
This is a great piece of equipment--rid yourself of those annoying jewel cases forever. The 400 comes with a plain vanilla remote control--the added user-friendliness of the 450's remote control is definitely worth the extra money.
The ability to organize discs by title and artist is excellent. The ability to connect multiple players in series means that you'll always have space for more CDs.
In my opinion, the only reason to buy the 400 is if you connect it in series with the 450, or if it is used purely for background music--where the user is not worried specifically about what is playing, rather is interested in playing a wide variety of discs at random.
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