Sony CDP-CE500 5-Disc CD Changer (Black)

I purchased this about a month ago so I can't vouch for its longevity, and I have yet to copy a cd to a memory stick so I can't vouch for that feature either, but in every other way this cd changer has been a revelation. I bought this to replace a fairly high end Teac deck that was about 20 years old and had finally died. It took no more than 2 minutes from the time I took this out of the box before I was playing my first cd. There is practically no setup involved; just connect the RCA plugs and plug it into a wall outlet.To my amazement, this device was able to plumb sound details that my much more expensive Teac couldn't. This Sony player works quickly, efficiently, fairly quietly for a changer, and produces superb sound. At the price I paid at Amazon it seems like an incredible bargain. Some reviewers have stated that this machine did not hold up well over time. If that should prove to be the case, I'll update this review. But for now, I couldn't be more pleased.

I really like the Sony CDP-CE500 Compact Disc Player.Positives:1. It does a great job of playing discs that are slightly scratched, burned on my computer (with some tracks ripped from my CDs and other tracks digitized from my vinyl records using ION USB turntable and Audacity S/W). It does this much better than my previous disc player.2. I like the displaya. It is very clear and readable from wide angles.b. When playing CDs, you can choose between displaying the time into the track, the lime left on the track, or, my favorite, time remaining on the CD.c. When playing from an USB Flash Drive, it displays the song title (or whatever else you use as the file name).3. The USB port is a real bonus. A 32 GB USB Flash Drive will hold over 1,250 songs with over 3,600 minutes (that's over 60 hours of music) of your favorite songs. I created mine on an HP Windows 8.1 computer; it works easily. I said that it is a nice bonus, but I find myself listening to shuffled music from the USB Flash Drive rather than putting in CDs. It certainly cuts down on wear and tear on the disc changer4. The music quality is very good. It has a good digital to analog converter. The Sony CDP-CE500 Compact Disc Player also has digital out included, but I have not used it.Negatives:1. The Sony CDP-CE500 Compact Disc Player is rather noisy when changing from disc to disc. If I did shuffle play between multiple CDs (which I generally don't), this could be annoying.2. I wore out the disc changer on a Sony 5 CD player that I bought many years ago. I worry that the disc changer on the Sony CDP-CE500 Compact Disc Player will eventually wear out. Note that I had another brand CD player in between and I am happy that I decided to buy another Sony CD player. It does a better job of playing my CDs.

I chose this carousel player to replace another Sony carousel CD player which I had owned for years, which performed very well, and which eventually suffered from a display malfunction. The competitive price of this Sony CDP-CE500 player, the player's ability to play MP3's from a flash drive, plus otherwise good experiences with Sony prompted my purchase of this item.Although others have reported occasional problems with playing CD's, my unit thus far has performed that task well, albeit regrettably noisily when it changes from one disk to another. One hopes this is not the forerunner of some mechanical problem for the future, but time will tell.As some others have reported, playing MP3s (the only type I have tried so far) from a USB flash drive sometimes seems to be a challenge for this player. It will occasionally stop playing a song midstream and exhibit the phrase "data error" on the display, catch its breath, and then move onto another song. In one instance it will play a given song throughout without error, but on another occasion, the same song gives the player this hiccup. The frequency of this "data error" problem seems unpredictable from one session to another of playing through tunes on the USB drive. I have tried the remedies Sony lists on p. 22 of the manual that comes with this player, including using MP3s (mostly purchased and downloaded from Amazon.com) increased to the highest bitrate my audio editing software will produce (294kbps). That doesn't seem to solve the problem, although raising the bitrate did seem to lessen the frequency of the data error problem, which still pops up at unexpected and frustrating times. So far, I have used two different flash drives from Kingston (DataTraveler) and one Viking. The Kingston drives seem to perform marginally better, but still there are hiccups. The same MP3's, on the same USB drives, play flawlessly on other USB MP3 players I have (on my computer, in a freestanding unit, and in my car).