Sony CDP-CX100 CD-changer
In recent years, sales of CD changers have mushroomed to the point where they now easily outstrip those of single-play models. Some changers use removable magazines, or cartridges, that hold five or six or even ten discs, and a handful can hold more than one magazine, giving them a total playing capacity of twelve to eighteen discs. A second, more popular variety of CD changer uses a rotating carousel that holds three to six discs. There are also a couple of CD changers that hold as many as a hundred discs or so in removable magazines. Priced well above the usual range (several thousand dollars), these machines are most likely to be found in commercial installations, where they can supply uninterrupted music for extended periods of time.
Now, however, Sony has introduced a new type of large-capacity CD changer at a much more affordable price. The CDP-CX100 is a big, unconventionally shaped unit whose vertically projecting rear portion holds the CD playing mechanism. In front is a carousel into which as many as one hundred discs can be loaded vertically. Access to the nonremovable carousel, which resembles an overgrown Kodak slide carousel, is through a hinged window on top of the changer. When a disc is selected for playback, the carousel rotates it to the rear, where it is unloaded into the playing mechanism.
The CDP-CX100's front panel bears a casual resemblance to that of a full- size receiver. Below its display window, which occupies the center of the panel, is a row of ten numbered buttons used to select discs. Along with several smaller buttons, the panel also contains a large round knob labeled Select Disc/Character with a pushbutton (Enter) in its center that serves multiple operating and programming functions.
Other, more familiar panel features include transport-control buttons, a headphone jack with adjacent volume control, a power switch, and a timer switch for unattended operation of the player via an external timer. The CDP-CX100's back panel has fixed- and variable-level analog audio output jacks, an optical digital output, and several jacks for interconnection with system remote controls.
The player's extensive programming features are operated by means of a number of front-panel buttons, with data entry via the selector knob and its Enter button. The display window provides information on the status of the system. The CDP-CX100 is an unusually versatile component, quite unlike most other audio products in the way it works. That is reflected in its operating manual, whose thirty-seven tightly packed pages fortunately leave little to the imagination. I say "fortunately" because it is unlikely that anyone could operate this changer in other than its most basic mode without careful study of the manual and hands-on practice.
Consider the basic task of identifying and locating the discs you have loaded into the one hundred slots of the carousel. The Select Disc/Character knob is used to rotate the carousel for loading or unloading a disc from any slot, and the display window might read "DISC 29," for example, to identify the slot currently in playing position. But the number of the slot tells you nothing about the disc in it.
Sony has provided a solution to this problem. The CDP-CX100 is able to store (and display) an ID of up to thirteen characters for each slot. Creating such an ID involves pressing several front-panel buttons, rotating the Select Disc/Character knob and pressing Enter for each character and space, and pressing the File button to store the information. You must repeat the entire process for each ID.
Once you've attached an ID to a slot in this way, it will appear in large characters on the display whenever that slot is rotated into playing position. If you identify all the slots, spinning the carousel will flash the identifier for each one as it passes-surely a very convenient system once you have done the work of entering the data. The memory (which is nonvolatile but can be edited or deleted) applies only to the slots, not to the discs within them. If you change a disc without changing the stored data for its slot, the display will show an incorrect ID.
The CDP-CX100 also has a full complement of programming modes and memories for special playback requirements. It can be set to play any desired sequence of discs and tracks or to omit any specified tracks from a playing sequence. A random-play (shuffle) mode can be applied to the tracks on a disc or to the order of the discs themselves, and each CD can be individually keyed for automatic setting of its playback level to compensate for variations in recording characteristics from disc to disc.
An interesting and unique capability of the CDP-CX100 is its Group File feature, which enables you to group your discs according to ten categories of your choice, such as the type of music (rock, pop, classical, jazz, etc.), the orchestra or conductor, composer, and so forth. Each group can comprise as many as a hundred discs (although a group that large, containing every disc in the carousel, would be sort of pointless), and the groups are nonexclusive, meaning that you can put a particular disc in as many groups as you like-all ten, if you want. You can name the groups and store each one in its own file, then, by pressing its numbered button, call up an entire group for replay, either in the assigned order or shuffled. Calling a group displays its assigned name (up to eleven characters) in the panel window.
Sony provides a remote control with the CDP-CX100 that incorporates all its essential control features in one of the least cluttered handsets we have seen in some time. Its jog dial is the functional equivalent of the Select Disc/Character control on the player's front panel. It also has well-spaced, clearly marked buttons.
Clearly, the CDP-CX100 is one of the most feature-laden CD players available. Our test sample, a preproduction unit, was accompanied by a close-to-final version of its instruction manual, sufficient to enable us to evaluate its features and performance. There was little specific information on its circuitry, but enough technical specifications to make it clear that its performance is intended to match its versatility. The ratings included a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20 kHz +/-0.3 dB, signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) greater than 115 dB, dynamic range greater than 100 dB, and distortion less than 0.002 percent. Even by CD-player standards, those are remarkable figures!
Our measurements generally confirmed both the operating features and the electrical performance of the CDP-CX100. The frequency response, for example, was +/- 0.03 dB from 8 Hz to 8 kHz, falling to -0.18 dB at 20 kHz. Channel separation was truly exceptional, and distortion was utterly negligible-about 0.0015 percent at levels below -10 dB and 0.0025 percent at 0 dB. At 0 dB (the maximum recorded signal level), it was 0.0025 percent from 20 Hz to 6 kHz, falling to 0.0015 percent at 20 kHz. The low-level linearity of the digital-to-analog converters was also excellent, as were noise and dynamic-range figures.
The CDP-CX100's ability to deal with gaps in a disc's information layer was good, though not exceptional. It was able to track through 1,250-micro-meter gaps, but not through 1,500 micrometers. The typical cueing time, between tracks at the beginning and end of a disc, was less than 3 seconds. Disc-change time depended somewhat on the discs' relative positions in the carousel. Between adjacent discs, some 13 seconds elapsed during the change, but a shift from Slot 1 to Slot 50 (or vice versa), which requires the carousel to rotate 180 degrees, plus the transfers of the two discs between their playing and storage positions, required 19 seconds.
The CDP-CX100 is not only large but also relatively heavy for a CD player. That may have something to do with its stability and resistance to impacts. Unlike most CD players, which can easily mistrack if handled roughly, the CDP-CX100 withstood the hardest slaps I dared give its side panels without audible mistracking. It was not quite so immune to top impacts, although I cannot imagine those occurring in any normal use.
All told, the Sony CDP-CX100 is a very impressive product-not particularly handsome as hi-fi components go, but offering an amazing combination of features and performance at what must be considered a bargain price (about half what I'd originally guessed). It does more, perhaps, than some of us would find useful, but everything is available at the touch of a button, with the bonus of true state-of-the-art performance.
