Sony SDP-CA8ES CD-changer
A five-disc carousel, the Sony CDP-CA8ES had perhaps the most conservative styling in the group, with a black, brushed-aluminum front panel, small buttons, and a bright blue fluorescent display. Overall, its appearance suggests solidity and reliability. When the carousel drawer is opened, it extends a scant 6 inches, allowing full access to one disc well (with a little difficulty, two other discs can be sneaked into adjacent wells). A disc-skip button rotates the platter clockwise one well at a time so that additional discs can be loaded. It is possible that this drawer design is sturdier than others, but a price is certainly paid for it in terms of convenience. If only one disc is loaded, opening the drawer automatically spins the platter so that the disc is in position to be unloaded. If several discs are loaded, playback begins automatically with the disc that is in the front position. Pressing the Exchange button enables you to load or unload other discs while the current one continues to play; otherwise, playback halts whenever the drawer is opened.
In addition to standard transport controls, the CDP-CA8ES provides track and disc repeat, track and disc random playback, a headphone jack and level control, and sequence programming for as many as thirty-two tracks. You can insert a pause in a programmed sequence (counting as one of the thirty-two programmed items) to give you time to turn over a tape when recording. The player does not provide any automatic fit-to-tape-length program. Tracks can be faded in or out when using the analog outputs, with the fade duration adjustable from 2 to 10 seconds (default is 5 seconds).
Sony's Custom File system lets you store four different kinds of disc information that will be recalled automatically whenever the disc is played again (the information is lost if the player isn't used for a month, however). Music Clip groups tracks into as many as four groups of sequences that can be individually selected when a disc is played. Disc Memo stores labels up to ten characters long. The Delete Bank keeps tabs on which tracks you don't want to hear, so that the changer will automatically skip them on playback. And the Level File stores a specific playback level (at the changer's variable-level line outputs) for each Custom Filed CD and automatically sets it when playing the disc back. Custom File can hold information for as many as 172 discs.
Around back, the CDP-CA8ES provides both fixed and variable line-level analog outputs, an optical digital output, and a control-bus socket for interaction with other Sony components. The supplied remote has forty-five buttons that duplicate the front-panel controls and add an expanded keypad. In addition, the remote has features such as intro-scan and buttons to check and clear track-sequence programming.
The CDP-CA8ES was quite impressive on the test bench, achieving the flattest frequency response, the best channel separation at 1 kHz, the lowest distortion at 0 dB. The laser pickup was so well isolated that only very heavy-handed whacks against the chassis succeeded in making it skip. Other measurements were also very good, and listening tests turned up nothing to contradict their suggestion of topnotch sound quality.
