A Review of the JVC CH-X200RF: Going to Florida with No Commercials

Just about every year in February, we make the long trek to Florida from New York by car. The trip takes about 22 hours, and after a while, it's a pain to find decent music on the radio in between all of the commercials. 

I finally gave in and let my husband purchase this JVC 12 disc CD Changer for our Ford Windstar. It was listen on sale in the flyer we get with our newspapers on Sunday. We had it installed by the dealer - Circuit City. That ended up being a good decision because additional wiring was needed for us to have it in the console and out of sight. 

The unit is small enough that we can still fit other items in the console if we wanted to, but it would block access to the slide-out compartment that holds the CDs. Still, with the ability to hold up to 12, how often will you need to change them? 

The unit is easy to operate. Simply load as many CDs as you want in the holder and place it back in the changer. Your car stereo needs to be tuned to 88.7 to listen to the CDs. The sound comes through your regular car stereo, so the sound is as good - or bad - as what you already have. In our case, the sound is *excellent*. I appreciate being able to hear crisp, clear sounds with none of the background noise I find typically present on cassettes. 

We had the remote control for the unit mounted above the radio near the dash. With the remote, you can easily move between songs and discs, and also queue up a random play function. It is less distracting than if a driver was trying to operate the unit in the console itself. 

Another great feature is that if you want to store your CDs in the holder, you can purchase additional holders and have them ready to load into the player at any time instead of shuffling CDs. 

It will be so nice driving to Florida this year and not having to listen to a single commercial - unless I need to hear a traffic report! 


  

Pioneer PD-F1007 Disc Changer: What Happened To Your CD Collection???

That was the question someone asked me soon after I purchased this CD Jukebox. You see, I had CD holders stacked in my living room, holding more than 300 CDs in their cases. When my friend entered the house, that spot was cleared. I had chosen 280 "worthy" of a place in this Jukebox, and stored the remainder and the empty jewel cases in a closet. 

We have been purchasing all Pioneer components one by one to replace our almost 20 year old stereo system, and this is the crown jewel in our stereo system as far as I'm concerned. I can press Random Play and not have to touch the system again all day. 

The audio quality is as good as you get for these large-volume changers. As far as I'm concerned, it's fine for me since I grew up on records but some people who are more finicky about their sound might find fault with it. 

It has a single load player for the CDs I chose not to put in. Anytime I want to listen to one of them, I load them in the single loader easily by pressing access andplay. The tracks on this single CD can be heard in random order as well. 

It has a CD Text function which is a nice feature. The title of the CD, Artist, and the song titles are displayed automatically by reading it off of the CD. However, there are not many CDs out there using this technology yet. The only CD in my collection with it was Bruce Springsteen's Tracks. 

Entering all of the titles is difficult since you have to either use the dial on the front or the remote. I have entered the titles twice and lost them completely, so now it is blank. An interface to the computer would be great. Right now I keep a list of the titles on my computer and print it out so I know which CD is in which slot. Whenever I change anything in the player, I have to print out a new list. This is the only drawback to the system.