The Pioneer PD-F407 CD Changer/Player Does It's Job and Doesn't Talk Back

When my last single CD player burned out a couple years ago and I went to the store to get a new one I was pretty surprised at some of the options out there. Whereas CD players had been high-ticket items a decade ago, I found that prices had really come down to earth. I'd always wanted a multiple CD changer, but when the first ones came out, usually featuring places for three to five CDs, that feature was kind of an expensive luxury for someone on my budget (a struggling college student at that time). So imagine my surprise when I found I not only found a 25 CD changer/player available for $100, but that it was also by Pioneer, a fairly reliable brand. There were even 100+ CD changers available for around $200, but I know overkill when I see it. So I snapped it up the Pioneer PD-F407 then and there. I'm sure that I could've made an even better decision if I'd done a more research, but I got my money's worth and have only mild complaints.

Pioneer is not the greatest personal electronics company in the world, but they are a solid brand name and make reasonably good stuff. Their high-end products are very good, and their cheap stuff like this is usually at least well put together. We all know there is a lot of garbage out there, and Pioneer is miles ahead of those companies if not quite at the head of the class. Certainly they provide good value, and you can feel safe buying something with the Pioneer name on it.

The PD-F407 seems pretty mechanically sound. It plays CDs and doesn't give me a hard time about it, i.e, plays the CDs I put in it without a lot of infernal skipping. Less of them seem to skip on this deck than on other ones that I have owned. CD player all tend to sound about the same to me when they function properly, so I use this criteria in judging them instead.

The player has decent options. You can program tracks from all 25 discs into a custom mix and you can shuffle them 'randomly'--it's not quite random, because it thankfully won't pick as second track from any given disc again till it's taken one from all the discs that are loaded. 25 discs is a pretty good number for random shuffling. If you find yourself getting sick of any particular artist on that setting because you keep hearing them it is a pretty safe bet that you have been in the house too long and need to get out. It will even remember what tracks are your favorites so you can just listen to those, though I don't use that feature--if they are already the most played songs in the changer, it's a safe bet I don't need to hear them again right now.

The major drawback to me with the PD-F407 is in the changing mechanism. I'm something of a record & CD collector and have gotten through many lean times financially by weeding my collection and reselling items that I've deemed superfluous. This CD changer, however, has the annoying habit of leaving little surface scratches on the discs. They aren't big scratches and they don't effect the way the discs play...but they do tend to freak out record buyers and probably cost $1 or $2 in resale value per disc. This is a major drawback. For discs that I'm not sure are keepers, I tend to listen to them in my CD boombox until I've made my final determination.

Now, of course, DVD players are hot and since they play CDs too, CD players are a dying technology. They are probably giving the things away by now. But at the time I bought this it seemed like a good value at $100 and probably was. The scratching factor, though light, probably makes this unsuitable for people who resell a lot of their CDs, but it's a good deal for everyone else. It's cheap and sturdy, plays CDs even if they are a little screwy and gives you a lot of different replay options.