Help me find a decent CD changer / DVD player

I'm wanting to get a new DVD/CD player and trying to find something that does everything I want, but don't want to spend too much money. I'd like a changer because the wife misses the old CD changer we had way back when so she could load up five discs on random for background music. We replaced that with a player that was a CD/DVD changer, but the random only randomized one disc at a time, making it pretty worthless. Anyway, I'd also like it to be able to play MP3s and if possible SACD. I'm looking for something under $300, cheaper is better.

Really, at home I mostly listen to vinyl, so DVD performance is probably more important than CD. If it could read those often trashed rental discs without jamming up more often than not, I'd be pleased.

Another priority is speed of operation. I notice some of the players that play multi-formats are pretty slow at figuring out what to do. If the CD changer and random functions take forever between songs, they kinda lose their appeal.

So...basically looking for something that works quickly as a decent CD changer...plays MP3s...and is a solid DVD player. SACD would be a nice bonus as I've never listened to them before and would be curious, but I could go either way on it since I have no SACD discs. If it matters, I'm 2 channel, so any fancy multi-channel extras wouldn't be important.

Any suggestions?

Check out the Denon DVM-1835, which is a 5-disk progressive-scan DVD changer.

This model doesn't offer SACD, DVD-Audio, or HDMI Upconversion, but can be found for a very reasonable $240-$260, and meets all the rest of your requirements :)

Give the Yamaha DVD C750 Universal Changer a look. I recently wired one up for a
in-law, and it kicks you know what. I'm getting one asap. It plays all audio formats
and of course dvd. The back panel has s-video, componet video, coaxe/toslink,
everything you need for a/v playback. And a good simple remote as a bonus. Good
luck in your search.

Pioneer VSX1015TX
Rotel RB 1080
Definitive Technology ProSub 200TL
JBL 4344 Studio Monitors(Front)
JBL L 19 (Surrounds)
JBL Cinema Vison CVCEN50 Center
JBL Northridge Satellites(Back Channel)
Pioneer Elite DV45A DVDA/SACD
Panasonic DVD F86K
Sony RCD W500C CD PLAYER/REC
Pioneer GR-777 Graphic Equalizer
AR Interconnects
Cobalt 14G Wire
Sanus Stands
XBOX 360

Thanks for the suggestions.

I see a lot of good press about the Yamaha, except that there are a lot of complaints about load times, which can annoy me. And, sounds like the shuffle may be slow and touchy, which would annoy my wife.

Any idea how well the shuffle works on the Denon?

If I'm not going to be able to find anything with a really good shuffle play mechanism, I'd be just as well off with a single disc player...just looking at changers so I could surprise the wife with the return of being able to shuffle discs, which she misses. But, if the feature is slow or buggy, she'd just complain about it more than use it anyway.

...you might want to check out the Sony DVP-NC650V. It seems to be one of the few that meets your criteria and didn't get panned in the reviews...

Cheers and good luck

It doesn't recognize the DVD-A side of the recent Talking Heads DualDiscs, and who knows if it has problems with any other DualDiscs... Plus, it doesn't have an HDCD decoder, which means that is has dropouts on the first second of every track on an HDCD-encoded disc. The machine needs an firmware upgrade badly, but Yamaha couldn't care less about developing one.