Full Review

After 6 years of great service, my stock Acura cd changer started having problems, so I decided it was time for a new one. I came onto Epinions to check out which highest rated cd changer would be the replacement. After careful reviewing and price comparisons, I chose the Alpine CHM-S620. Here now, is my review of this product.

The Alpine CHM-S620 is a six disc cd changer. Although there are many cd changers out on the market that can house ten to even twelve cd's at a time, the price of $195--new--on an ebay auction (plus $30 for an adapter cable), made up for it entirely.

The cd changer was installed in my trunk. I had the option of installing it in the glove compartment or underneath the passenger seat, but it would have cost a lot more. After installation, it was time to try it out. To take out the changer, one must just slide the door to the right and push the eject button. Right away I noticed the sliding door was not very secure--actually, it was pretty loose. Since the slightest nudge would slide open the door, this turned out to be a nuisance when loading groceries or other packages into the trunk.

After the eject button is pushed, the cd changer pops right out. The changer is made up of a clear plastic--probably for aesthetic reasons rather than function because you can’t really see the cd label unless you pull it out of the tray. Now comes another annoying feature of the CHM-S620. Perhaps it is annoying for me because for my Acura changer, all I had to do was just insert a cd into its numbered slot and put the changer back into the deck. Now, with the Alpine, there is an extra step that has to be performed. This extra step involves pulling out the individual trays for each individual cd you want to load. Of course, this turns out to be 6 additional steps if you wanted to load 6 new cd’s. And if you really want to be technical, it turns out to be a total of 18 steps that include pulling out the tray, putting in a cd, and pushing the tray back in. What makes this process even harder is that the trays are pretty flimsy. Again, this goes back to the fact that maybe I’m just not used to this type of loading system. Are most trays this delicate? I feel like if I pull the tray out a little too hard I might pull it out completely or break it. The hooks on each tray are also very tiny which makes it even harder to pull on and seem more fragile. Because of this ordeal, you might just want to load only your six most favorite cd’s for the time being.

Finally it was time to get in my car and go for a drive to test out the changer. Anyone who lives in San Francisco knows of the uneven roads due to potholes, slabs of metal trying to cover potholes, Muni rail tracks, and of course, SF’s notorious hills. Throughout my drive, I didn’t experience any skips whatsoever. Of course I wasn’t racing through the city in attempts to dunk on as many potholes as possible and lose my front fender in the process, but the city streets did turn out to be a reliable track for my skip test.

One last feature I’d like to comment on is the time change between cd’s. There really wasn’t one. The time it took to change from one cd to the next was minimal and hardly noticeable at all.

Overall, I am very happy with my new Alpine CHM-S620 cd changer. Except for the cd tray loading process and the slight door-opening nuisances, I have had no skips or problems with the quality of the deck and how well the music plays. And for the great price I paid by looking through ebay’s auctions, I wouldn’t trade it in for anything else.