Back to the future: There is a new 5-disc Yamaha CD Changer for all your old CD-Rs
4,3 / 5,0 | 
Back to the future: There is a new 5-disc Yamaha CD Changer for all your old CD-Rs · Source: Yamaha
Is this the next resurrection of a long-lost audio format? Are we witnessing the birth of the anti-streaming movement? Yamaha seems to think so. With this new Yamaha CD changer, you can load up to five discs, play MP3s and much more!
Whatever happened to your CD Changer?
Some of us are young enough to remember CDs, CD-Rs, and CD changers in trunks and on top of HiFi towers. What a convenience that was in the late Nineties! You could simultaneously load five, ten, and sometimes even more CDs, even during playback with the more expensive models.
Today, most of us are completely used to endless audio streams, but before CD changers, you had 74 minutes, not a second more. Then you had to open the tray, quickly switch to the already selected CD or CD-R, and pray that it wasn’t too scratched to be played. With CD changers, you could finally load a couple more albums and, with only a little bit of loading time, enjoy hours of music!
Just like CDs, CD changers all but vanished in the late 2000s. For quite a while, the Yamaha CD-C600 was one of the very few readily available CD changers. And now there is a new Yamaha CD changer in town!
What’s new with the Yamaha CD changer?
The Yamaha CD-C603 can, just like its predecessor, load up to five CDs at a time. Conveniently, you can change CDs while one CD is playing with the technology “Play X Change.” In addition, you can play a variety of digital audio formats by connecting a USB drive through the USB port in the front of the Yamaha CD changer (MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, and FLAC with up to 96kHz / 24bit).
Yamaha has also included its proprietary Pure Direct technology, which it has used in various HiFi amps and components. Pure Direct deactivates both the digital display and the device’s digital output. This minimizes any potential interference noise in the signal path.
And if you still have a couple of stacks of CD-Rs collecting dust in your attic, there is good news: the CD-C603 also reads those and even CD-RWs.
How much does the new Yamaha CD changer cost?
At the time of writing, Yamaha has yet to announce the official price. Over at WhatHiFi, it’s listed at AU$899, roughly 530 GBP or 690 USD. The Yamaha CD changer is available in black or silver.
More on the new CD-C603
This might also interest you
3 responses to “Back to the future: There is a new 5-disc Yamaha CD Changer for all your old CD-Rs”
74 minutes is way longer than people’s attention span these days. Most people I know can’t listen to more than one song without picking up their phone.
So it’s not like, “oof, having to get up to change the music every hour is so taxing.” It’s more like, “oof, I don’t want to change the CD every time I get bored in the middle of a song.”
Sometimes it’s like they spend more time scrolling and skipping tracks than they spend actually listening to music.
If those types of people do listen longer, it’s because they aren’t really listening to the music. It’s just background noise. They don’t pick what they listen to. They just pick the first playlist with an appealing thumbnail.
I get what you’re saying. As the previous owner of one of these in the 90s, I think what they’re good for is having a mix of music on in the background. But then I guess why not just do streaming etc. So maybe they’re counting on nostalgia.
oof, and I just saw the price.
This isn’t anti-streaming or a resurrection. Anybody in the market for something like this is already listening via physical formats, including CDs. Just check bandcamp listings. Everyone is selling CDs, and they sell-out just as well as vinyl and cassettes. This is for those people, not for starting a new CD revolution.