Custom-built for marathon listening sessions, Denon's DCM-280 CD player offers 5-disc playback and multiple play modes, marrying convenience and quality in an affordable component. The unit handles prerecorded and recordable CDs, including MP3 CDs, which can store around 10 hours of music per disc--listening consecutively, you can go for about two straight days and never hear the same song twice. The carousel changer's play exchange feature lets you swap up to 4 discs while a fifth is playing, and you'll only hear the music, thanks to Denon's quiet changer mechanism.

Ensuring top-flight sound regardless of the source, the DCM-280 features a multilevel noise-shaping digital-to-analog converter. Multilevel modulation removes the adverse effects of jitter. And because the feature is built into the player's output amp, the player directly obtains a clean analog output with suppressed high-frequency interference.

You can customize a song sequence with 32-track programming, which lets you create a a custom music mix from the remote control. Program any combination of tracks from the 5 discs (not including MP3 CDs). Three-mode random playback includes full random, program random, and disc sequential random modes. The display shows total remaining time on the disc, elapsed track time, and remaining track time. Four-mode repeat play loops 1 track, 1 disc, all 5 discs, or a programmed sequence.

Outputs include a set of left/right RCA analog outs (which you'll want to use when listening to MP3 sources) and a coaxial digital-audio output for direct connection to a surround receiver or a minidisc or CD recorder.

With intelligent disc scan, the disc skip button can rotate the carousel tray clockwise or counter-clockwise as you search for a disc. (Counter-clockwise rotation is operable only by remote controller.)

What's in the Box
CD changer, remote control, remote batteries, a stereo analog audio interconnect, a user's manual, a warranty card, and a service-station list.