Doing research on multi changer CD/DVD players, it seems as if 50% of them have bad reviews for breakdown. Does random play mode shorten lifetime of players? I can see where it might, but if it's significant, I may have to change my listening patterns. I'm wondering more about low-medium end <250.00. Thanks, Guy

I don't think it's random play per se, just that complex mechanical things tend to break down more unless carefully cleaned and maintained... and we hardly ever do that any more.

Guy, this isn't something that I've given much thought to, one reason being that I rarely use random play with my changers. Logically it would seem that the more frequent use of the changer mechanism would eventually have an effect, but my view is that if it causes a slightly shorter service life, so be it. Use your equipment in the way that you enjoy and don't worry about it.

I've actually never used random play (Kenwood 200 disk CD changer) but just tried it for the first time. It was great... songs I hadn't listened to for years

Thanks !!

Update -- this is wierd... seems like my changer does random track play within a single disk, then randomly plays tracks from another random disk...

I thought random was normally 1 track per disk except for the odd statistical glitch when you randomly pick the same track twice.

OK, so I hit the random button again and now it is playing they way I would expect (each subsequent track is a random track off a random disk).

Now I have the same problem as Guy -- this is really handy, but I'm sure it will take years off the life of the mechanicals. I'm tending to favour JohnK's answer but I dread the throught of reloading all those CDs again

Great. Something else to worry about.

I've had the same 5 disk carousel JVC changer for over 10 years. It was dirt cheap at the time (Good Guys floor model), around $100, and it has never broken down or even jammed. It's a little persnickity about some disks, and a couple of buttons don't work anymore, but other than that, the bastard just keeps going! (Dammit!) And I use random play almost exclusively.

>>and a couple of buttons don't work anymore, but other than that, the bastard just keeps going! (Dammit!)

My brother-in-law has a dog like that. Truck Stop Trixie just celebrated her 18th birthday. She's mean, she's ugly, and he's waiting for her to kick off so he can get a real hunting dog, but she keeps hanging on just to spite him