Hi, I realize the Onkyo is low budget, but I wanted to have a new multi-disc player, relatively on the cheap, to augment my system. This replaced another (in a line of) cheap multi-disc players. My previous was a Technics SL-PD5 carousel player (still works but keeping on reserve).
I like my Onkyo's sound, but boy the carousel is not very smooth when it rotates - particularly when going backwards (I.e if playing disc 5 and want to replace discs, when it goes back to 1 it is not smooth, a little jerky). Just curious if others have the model and experience the same?
I credit it to cheaper production methods in today's manufacturing (by comparison the technics is much sturdier), but wanted to see if others have the same issue.

I also miss the Technics Spiral (which instead of the unbalanced shuffle that seems to plague all the players, would simply rotate between all track 1s, then track 2s, etc., and apparently was only a technics feature - crazy as it seems so basic)

Boy how I miss the Pioneer PDTM1 12 disc from back in the day. Always wanted the 18 disc...but that would be my top count level. The 100s+ always seem to be too much for me.

Curious about some of the other current multi-disc models in regards to the carousel (such as the Sony CDP-CE500 5-Disc CD or Yamaha CD-C600BL 5-Disc CD )? I am somewhat tempted to get another player and put this one in reserve as well for the future).

I have this player and don't have the issue you do. This is my second player. I bought it from Crutchfield a couple years ago. The first one would not play a given CD now and then, as if it wasn't reading it. By the time that happened, it was out of warranty. I made a crappy review of it on their site (where I have an account) and they offered to replace it free. So, I did.

I think it's scattered issues as with lots of things these days.

Thanks Mark. I like the idea of account / review.

Rip all your CDs to FLAC and play them through HDMI from a 8-16 TB NAS drive. I haven't looked back since I did this.

I've had the Onkyo for a couple years now. It was the only multi-disc player I could find when I need to replace my previous multi-disc player. The carousel is not the smoothest - I try not to change discs while one is playing because I've had skips about 60% of the time. Other than that, it's been solid for me.