Accessing your CD collection requires no more effort than flipping down the front panel. There, the discs, loaded in slots, can be played in any order you choose and even categorized according to musical genre.

The single-play slot (that's where the 110 "+1" designation comes from) allows a quick listen to a new or borrowed album without having to remove a disc from your library.

Newcomers to the megascene might wonder how people keep track of which disc is in which slot. There are two ways. The old-fashioned way is to use the enclosed portfolio, a sort of mini-photo album, to store the CD jackets in numerical order. The digital way is a function called CD Text, which reads information off compatible discs (and that's most new CDs) and automatically displays the album title, artist, and songs. When discs offer no such information, it's back to a little old-fashioned work--inputting information manually using the telephone-type keypad on the front panel or remote control.

The rear panel is outfitted with an optical digital output, so your albums can be transferred to another digital format like minidisc or integrated with your surround receiver.

Will the SL-MC7 hold enough music for you? An average compact disc is 60 minutes long. That's 110 hours of music. Is that mega enough? --Kevin Hunt Pros:

• Moderate size for a megachanger
• Excellent remote
• Good sound
• Optical digital-audio output

Cons:

Lengthy pauses between discs (up to 11 seconds)
• Noisy during disc changes
• Using the loader carriage requires some practice