My Shaker 1000 is working fine so far. I have only had it kick out a CD once and that was burned on a regular CD. I have had no problems with playing burned CDs that were burned on a Sony Audio CD. Seems like it needs the higher quality format? No problems with purchased CDs or with skipping. My 05 GT was born 07/22/05.

I am a rocker at heart. I got the Shaker 1000 because it was already in the car on the dealer's lot. I probably would have gone for the 500 if I had ordered it because I really don't dig the super thump thump in the trunk. I have heard some people on this site and others that bash buying the shaker 1000 unless you are a hip-hop lover who wears the super baggy pants and wants to thump other people's cars with your music. I don't usually have the shaker turned on, however, last night I played Def Leppard's "Women" at 3/4 volume with the shaker on and it totally rocked! Sounded like I was in a concert! Rock on the radio doesn't sound awesome with the shaker on but when you play CD's it does!

 

Im happy with the Shaker 500, just finished playing Pyromania and it sounds great!

 

i've got the shaker 1000 and have a couple of the same problems you all are noting here...mainly burned cds getting kicked out, saying bad disk. just load it back up and it's fine.

i also sometimes notice when i turn the car off in the middle of a track, and come back later to drive somewhere, it will start the cd from the beginning, instead of where it left off, like it's supposed to (only sometimes). don't know what that's a product of, but it's only minorly annoying since it doesn't happen very much - note: this last problem happens with both burned AND original cds.

other than that, the shaker1000 sounds and performs great. it's a shame there seem to be these little annoying problems with them from time to time, but as far as i'm concerned it hasn't taken away from the overall experience.

 

The shaker 500 comes with very little balance options. it's just 2 channels
as far as I've seen.

Also, when playing CDs it pauses about .5 seconds when it changes tracks.
Most CDs that's no big deal but some cds where they last song is still ringing
while the new song is starting up... annoying for the price I paid. My friend's
Mazda 6 came stock w/a Bose system that sounds better than my shaker 500
AND the faster you drive, the louder it adjusts.

 

Actually my shaker 1000 has that feature - you can turn the speed volume on or off depending on your preference. i keep mine on and rarely have to adjust volume when speeding up or slowing down. if it's just me in the car, i almost never touch the volume...always at the perfect level. if other ppl are in the car and i want to talk to them, i ususally turn it down so i can hear - duh

i dont know if the shaker 500 has that feature, but i imagine it should, no? anyone know?

 

I had the shaker 500 for 6 months- never 1 problem

I now have the shaker 1000 for 2 months- never a problem yet but i also only have 25 miles on the car so i havent even driven it to test it

 

If it works for ya... keep using it

Personally, I've had nothing but bad luck with the shaker playing cd's. Luckily, all my CD's are loaded into the Phatbox so I don't realy care AND Ford bought my shaker back from me AND I still have the shaker AND I'm waiting for the new stuff from CES to become readily available until I exchange it for something better

The unfortunate thing is I can't just go out and buy a CD and hope it plays in the car 'cause odds are it will skip

Just my observations

 

I have a shaker 1000 and I never listen to the radio I like the sound of the exhaust and engine to much when I am driving.That is music to my ears.

 

I have the shaker 500 and really love it. I burn cd's as data disks using windows media player 10 and none have skipped at all on me. When burned this way, I get the mp3 tags such as the artist and the song title. I also get between 50-80 songs on each disk..The shaker 500 does have the speed volume on it too..

 

While playing Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon my Shaker 500 hesitated for a second between every track. Those of you, who know the CD, know the tracks blend into one another with hardly any hesitation. I have had this CD for almost 30 years and have played it on numerous home and auto CD players and I had never noticed this. Is this why they call this player the Skipper 500? I thought they fixed this problem in 2006. I haven’t noticed any actual skipping while playing other CD’s or MP3’s. Sometimes The shaker has trouble reading the MP3’s and calls it a bad disk.

It went into FF for a half-second yesterday???