The Sony name has been one that I have grown to trust over the years. There have only been a few instances when I chose another brand over Sony or returned / exchanged a Sony product for something else. When the time came to upgrade the tape player in the kids play room I turned to Epinions for suggestions. Sadly there weren’t a tremendous number of reviews for what I was looking for so I set out to look for information at the Sony website. Before making a final decision I checked out what other companies had to offer and ended up choosing the Sony CFM30TW. It isn’t the most glamorous looking thing nor does it have all the features that you would expect from something called a “boombox” but it fit the criteria of what I was looking for and had a price that couldn’t be argued with.

What I Wanted

I was in the market to purchase a small but durable portable cassette player with an AM / FM radio for my boys to use. The overall look of the unit wasn’t as important as how it performed and how it would stand up against a lot of use. Until I purchased the Sony CFM30TW they were using my Sony PSYC and the poor thing was in need of a dire break. I wanted something that could run off of batteries but had to come with an AC adapter. A clock, bass boost, CD player, remote control and digital read out weren’t necessities so they went to the bottom of the list – if they came with a unit then that was great – but they weren’t things that I was actively searching for. When I started looking for a unit for their playroom and was faced with about 15 solid options and decided to go with this model based on price, functions, warranty and the Sony name. Since none of the local electronics stores carried this model I ordered it from an online merchant and received it in about a week.

What I Got

Out of the box this is a pretty basic looking radio / cassette combo. It doesn’t have all the frills that usually accompany a Sony product but I’ll tell you this much – it is a true workhorse. This is an AM / FM / TV band receiver with a cassette player and record functions. The built in microphone records any audio within about fifteen feet of the unit or can be used to tape directly from the radio. The TV receiver will pick up local channels [VHF channels according to the instruction booklet] however we’ve never used this so I’m not sure exactly which stations it will pull in. There is also a weather receiver that is available however, just like the TV function, we’ve yet to have a need for it or the desire to check it out. The boys weren’t too keen on the look of this since it looks like something that was popular about fifteen years ago – if it was even “happenin” back then. Imagine a huge street boombox that’s shrunk down about 200% - that’s what this baby looks like.

Cassette Functions

If there is one thing I truly hate when it comes to cassette players is the lack of a rewind button. Instead of being able to simply hit a button and rewind a tape you have to remove the cassette, flip it over, advance the tape, eject, flip it again and see if you fast forwarded enough. Thankfully I was able to find a small radio / cassette player combo that had a rewind button on it. The Sony CFM30TW features the following cassette options: play, rewind, fast forward, stop, pause and record. The buttons are easy to use, clearly labeled and large enough for my kids to use with great ease. The soft eject of the cassette door eliminates a lot of wear and tear on the mechanisms but sometimes the kids are too eager to flip the tape over and end up pulling the door open. The overall sound of prerecorded cassettes is average to above average but you won’t get any type of stellar sound from this unit. If you are looking for something that is going to give you supreme sound quality, look elsewhere – however – for general use this is more than acceptable.

One nice feature is the automatic shut off. When the cassette is over it automatically stops the tape and turns off the unit. This is a little loud so if you are planning on using this cassette player in a childs room when they are going to sleep, you might want to go in before the tape is over and press the stop button – to make it a little less harsh put your finger on the play button and hit the stop button, this will allow it to pop up quieter and you’ll have less of a chance of waking up a baby or child that has just drifted off to sleep.

Power Supply

You can run this off of the provided AC adapter that is attached to the boombox [no more lost adapters] or by using 4 “D” sized batteries. Using the adapter is simple – just plug it into the wall and you are good to go. I suggest removing the batteries from the boombox if you are going to use the AC adapter – you never know when a battery meltdown might occur. Since the boys use this most of the time for audiocassettes it tends to drain them quicker than if they just used it for the radio. On average they get about two weeks worth of use out of it from the batteries which isn’t bad when you take into consideration that amount of use that it gets.

Sound Quality

There’s only one speaker on this so don’t expect to get a tremendous amount of power from this. I’ve toted this into the kitchen when I was baking cookies and it was great for listening to holiday music but anything with bass or in the rock genre won’t sound all that great. This is best for audio books, classical music, pop songs or relaxation type cassettes. You can turn this up to a little past ‘medium’ range without any crackling or noticeable distortion but please keep in mind that blasting this like a $200.00 boombox will result in the speakers frying themselves.

Things To Know

You won’t need that antenna for AM listening but for the FM stations you might need to do some covert-ops to get certain channels to come in clearly. I didn’t expect this unit to pull in stations from a hundred miles away but even some of the local stations were hard to get in clearly. They ended up moving to an outside wall near the window and said that it improved the reception – not sure if that had any real effect on it or not – but they stopped complaining about the amount of static. The antenna is your basic “jedi” type – telescoping from the base just like a lightsaber. So far it hasn’t gotten bent or broken but eventually the day will come when I’ll have to pull out the electrical tape and repair it.

This is small enough for the kitchen counter top, for camping, in case of an emergency [storm, power outage etc], bathroom or garage. The size of the unit is about ten and a half inches wide, five inches high and almost five inches deep. This was the perfect size for the kids play room since it didn’t take up a lot of space and eventually found its own little niche on the windowsill. The sturdy handle that extended off the sides of the unit makes it totally portable [providing you are using batteries that is] and makes carrying it around from room to room a breeze. Without the batteries this weighs about two pounds, with the batteries about four pounds. Make sure smaller kids aren’t given permission to tote this around since it seems to have an affinity for attacking unprotected toes.

This comes with a one year warranty against defects providing that the case hasn’t been opened or tampered with and it wasn’t altered in any way. Since there is always a fee involved with shipping the item for repair or exchange, it’s cheaper to simply purchase a new radio / cassette player if / when this one dies. If it has held up to hours of Spongebob songs and kids audio books without missing a beat – chances are it will have a nice healthy life in our house. I always try to keep the original packaging for electronics for at least a few months – that way if it needs to be returned to the store I have everything I need to get a refund or exchange. Make sure you fill out the warranty card and mail it in for added protection of this unit. Even though it has a suggested retail value of about $20.00 - $30.00 – that’s no reason to not send in your warranty information.

I don’t really like the volume control wheel that is located on the top of the unit. For some reason it’s a little hard to get the exact right volume level with this so things are too loud or too soft until you sit there and tinker with it for a while. This happens more when you use the cassette than the radio – especially with material that has been recorded on the unit. Still, you can’t expect to get the moon and the stars when you are paying peanuts for a product. On the up side, the tuner control for the radio is located on the front of the unit and is out of the way [for the most part] so you won’t have to worry about it getting bumped or getting knocked off a station.

One thing missing from this is a headphone jack. It wasn’t something that I had initially put on the “must have” list but looking back on it – I wish I would have looked around to see if there was a model that had this option. There are some times when the boys like to listen to something that they’d rather keep private [mostly kid type audio books] or if they aren’t feeling well they’ll ask me to play something quiet. Having the headphone jack would allow them to listen to what they want without risking the torment of their siblings.

The Bottom Line

So far this has held up to everything that the boys and I have thrown at it – including all their audio books about space, NASA launches and Spongebob Squarepants. Providing that you aren’t expecting top of the line sound quality I think that this would be a good pick for someone that wants a radio or cassette player for their desk, home office, kitchen or kids play room. For the price I paid [$24.99] I am pretty impressed with the features, large easy to use buttons, cassette capabilities and the recording qualities. I didn’t have any luck finding this at my usual stores [Wal-Mart, Target etc] so I had to order it over the internet so if you are planning on looking for this unit – check the larger electronics stores first.



As always, thanks for the visit!

^V^ Freak ^V^

© 2003 Freak369


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Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $24.99