Music is something that I have to have with me all the time; when I leave the house I have kind of portable audio unit with me. After my Philips CD player bit the dust and I picked up the Sony Psyc I was pretty content with things but there were a stack of badly scratched CD’s that wouldn’t play on anything I owned. Normally the Fisher Slim system that I have will play pretty much anything but these discs are so trashed that I was tempted to just throw them out. When I was talking to a guy at the video game exchange store he told me that if I had an extra thirty dollars I should check out the Sony “deja blue” nicknamed that because of the letters used [DE-J] on it and the color [blue]. He told me that it was cheaply made but it would play almost any type of scratched CD When I saw it at Wal-Mart I figured I’d give it a try to see if it would play the discs. I hated to have to throw them away because some of them were imports and singles that I loved to death.

Sony DEJ001 Personal CD Player

First off, you have to keep in mind that this is a thirty dollar CD player so don’t expect to get something that is outstanding or has a ton of features to it. For general use this is fine but if you are someone that lives with a CD player attached to them, this will flat out suck for your audio needs. First off, it’s got a slide tab to open the CD compartment. It’s so small that you really have to screw around with it to get it open. What complicates things even more is the fact that you have to have it flat in the palm of your hand to have the top pop open - something that is almost impossible to do. You have all the normal functions of a portable CD player on this - play, pause, stop, forward track, back track and a hold button to keep it from turning on if you have it in your backpack. This helps to save the life of your batteries and unnecessary wear on it. The buttons to operate the functions are on the small side but once you get the feel of them you can operate this without having to look at the signs. I have no idea why Sony skimped so much on this unit; I have no idea how long this is going to last but given that it only comes with a 90 day warranty .. that should be an indication that it won’t last long after that.

This is powered by two AA sized batteries and I wasn’t all that impressed with the battery life. I slipped in two brand new batteries and only got about ten hours of use from it before the on screen battery level dropped and the ‘low battery’ warning flashed on the screen. When this happens you can’t use the CD player at all so you have no choice but to replace them. You can use an AC adapter on this [AC-E45HG] but it is something that you have to purchase separately because this doesn’t come with one. The display screen is on the front of the unit, not on the top. This makes it a little hard to see what is going on, check the volume level, timer, bookmarks, track or what programs you have running. One of the nice things about this is that it has a skip protection feature - the downside is that this is one of the reasons that it sucks batteries dry. It automatically defaults to ‘g-on’ when you power it up so you have to shut it off each time you start it up or change discs. When you press stop it automatically turns the unit off so there’s no need to sit there and hold down the button to power it off. Since the buttons are on the front of it you will want to make sure that you use the ‘hold’ feature to keep it from turning on - that goes double if you toss this in a gym bag or backpack.

This did play all of the scratched CD’s as well as ones that I burned from my computer [MP3’s] so I was pretty happy that I blew thirty dollars on it. I was looking at a cheaper model but didn’t like the headphones that came, luckily my friends recommendation saved me a few dollars. If I would have bought the cheaper one I would have saved money on the CD player but I would have had to spring for new headphones. The ones that come with this are the “over the ear” style but they are made of a flexible rubber material so they are going to hold up longer and are a little more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. The only thing that sucks about them is that they are white so it’s painfully obvious that you have them on. You can get a nice sound quality from them but if you take it above nine you do get some distortion. This has a AVS [Automatic Volume System] option so you can lock the sound level in. You don’t have to use this but if you are buying this for a teen you can use this to keep them from going deaf. The AVS button also double as the extended bass option; there are two choices you can pick from - sound one and sound two. The second option gives you a lot more power from hard beats and lets you get the most from ethereal sounds.

The size of it is a perk, it’s a thin unit with a frosted cover - you can see the disc spinning when it is on but you can’t see what you have in it. Even though Epinions has this listed as a ‘green’ player it’s actually closer to a light teal. Not that it makes that much of a difference but if someone were to order this sight unseen and expected it to be green they might be a little disappointed. This is not waterproof nor does it say anything about it having any type of moisture lock on it. If that is something that you want or need then you might want to go with one of the Sony Sport models or something that has a ridged front snap lock on it. Sony really skimped on the flip top cover; when you slide the latch to open it, it does pop up but when you look at the spring that operates this it looks like a large paper clip that someone bent and shoved n the back of the case. Sony also gets low marks for the positioning of the batteries. This is something that you have to see to understand; the battery compartment is inside the CD case and it is a real pain to get the batteries in or out - partly because of the cheap pull up door on it and the position that they are in. Since you can’t open the lid all the way you have to really fight to get the batteries in and out.

You can listen to almost any type of music on this but if you are going with something that has a strong bass - like techno or house music - then you will want to use the ‘sound one’ function so you don’t kill the headphones. I listened to everything from the hard stuff from Type O Negative to Cradle of Filth to pop, rock, classical and opera on this without any major issues. Classical and pop sounded good but some of it seemed a little washed out. I had to throw in some classic metal to see how it sounded - the result ... average results but the guitar solos didn’t sound that impressive unless I clicked over to the ‘sound two’ format. This is a good all purpose type of CD player that will play standard discs as well as CD-R’s and CD-RW’s. I got tripped up by the packaging of this - on the front it says “LCD Display” then below it “CD-R / RW” and I assumed that it would show the song information on the screen - I was looking at a couple different units and got mixed up. Like I said, this is a thirty dollar CD player so getting a feature like that is nothing more than a daydream.

Warranty

Sony provides you with a 90 day warranty against defects and workmanship. As I mention in almost all of my reviews of electronics, if you buy this from a retail store and it is defective return it there rather than sending it to the manufacturer. If something is defective or has some type of fault with it, chances are it is going to reveal itself within the first few days of use. I have no idea how long this thing is going to last but I can’t see it living past a year. If you are someone that is rough on CD players then this wouldn’t be the best pick for you unless you want to have something that will play badly damaged or scratched discs. There is no mail in card for the warranty so make sure you keep the cardboard section inside the package and the receipt. Read the fine print before you contact them, this one has a lot of exceptions and clauses to it

The Bottom Line

I doubt that I will be using this at the gym; when I did try it out it performed nicely but I like my other CD players that offer me some perks like moisture protection or a waterproof body. This is a nice pick if you have CD’s that are scratched and you just can’t bear to part with them. Even after I used a scratch repair product on them they still skipped or froze on me. I was most impressed with how it handled one of the worst in the bunch - something that has so many scratches on it that it hardly reflects any light - but since it is one of my all time favorite CD’s [October Rust] I couldn’t very well throw it away without giving it a spin in this. I listened to it from start to finish and it didn’t skip a single time. So, while this is a cheap player with some very bad design points it will play almost anything you have around. I guess that is the definition of the term “taking the good with the bad”.


Sony Customer Service
[800] 222-7669
[800] 488-SONY
www.sony.com/walkmansupport


As always, thanks for the read!

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2005 Freak369


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Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $29.99