Great sound, great price
Written: Mar 12 '01 (Updated Mar 31 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Sound quality, size, antiskip, price
Cons: No battery indicator, included rechargeables last only 6 hours, lightweight
The Bottom Line: For the price this is a really great deal. I was stupid to buy the high end Sony first.
|
|
|
| Chevyman16's Full Review: Panasonic SL-CT470 Personal CD Player |
I originally got a Sony D-EJ915 but returned it for this player after I had some problems with the Sony. (You can read my review on it). For only $129.99 this Panasonic is a much better deal and does the same job with a few missing features.
The SL-CT470 that I got is a really cool looking shiny metallic blue color. It looks really nice. I think it looks a lot better than the silver one.
The sound quality of this player is its best quality. The bass boost doesn't work as good as the one on the Sony 915 did, but the overall sound quality in the normal mode is noticeably better. It sounds like your closer to the music with this player than with the Sony. The headphone jack on this player might have something to do with the sound quality. It's kind of clunky looking and sticks out of the player a bit but its silver and appears to be made of metal unlike the regular plastic ones (I'm not sure about this so don't take my word on it) anyways the silver headphone jack does make it look higher quality and the sound is great. The last Panasonic I owned was an SL-S200 and it sounded kind of crappy and skipped easily so I sold it. It's headphone jack also started to wear out after a year and a half of light use. I remember comparing it to my old Sony D-E446CK (which this player beats in sound quality) and it sucked compared to the Sony.
For the last couple weeks I've used this cd player in the pocket of my jeans, walking around school and going up and down stairs and it hasn't skipped. I even ran up my rocky driveway with it in my jeans pockets, it was slamming against my leg for more than a minute of running and it never skipped. Even when the memory buffer is empty, like right after changing tracks, it doesn't skip when bounced around. With antiskip off it doesn't skip quite as easy as the older Panasonics did, but it skips much easier than my old Sony did with ESP off.
This player comes with a set of AAA Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. The player takes only AAA inside the unit to save space and size. These batteries only last about 6 hours on one charge while the Sony D-EJ915 that I traded for it lasted 23 hours, and they will need to be replaced after only about 300 charges which is much less than the Sony's. These batteries will be a lot cheaper to replace though.
Another problem is the 470 doesn't have a battery gauge like the step up model 570 does. I'm not used to this since both the Sony's I had before had a battery gauge. Now I won't know when my batteries are gonna die until about 5 minutes before they die. The display on this unit is big and easy to read though.
The headphones that come with this unit are very bad just like any other portable cd, so don't bother using them unless you don't care what your music sounds like.
The volume output on all the new Panasonics is louder than the output on the new Sony's so if you have headphones that aren't very efficient this player would probably be your best choice.
For the price this basic player is a great deal. It comes with rechargeable batteries and all you'll need is decent headphones.
Update: I just realized how much better the Panasonic is compared to the comparable Sony model, the D-EJ611. The Panasonic costs less, comes with NimH rechargeables and an external battery case. It's built better, made in Japan, plays cd-r's and scratched cd's better, sounds much better and it has a better blue color available. It also looks a lot better. This player just seems so much better than before when you compare it to Sony's similar model. I've also never had anything against Sony before.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Chevyman16
|
|
Member: Mike Kennedy
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 7 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.