This is the best portable CD player you can get.

In fact, it's so good that you should combine it with a really great set of headphones. I listen to it with a pair of Sennheiser HD580's, and man, it's pristine. Beautiful, clean sound, and it's nice and small and won't take up much space, so you can easily haul it around. Plus, you can get it in this really nice deep shiny blue color...

The built-in EQ settings are kind of lame, but then again, they all are. I can't really hold that against it. I don't use them, anyway. The antishock memory buffer seems to work pretty well, too-- certainly better than any of my previous 4 CD portable CD players. And I've managed to own this one for almost a year now and I haven't destroyed it yet, which also puts it far above my previous 4 portable CD players.

Plus, had I mentioned it sounds amazing? It's better than any other portable I've heard, and better than most non-portables. And it's even cheap. I'd prefer this one player over more gimmicky and expensive players any day of the week.

I'm also very happy with the power options included with the player. It comes with a set of rechargeable AAA batteries. They recharge in the player when it's plugged in to the included AC adaptor and turned off. And for those days when you know you'll be carrying it around for longer than AAA's are good for, it has a little external pod for use with a pair of AA batteries. That piece is a little clunkier, and breaks up the otherwise smooth lines of the player, but it does attach firmly, with a thumbscrew, and doesn't add much bulk at all. And in a year of carrying this player on airplanes and trains and around the office, I've never had to use it-- the rechargables last long enough that it's never been an issue. If I were going someplace where I couldn't plug it in at the end of the day, I'm sure I'd end up using the external module, but for normal usage, I never have.

The track forward and back buttons are arranged in a non-ergonomic fashion, and I can never remember which is forward and which is back, so I have to look whenever I want to track around. That's my only complaint.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 89