By today's standards, the Panasonic SL-S360 is "Old School" technology.
Written: Dec 30 '03
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Pros: No-nonsense design/functionality, durable
Cons: Sound quality at high volumes, basic features at a high price.
The Bottom Line: It's a good, solid CD player with basic features at a high cost. There are better options, so I cannot recommend.
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| hyundai_fan's Full Review: Panasonic SL-S360 Personal CD Player |
Back in the 20th Century, there was a CD player that held its head up high. It was bland, sure, but the reliability, dependability, and a ten-year-old's smile made it special.
I was that ten-year-old. The CD player: A Panasonic SL-S360. I got it in 1999. It was my first CD player and I enjoyed many years with it.
It's no longer modern by any means, nor is it the best, the coolest, or even hi-tech. It satisfied my needs to do anything with it, go anywhere with it, and I felt proud that I finally could stop playing cassette tapes. It's time for me to move on.
Let's fast forward. Four years later, I'm fourteen, now having three different CD players and currently it's the oldest one I have. It no longer works and I guess my only means of letting it rest in peace is to remember the good ol' days I had with it, although I may not sound like it.
Competition: None that I can speak of. I believe that the successor to the SL-S360 is the SL-SX321C, which is still being sold today. They are of the same color, they have similar features and they even have similar names.
The Panasonic SL-S360 is the basic CD player. You got the normal Play, Skip, Pause, Stop features and a few different ones that made it more versatile and usable.
Included in the CD player is what Panasonic calls S-XBS. This adds extra bass and full sound to whatever music is played, and it definitely get's a "cool" factor on my list of positives. Still, it would have been nicer if there were two different levels of S-XBS, as when you play it at maximum volume sound becomes scratchy, undesirable and by all means probably irritating. Noise interrupts the sound unless the S-XBS is turned off. Then you have concert quality, crisp sound that is the opposite of that.
At low volumes, the sound is greatly improved. I don't like the fact that I can't play S-XBS at high volume, but I still make the best of it.
The Anti-Skip feature, called by Panasonic as "Anti-Shock Memory II", is also a plus. Unlike the Panasonic SL-SX321C's Anti-Skip with two different settings, this model's setting is a 40-second Anti-Skip. It works flawlessly no matter how rough the road gets in front of you, keeping the sound clear and unobtrusive.
What should have kept going on in the Panasonic line is the Push feature on the motorized wheel that spins the discs. Instead of using your thumb to pull up the CD, you press the wheel with your index finger and the CD immediately releases. It takes away any small effort needed and switching CDs comes with ease.
The downside: After four years, the wheel seemed to get lower, enough to where the CDs hit the bottom of the player. Because of this, that's why I say that the player is no longer usable.
Another problem: When you want to switch CDs, the wheel does not stop by the motor; it'll keep spinning until it slows to a stop unless you take your hand and stop it yourself.
Portability is great. A little bigger than the SL-SX321C, the squarishly oblong gray-colored design keeps a sleek appearance while showing basic and down to earth appeal. With a window above the LCD screen, I can easily tell if a CD is moving or staying in place.
The LCD screen itself, lighted up on the SL-S360J version, looks like it came from a calculator. It's square design makes readability easy but in low light situations it becomes a hassle to read. A battery-indicator light only pops up on the screen to tell you when the two Alkaline AA batteries are nearing no energy. I would have liked a constant battery monitor, like on the SL-SX321C or on other players.
The batteries, if fully charged and used at room temperature (around 72*F) last you in the 25 hour range. This is the shortest of the three CD players I own, and that's only when played at low volume. At maximum volume, I am able to reach a low 18 hours, while the Anti-Shock Memory II (Anti-Skip) function drains the batteries even more. One complaint is the outside battery compartment. If this was ever dropped, which mine had been dropped numerous times, the batteries will fly right out of the case resulting in unneeded searching for the batteries that scattered on the floor.
Without the Anti-Skip, I find that although battery life lasts longer, it gets stubborn if you move it; the CDs will skip when moved slightly.
A nice feature on this CD player is the Resume function. When you are listening to a song and you are interrupted by a phone call or something, it remembers exactly where you left off and resumes playing the song when you have time to return to it.
The headphones that come with this CD player are cheap. The sound is only marginal to what I like, and non-audiophiles may think so as well. Like I say, low volume is key to this CD player. They fit my head alright, and might fit those with the larger-sized craniums.
Durability, now this is more like it! In four years, I have had millions of scratches on this CD player. Scrub marks, scrapes, nicks, you name it, I have it. Still, the player performs flawlessly, or whatever "flawlessly" means to this CD player.
Overall, this is 90's technology. There is many better options and at a sticker price of $70 in 1999, I wouldn't have bought this. But as it was a gift to me, I learned to accept it and when it's your first CD player, it's all good.
This made my day back then, but it must retire in being just one of the "Old School" CD players.
~Scott
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 69.99
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Epinions.com ID:
hyundai_fan
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Member: Scott K
Reviews written: 107
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
A gay, Subaru-driving Vermonter.
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