Pleasant surprise from Audiophase. - NOT!
Written: Dec 19 '03 (Updated Dec 28 '03)
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Pros: Plays CD-R,RW MP3. Good FM tuner. Plugged remote. Good sound plenty of volume. Nice finish.
Cons: No ID3. Small LCD screen. One direction preset navigation. NiCad charging circuit. Crappy headphones. VERY-Short-battery-life.
The Bottom Line: A portable CD player that is MP3 ready along with a good FM tuner for 39.99. The battery life on this one is just too short.
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| pinhole2001's Full Review: Audiophase CDT420M Personal CD Player |
Final update 12/28/03 see bottom
Well, it sounds like the previous reviewer had a defective unit. I just returned a Memorex MP3 CD with AM/FM that broke after about a week of light use. So I was in the market for a under $50 MP3/CD player with a tuner. I don't listen to AM that much so FM only was fine. Stopped by Best Buy and saw the Audiophase CDT-420M and decided to give it a try. It read my CD-R with MP3s just fine along with my regular CD-Rs and commercial CDs. The sound is quite good when using a better set of headphones. Why CD manufacturer's insist on including lousy headphones will be one of the great mysteries for the ages. They would be better off bumping up the features and leave the cheap headphones out. Anyway, the headphones that come with this player are fairly crappy. They did let me experiment with the behind the ear style though. So they weren't completely useless. The controls are laid out nicely on the top of the case that is partly clear. At first I thought I wouldn't like the clear top, but it has grown on me. I would like to be able to see the ID3 information on the LCD screen along with a backlight. The manual talks about using NiCad batteries with the included charging circuit. How 1980's? What about NiMH? I would of left this feature out if I was the designer. I comes with a plugged remote which is nice for making selections without having to dig the player out from your pocket or backpack. The Bass Boost adds a fair amount of bass. I was surprised by the quality of the FM tuner. For a 39.99 CD/MP3 I was expecting the tuner to fairly poor, but it works quite well. It will scan for stations which is nice. One draw back is with navigating the 20 presets is in one direction only. If you start on 2 you have to go all the way around back to number one. I also like the battery indicator on the LCD. Lacks a resume function. Overall I have been impressed with Audiophase CDT-420M. If it holds up to regular use I'd say for the price it's a winner.
12/22/03
Quick update. I'm going to change the battery rating to a little lower. It seems that the CDT-420M is very hungry. I use NiMH recharables and have not done extensive testing, but they do go faster than I expected. No wonder they included a charging circuit. Too bad it is for Nicads.
12/28/03
After trying various settings I could only get the batteries to last about 4.5 hours with skip protection turned off. I also noticed that when playing MP3 the timer would go haywire after 14:36. So back to Best Buy for a refund.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 39.99
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Epinions.com ID:
pinhole2001
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Reviews written: 3
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