Audio Reviews

Clie SJ33 had very good form factor and design. There's no need to spend extra $$ on case or hardcase. The built in flip protects the screen and looks cool. Hold/power switch is also very nice for mp3 playback.

The major pro's are,
1. Good build quality and stylish casing.
2. Jog dial, hold switch and memory stick expansion slot.
3. HiRes color display and good backlight.
4. About 7-8 hrs of battery life with mp3 playback.
5. Runs Palm OS 4 which has zillion free apps available. Very easy, reliable and not bloatware unlike Windoze on PocketPC.

Con's,
1. Only 128kbps or low bitrate mp3 can be played.
2. Uses a Lithium Ion battery...
3. To be discontinued and replaced by a newer model by Sony very soon.
4. Memory stick is expensive compared to CF cards. Plus this model won't support new MS Pro sticks.

If you can wait for till Sept/Oct new Sony PDA's should come out with Palm OS 5 and better features at same price point.

This is my 2nd PDA. I had a Casio PV-S1600. So I was used to monochrome screen and no snazzy apps.
This palm OS based color CLIE just blasted me away.
The palm 4 os based software are easily available online. The PDA serves all my purpose ... entertainment or work. The built in mp3 player is great.
I give it a thumbs up!

Cons:
A faster proccessor and RAM needed... (yes im greedy)
No cradle available with package
Built in Speaker not loud enough

Pros: Built-in MP3 player; fast processor; high-resolution screen; slick clamshell design; 16MB; excellent screen; hard cover; faster processor; small shape; Thin; light; great color screen; Great battery life.

Cons: Wimpy scroll buttons; includes OS 4.1 rather than OS 5.0; expensive; buttons are small again; Doesn't come with a memory stick

Summary: This is my third handheld, and I'm quite impressed with it. Before this I've used two Palms, the 130 and the 515. I always give my old gadgets away to family because I love keeping up with the latest.

The first thing that should strike you is the great look. This is a handsome PDA; although built with plastic, and not metal, it doesn't take away from the quality feel.

The screen is great. Way better than the Palm 130 and 515, and much better than most Power PC's I've seen. With the backlight on I'm able to utilize it non stop for about 9-10 hours, so this will last you probably about 2 weeks with average use.

The processor speed is lightening quick, I was able to move around while playing MP3's with no lag, also playing MPEG's was a great experience. With the 128 or 256 or bigger meg memory sticks you can fit a huge amount of multimedia in there.

My favorite thing about this as opposed to the Power PC is the speed with which I can just open up and use it. This is a great OS first and foremost, and doesn't have TSR's and other BS piggybacking it like the Power PC OS.

I have had these for a while, and they sound just ok. The bass can be turned up so that it can shake the floor or you can turn it totally down. The speakers don't exactly distort at high levels, they just sound weird and the subwoofer get's messed up. I eventually got a program to manage each speakers volume level, so I turned the volume all the way up then turned all the other speakers off except the subwoofer. That's the part they try to hide, you can't hear it while the other speakers are running, but the subwoofer sounds like there's a peice of loose plastic inside, but for the price these are great speakers

These Yamaha speakers are exactly what I needed for my Mac. They deliver crisp sound with solid bass from the subwoofer. The units themselves are small (8"h x 2.5"w for the satellite speakers, 8"h x 7.5" w for the subwoofer) despite their big sound. The left speaker has a large, easy-to-adjust volume knob under the front grill; the subwoofer control is less accessible on the back. The cables are short, however, keeping the satellites close to the monitor - you might want to get something else if you want to space the satellites a distance from the source. Fortunately, they cause absolutely no distortion to the display.

For the price, you really can't go wrong with this speaker set. PC owners will delight in the superior sound coming from their computers.

I recently purchased the Yamaha's YST-MS201 speaker set for a secondary computer. At the same time, I bought some more expensive JBL's. Guess what? The JBL's sound better. And yet I heartily recommend the Yamahas. The reason is value. For under $40 the Yamahas give you very good sound. Not "superior" sound. Not sound for an audio-snob. But very good sound nonetheless.

I still have the JBL's on my primary computer, but when I finish this review, the next thing I'll do is order another set of Yamaha's YST-MS201's for my brother.

The sound is great, with the surround sound, but there are two things that really pisses me off.

1. I bought this, just opened it, held it in my hands, looked into the display... What? Is there dust inside the display? How did they do that? U gotta crack it up to fix that.

2. The unit scratches easily, like all Yepp units.

These are the cons, but if U dont care about how the player looks, U can buy this as a great buy.

After reading all of the reviews for the Samsung YP-55V, I decided that I had to get one for myself. And I must admit, I was not disappointed in the least.

This player is everything that everyone here has raved about... and much, much more! Everything that I have used so far, except for the [bad] headphones (which all MP3 players come with regardless of how high-quality they are), has worked flawlessly and wonderfully! I still can't believe how far technology has come as to allow me to fit so many songs on such a tiny player! The sound quality is excellent, the design and layout of the unit is so cool-looking and innovative, and the battery-life is unprecendented. Most of all, loading songs onto the player is as simple as transfering documents onto a floppy disk - you just copy and paste, or drag-click, all of the songs you want onto the screen that opens for the USB connection you just enabled (mine was labelled drive F:) and let it do its magic - I was able to transfer 23 songs in less than three minutes! This player is by far the best portable sound unit by dollar that I have ever seen!

To tell you truth, a lot of the problems that other reviewers were experiencing didn't happen to me: The USB cover on my player wasn't loose in the least; I found the case for the player to be really great (and yes, you can still changes tracks while the player is in the case, by simply twisting the body of the player while holding the top still); the buttons for the player, while a little confusing and bizarre at first, actually became very intuitive and second-nature for me quickly (although I still hate using the volume button, but it's no big deal); finally, I tested the radio feature (haven't tried the mike out yet, though) and it worked great, nearly flawlessly actually. I guess some of the reviewers' players had small defects, but mine seems to work perfectly!

Anyway, to summarize: GET THIS PLAYER! NOW! Seriously, it is an unbelievable little piece of technology, and man, is it ever little! I was in the exact same position as most of you readers a couple of days ago, trying to buy the best MP3 player out there, and being overwhelmed by the huge number of choices available! Even after doing extensive research, and reading tons of user reviews for all of the players from numerous websites, I still wasn't too sure if buying this player would be the right choice, since for every single player out there, there are literally at least 5 reviewers who give it the full 5 stars and rave about it like morons (ironically, the same could be said of me), whether it's actually good or not. So I basically had to look at all of the 1 star reviews and see which player truly had the most flaws. And even still, there wasn't a clear winner, but I went with my gut instinct, and bought the Samsung Yepp 55 player, and I can honestly say that it was one of the best purchases I've made in years!

Note: I actually got the Samsung Yp-55i, which has 192 MB memory instead of the 256 MB of the Yp-55V model, since it was significantly cheaper, and I figured that 192 MB, although not upgradeable, was enough memory for me. So if any of you are looking to spend a little less cash to get a player with exactly the same features and design, but that can hold a little bit less songs, go for the Yp-55i (although it isn't listed here on Amazon or Samsung's Yepp site itself - I bought mine "in-store" from Best Buy, since it isn't even listed on their website!).

Wow, I chose this model over all the other mp3 players offered on Amazon because of the reviews. It's very WYSIWYG, small, functional, portable, and for the best 256mb player for the buck.
It comes with everything you need, including a battery. The carry case is economical like the player, small and not much room for anything else, I end up winding my ear buds around the closing flap to keep all my things together. It feels like a sturdy player, I love that you twist the end to move between songs and the bright blue scrolling display, everything makes it feel like a quality product.It ofcourse comes with so-so headphones that I don't recommend using, and you really don't have to install anything, you just plug and drop things in. I use it mainly for work, it's plenty loud and the sound quality is great, all the dynamics and you get a very rich and full volume out of a tiny thing. Battery life is better than expected, a new AAA will last you as advertised 15 or so hours, I recommend rechargeables for environment's sake. The few buttons you see do all the work, you do need to flip through the manual to get a feel for the unusal functions of each button, particularly the volume slider which does most of the work. If you have big big fingers it might take some more effort, I have small hands and I still need to use my nail to dig in sometimes...you do have to remember that you are buying a very very small product! It dissapears in my hands and easily into pockets, it's very cute and it's not orange like you see in the detail photos, but just silver. The FM radio wasn't great from where I tried it, so I can't say much about it yet, voice recording is so so but I don't see myself using that function any time soon. Recording/encoding capabilities though is pretty nice.
In all I recommend it to everyone who's looking to not spend too much on a HD player like the 20GB iRiver iHP-120 which is the best rival to an iPod out there just yet. I think the only thing left to be desired is a FF function and it wouldn't hurt to include one or two more buttons in future models.

The Audigy X-gamer is an awesome card. I've had mine for over a year now and it is still pushing out my movies, music and games with impressive power!

Still, as I tend to run Linux (as I'm studying for multiple Linux certifications), I like being to listen to music. Linux' base for sound-card drivers is so far behind it's sad. If you're planning on running this card on a Linux system, you better be familiar with compiling your kernel, and making sure you have the latest driver downloaded (which is NOT provided by Creative).

With the Audigy card, if you pick and choose what you want to install at the start (Usuaully, I skip things like the IMtuner, oozic player, and Demo package as it really just takes up space for me...) it doesn't take as long as it would otherwise. Also, you'll run into less problems.

The install for me took about 15 minutes (Creative Labs Jukebox and the drivers), including the restart.

Audigy Gamer is a good sound card. It works very well with XP windows. I have a hp computer with XP windows. I put the card in my computer and then loaded the drivers and restared my computer and it worked great. The card came with 2 games they are ok but you have to use a mouse for them I wish you could use a joy stick it would be a lot more fun. Both games work ok on my computer. If you have only 2 speakers you should get the 5 to 1 speaker set. It would work alot better for you.

I haven't had any problems with this audio card and I can never hear any hiss coming from the speakers when the volume's turned up real loud. Sound is clear and crisp.

In particular, I'm very impressed with the amplification of the signal, as the Audigy easily sends a good enough signal to sound superb on my Sennheiser HD600 headphones--there's no need for the extra amplification that I previously needed with older, more underpowered sound cards. I also think that 3D positional audio sounds better through the headphones thanks to the Audigy's improved HRTF's, but that could also be because my speakers aren't arranged in the best possible way.

The built-in AC3 decoding (I'm not sure if this feature is implemented by the drivers or the hardware) is also really really helpful as it means I don't have to spend extra cash on a decoder or an audio pack for my DVD software.

My computer's motherboard also uses a VIA chipset, which previous Soundblaster cards are reported to have problems with, but everything's worked great so far for the most part, although there is a little bit of popping on a few games I play, but who knows where that's coming from.

This is perfect for the college dorm or small apartment. Good bass, although when watching movies one may need to turn it down in order to avoid distortion. The woofer should be placed in an enclosed area to really maximise its potential.

Speaker cables are problematic as they are not flexible for different layouts. Hiss levels on this speaker setup are also loud for something this small.

Overall, a good economy buy, but don't expect world class sound quality.

I've had these speakers for almost three years and can't believe that they've failed for some reviewers. They work just like brand new.

This system does what it says: it's designed for gamers. Q3A and CS games have perfect sound effects. You can feel the rockets exploding or count the bullets blasting out of your M16 with the subwoofer. Positioned correctly, the satelites provide spectacular surround sound. They are especially useful for those climatic ends when you need to hear where those footsteps or gunshots are coming from.

As an avid music collector, I can say that these speakers do a pretty good job of handling many types of music. However, it lacks warmth with classical and thrash (yes, old school Metallica and Sepultura). The sound comes out dry, which is why I'm giving this 4-stars.

I haven't had a chance to test the digital inputs, so I can't help you there. SB Live! 5.1 users like me should look for a different package if digital is so important (which it isn't... look at Klipsch!)

At 90 bucks (wherever you can find them), the ACS56 is a great bargain. My friend has an ATP 2.1 set that works great too. Altec Lansing is THE choice when you're looking for multimedia sound from low-end to the upper mid-range cost brackets.

I have these speakers for almost three years now and I'm very satisfied with the performance. Rock solid bass (don't compare it to Harmon Kardon or JBLs) at a very low price (I bought it for $52). If your Audio CD/MP3(VBR at 160-320Kbps range) is of good quality then it will certainly give out the best sound, same is the case with Games.

I had been looking for a good FM Tuner to use with my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. I had heard good reviews about this product so I picked it up. Now, I wasn't expecting crystal clear CD-quality sound, but I was expecting something listenable, which explains my disatisfaction with this product.

The product is easy enough to use. You plug the Belkin into the headphone or line out jack of your player, then find a poor quality radio station, tune your Belkin to it, and hit play. The Belkin can run on 2 AAA batteries or off your car's cigarette lighter. My first problem with it, is that the cigarette lighter adapter would not fit securely into the Belkin. It fell out at the slightest touch, as the hole in the Belkin was just too big. I either had to tape it in their, or had to run off the batteries, which run down surprisingly quick.

My next problem, is with the general size of the device. The cord that connects the Belkin to your audio player is about 3 inches long, which means you have to keep it right next to the player. You can't attach it to your dashboard or anything like that. It made it very awkward to change the song or skip through something on the player because I had this tuner hanging down from it.

My final, and biggest problem with the player is the poor reception. I tried it with three different vehicles, and two different MP3 players. I tried every single radio station I could find. I tried every tip I found on the Internet to get good quality. I adjusted the volume on the player and in the car. I turned on the radio first, and then the player, and vice versa. I just couldn't get a decent sound from it. It would sound okay for a few seconds, and then static.

Something to note, is that the poorest quiality station won't always give you the best sound. I sometims found that I received the bst sound from a station that I could somewhat get a broadcast from, even though the manual tells you to look for the weakest stations. The other problem is that if you're in your car, the signal strength of the radio stations change depending on where you are, so the sound quality is going to always vary. I also found that I could only get real good quality when I held the mp3 player and Belkin in my lap, and held onto it. As soon as I let go, I get a little bit of static. The range for this thing in a car is realistically about 2 feet.

One thing I did get a good reception with was with home stereos, where the quality was decent enough to use. But this was pretty pointless for me because I can simply plug in my mp3 player directly into the stereo anyway.

Bottom line, if you can live with subpar quality and don't mind the awkwardness of the Tuner, this is probably the best tuner you will find out there today. Unfortunately, that doesn't account for much until technology provides for better reception in the future.

I used to have an old-school iRock FM transmiter in my car to play my MP3 player through, but good as it was, it only ran on battery power. In the long run, that's a real drain on the wallet.
I found this little baby about 3 weeks ago, and for the money, I'd say it's worth just about every penny. It works every bit as well as the iRock (if not better), and it will probably last longer too.
Here's the rundown:
THE GOOD:
--Works on ANY unused station on your dial, from 88.1 to 107.9 MHz. (The iRock could only use four stations on the low end.)
--Four presets. You can store up to 4 stations in the memory and toggle through them with the touch of a button.
--12V DC power adapter. The TuneCast runs on batteries as well, but this is a moneysaver in itself. And with an automatic on/off, you don't even have to remember to turn it off when you leave the car.
--Compact. The iRock is about the size of a laptop mouse. The Tunecast's size is about 2/3 of that. With the help of a little Velcro, I was able to "hard mount" it neatly out of the way of everything.
THE BAD:
--When the Tunecast powers off, it doesn't remember the last station it was on when power is restored, even if it was a preset. It goes back to 88.1. Little bit of a pain when I'm taking off in the car, but a quick touch of the memory button, and I'm back in the groove.
THE UGLY:
--Nothing ugly about it. It's an all around keeper for sure.
All told, I'm very happy with this little tuner. If you want to travel with all your tunes, I think this is the way to go. Sure, it's a little pricey, but you get what you pay for.

i've never written a review of any of the products i've bought from amazon before, but i felt pretty compelled to write one about this.

if you consider the price and utility tradeoffs for this transmitter, its of good value. of course you can't expect to get cd quality transmission from this, but it works pretty well for the most part. the only bad thing i've found so far is that even on stations where i get the clearest signals, there is some static in the background. this static is only audible when a song is at a quiet part or when there is no song playing so it isn't as bad as you may think. other than that, the sound quality actually kind of surprised me. btw, i live in los angeles where almost every station has some sort of signal, which is also why i am surprised that the product works as well as it does.

overall, i am pleased with my purchase and although i haven't tried any other fm transmitters out there, i would recommend others to buy this if you can't use a cassette adapter.

For me, it's all about the sound quality. I have an MP3 CD player, and am very happy with it, but I wanted to try something with a little more storage. And don't get me wrong, this is a great piece of equipment in every regard but one: sound quality. I was shocked at how bad it was. It has almost no bass, and when you turn it up it immediately distorts badly. Over half of the EQ presets were unuseable due to high distortion, crackling, and so on. Turning up the volume past about three-fourths produced distortion on almost every EQ setting. I returned it to the store and went back to my excellent sounding MP3 CD player within a week.

When I was thinking about purchasing the 20 GB jukebox back in December, i was deciding between it and the I-Pod. Overall, I am pleased that I chose the Nomad because I would have used the full capacity of the more expensive I-Pod 5 GB hard drive already but on the Jukebox I still have a lot more room.

There have been a few annoying things about the Jukebox:
1) It doesnt put your songs in alphabetical order
2) Occasionally there are some buggy issues with it where it will shut itself down after I transfer songs to it from the computer. Also, of my 850 songs, it refuses to play one of them even though its in MP3 format
3) it turns on too easily
4)The battery gauge is completely inacurate (even tho the battery kife is pretty potent at about 4 hours per set of batteries)

In conclusion, the few flaws do not mar the great looks and monstrous storage space of the Nomad Jukebox 20 GB... its a great value and it is of good quality.

the nomad jukebox is not perfect. the main flaw's i've seen have been 1. crazy battery gauge. it goes to almost empty as soon as i turn on the device. however the EAX menu tells you the exact percent of battery you have left, which is accurate
2 it has frozen once or twice, but that only happens if i push too many buttons while it is switching songs
3 unpredictable battery use. i have managed to suck 5 or more hours out of the batteries, but dont count on it. expect 4, cause thats what you'll get. for your information, turning the device on uses 20-30% of the battery sometimes. if you can, leave it on when its on.
however these dissadvantages are minor compared to the advantages. my computer cannot handle more than 150 songs. but by storing music on my mp3 player, i can still have realtivly quick access to all my music. i dont have to carry around cds, and it is create to have such a flexible playlist. i usually put all my favorite and play them in random. i'll admit my nomad has some scratchs, but it still works great. the backlit screen is easy to see in pitch black, and the most important feature is the size i dont think i'll every come close to filling it.

We purchased the Nomad Zen DAP at Christmas 2003, by May of this year it's hard drive needs to be replaced. It only comes with a 90 day warranty, so we have to shell out $108.00 to get it repaired. Creative must really stand by their workmanship if they will only warrant their products for 90 days. You would be better off with a iPOD or Archos 6000. I have one each of those for years and they still function well full of music. Creative should hide their heads, and their products. What a waste of money !!

Ok I have to start by saying Amazon was the slowest ship time ever.. 9 days to ship although ups shipped it in 2 days.(11 total). That "usually ships in 24 hours" is crap but i didnt deduct points from the product for that because its just magnificent. Im on XP Pro. The Device menu is nice easy to find anything you want.. Although you will need ID3 Tags somewhat filled out but it has mass ID3 change on the app.. took me about 4 hours to setup ID3 tags on about 2900 songs.. as far as pc-zen transfer I dont have usb 2 port so it was goin at usb 1.1 bout 7 seconds a song 7*2900/60/60 about 5.6 hrs but I started it went to bed.. woke up and no problems whatsoever. 290 albums loaded and ready to go.. sounds just as good as a cd player bought a car cassete adapter works good. although hard to change albums and drive so you may need a copilot or a good playlist setup. I paid 224$ for it prolly could have found it for 210$ but oh well. size is nice ipod is about 3/4th the size but oh well it still fits nicely in my poket and is way smaller than an mp3 player. the menu setup is nice mainly based on id3.
-My Music-
+Tracks
-All Tracks
+Artists
-ArtistName
--submenu(open)
<-Lists Albums by artist
+Albums
-All Albums

not exactly but sumthin like that..
theres a few other things like.

Time Display
Surrent Song Display with good info..

Things i wish it had..

menu navigate is fine exept kinda hard to press the scroll navigator to select items

Stop button..not needed but pause/change track will show it as stoped

would have been nice if it had folder layout since thats how my music was sorted but no matter now.

back light button.. back light comes on for a few seconds when the navigate wheel is moved wish there was a diff way to turn it on and posibly keep it on..

but pros outway the cons and i really beleave its a better deal than ipod..

I've never written a review and I've bought from Amazon for years. I am so happy over my ZEN NX that I have to let everyone know. I've downloaded close to 300 CDs and still have over 4 gig left! The sound is amazing. The interface could not be easier. Files are listed by ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, PLAYLISTS and TRACKS. If I want to hear R.E.M. I can listen to "Out of Time" or one song or all 5 albums in order or in a shuffled order. If I'm exercising I can click on Techno and listen to every techno song in the jukebox. It's true the headphones aren't that great. The battery life isn't 14 hours. Did anyone mention the LEATHER carrying case? It's great but should have an opening so you could see the window. The aluminum face plate is ultra cool as is the green light. The scroll wheel is easy to figure out. The media source software is more than adequate. It downloads the track listings and then you copy the CDs. Who needs to pay $200 more for an iPOD?

I received the Lyra 2 as a gift and I can't beleive how lucky I was to get THE BEST MP3 player out there. Easy setup and installation. It comes with a 64 meg Compact flash card. I already have Compact flash cards for my digital camera and camcorder so if I need more space I don't have to buy expensive proprietary memory.

I can't beleive all the features this brings. It comes with nice 'street style' headphones, an in the cord remote, 64 meg Compact flash card and a complete car kit. Sound quality and battery life are A+. It has 6 preset EQ settings and a manual EQ. It has 7 different play modes (repeat, shuffle, etc.). It also includes an FM tuner with 15 presets.

By far, the best out there for the money!!!

I purchased mine ..., and was very happy with it from day one. After installing MusicMatch Plus (already had the basic version, but software included upgrades you to the Plus version for free), I bagan to download MP3's from the internet. My first problem was a strange hissing or ringing noise on some songs, but I soon discovered this was only on those ripped from CD's using Easy CD Creator. When I used MusicMatch to rip, the noise was gone. The sound is excellent - comparable to CD at 128 bitrate. My husband was satisfied with the 64 bitrate, allowing more music on the 64MB card. Downloading even 128MB of music to a CF card took only minutes on my computer (WindowsME), not 45 minutes for half of that as one person said (computer problem!) And the included CF card reader is also useful if you have a digital camera utilizing this media type. The only problem I had was when someone accidentally sat on my player, and the forward button got stuck down.... So I decided to fix it myself, and removed the little piece of brass that activated the forward button, stuck in the down position. It still works, I just can't use the forward button, so I can't use the radio or skip forward a song.

This MP3 player came with more features and peripherals than expected. It is easy to use and the MusicMatch Jukebox software has been great for copying files to memory cards. Any reviews that mention trouble with the software are end-user problems. It is light weight, does not use rechargeable batteries too quickly and I would recommend it to anyone.

Purchased XM because radio stations in my area are poor, and wanted Fox Sports Radio. Unit works good outdoors as long as the antenna is facing South. Indoors, they are not kidding when they say the antenna must be in a South-facing clear glass window. Having to keep the antenna facing South can also cause some portability issues. Also, would have liked to use at the office. No chance. My cubicle has no South-facing windows, so I also have no XM at work.

I received a Delphi SkyFi receiver with a home kit for Christmas last year, and I was immediately hooked. There is a great selection of channels, and I love the fact that I can listen to hours upon hours of uninterrupted music.

I got to the point that I wanted to take my Delphi receiver on the move with me, so I invested in the boombox. I was hesitant at first, because I feared an inferior sound quality, but I discovered that I could control the bass and treble through the receiver itself, and overall I have been very impressed by the quality of sound produced by these small boombox speakers.

The reception of the XM signal has been quite good, even when I listen to it in my office cubicle, far from any windows. The system instructions recommend pointing the antenna through a south-facing window, but I find that there are enough terrestrial repeaters in the Denver area (even as far north as Loveland) that I can get a signal almost anywhere.

I love this boombox, and have very few complaints. One complaint is the price. After spending $100 on the receiver, I hate to have to spend another $100 on the box, even though I've gotten a lot of use out of it. My other complaint is the volume knob. It is not always very responsive, and is not good for fine-tuning the volume. However, the receiver's remote works very well for adjusting the volume.

Overall, I recommend this system.

I was trying to find reviews of the Boombox for the Delpi XM Radio, but most of the reviews listed in this product are for the receiver, NOT the boombox.

I went ahead and purchased the boombox so I can have my XM Radio portable style. I have to say, that after a week of using the boombox, it is EXCELLENT.

The sound that comes from the boombox is EXCELLENT as well!

The boombox works off 8 D Cell batteries (not included of course), or an AC Adapter that is included.

The boombox has a 'portable' satellite antenna, that does mount out of the way on the back of the box, and comes with a 20 foot cable that, very discretely, stores in a section of the batter compartment, out of the way.

You can swivel the antenna upwards while still mounted on the back of the boombox to get a better signal, or you can remove the antenna and extend it up to 20 feet away from the unit to get your best signal.

I have found no reason to do this (extend the antenna), as I live in the north Dallas, TX area and have gotten perfect signals both outside my house (by the pool), or even in my kitchen under multiple florescent lights.

Your XM Radio Receiver simply slides in the slot in the front and 'clicks' in place, you turn on your receiver and, presto!, you have all the same radio you have when it is mounted in your car, but you can take it on the run.

I highly recommend this boombox product... it is well worth the money for what you get!

Mike Heine ('winterstone')