Portable-CD-Player Reviews

I just recently purchased this product and it is a great unit. The sound quality is good (I personally upgraded my headphones) and there is no skip thanks to ESPMax. I also run around a lot so it really is a good workout player. The AVLS system is wonderful and helpful. Megabass is great! Also, the lid is heat resistant which helps when out in the sun. But best of all is the digital AM/FM tuner! It's great because if I get tired of listening to my CDs, I can just press a button and boom! The radio is on! Overall I found this product to be fun and practical. Hope this review was of help to you!

I DID ALOT OF SHOPPING AROUND TO RPLACE MY 2 MONTH OLD CD PLAYER, THAT HAD ALREADY BROKEN. AFTER READING THE REST OF THE REVIEWS, I DECIDED TO BUY THIS ONE. AND I SURE AM GLAD I DID! IT IS AWESOME. IT WAS BETTER THEN WHAT I HAD SUSPECTED. THERES AWESOME BASS, AND THERES AN AWESOME, 25 FM STAION PRESET, AND 5 STATION AM PRSET, RADIO! I WOULD REALLY VERY MUCH RECCOMEND THIS ITEM, ITS JUST GREAT!

My Grandfather had bought me this a couple of years ago and it lasted me up intill a couple of days ago well let me tell you I am the worst when it comes to dropping things! I was always dropping it. Well when it broke i decided to but a new one I went through a long list of nearly 200 and still found myself liking this one best!

I bought this [thing] at [a local retailer] for my art studio. I just wanted something cheap and simple. Little did I know that it would sound this good. Believe me, I'm a nut when it comes to having all the surround speakers, a powerfull receiver, etc. So I mean it when I say the sound is amazing with this unit. I thought the "surround mode" was a gimmick. I was wrong. The Philips sounds better than some of the nicer stereos I've owned. Ain't that a kick?

I've always felt Philips electronics are head and shoulders above the rest. I have a good stereo setup, components, but as an extra (or even as your main system if you don't have another setup), you can't imagine how fabulous the sound is that emanates from the AZ1560. I was blown away when I heard it at my brother's, who's a real music / equipment buff and only uses the best. I could swear it was coming from his regular stereo system. I believe the AZ1560 has recently been discontinued, but was able to get one of the last three units they had. I'm sure some of Philip's other boom boxes sound great, too, and I wouldn't hestitate to buy any Philips product. But, if you can get your hands on this model, it's the very best sound I've heard from a boom box and I've owned four. Packs an incredible punch for the buck!

I have been a musician all of my life. Grow up to the sounds of big band. Played in the Navy. This boombox has a big sound from a small source. Five stars for sure.

I bought this cd player close to a year ago and am satified to say that it hasnt given me problems until recently. Id like to add to that though that it was my fualt...go figure. I highly reccomend this item for anyone who likes to listen to music without all the skipping, and stopping etc, but without the large price tag. My favorite features of this player are the bass boost,volume limiter,(avls)and the 4 different play modes. i would have given this product 5 stars if it had a pause button. But hey, no biggy. Hope this will help you with your purchase.

This Walkman is awesome. The skip free thing is great and I have never had one skip on this CD player since I bought it last June. Even when I flip it over, the Walkman plays without interruption. The simple interface and lack of confusing buttons is a plus and the bass control is also a nice feauture. This is much better then any of my friend's portable CD players. Low price, bass control, good features, lightweight, non-skip, what more could you ask for? The only negative is the lame headphones it came with. Two pairs of these broke before I finally made the right choice of buying the Sony Street Style headphones. Those are reccomended. The Walkman is great!

Exellent Sound and Quality. Lightweight and perfect size. You won't make a mistake if you buy it!!!

I have had this player for a year or 2, and it is aboslutely great. Its taken a few bangs, but that didnt hurt it at all, jus maybe a scratch of the paint. It runs like new, and has a LOT of great features such as 1x or 2x bass boost, radio with digital tuner, resume (starts you from where you left off), hold (locks the buttons), repeat, repeat all, shuffle, scan, 45 second anti-skip, and a clock with an alarm and choice of playing buzzer, cd, or radio. I would highly recomend this player to anyone, it is solid, and doesnt scratch cd's at all, even when its jolted. If you're lookin for a great player, get this one.

This is a really good CD player. The features that are included in it are tremendous. For [the money] you get a great cd player, an ac adapter, and headphones. The radio that is included is AM/FM and has the best reception I have ever heard. The headphones act as FM, and the AM antenna is built into the CD player. Normal alkaline batteries can last up to 22 hours! Another great thing is that the CD player never skips. It also has an alarm clock, a clock, and 99 track programming. The ac adapter works very well. The best thing of all though is the sound- it has 2 bass modes and it sounds likes the music is coming from very good speaker.....

I had a hard time choosing between Philips AZ923017 and the similarly featured and priced Aiwa XP-R210. The Aiwa XP-R210 is very nice looking and also has a digital tuner and plays CD-RW's as well. It has bigger buttons that are easier to press while driving, but it doesn't have a clock and alarm that Philips has, which is something I really wanted. I bought the Aiwa for its looks and ease of use, but after reading the Amazon reviews, I agonizingly decided to exchange the Aiwa for the Philips. I couldn't have been happier with the decision! The Philips CD player is everything the Amazon reviewers said it would be, and more.

First thing, if you're hoping to open the plastic packaging with as little destruction as possible for return purposes, good luck. I found it difficult to do so, and ended up with about five scratches and two band-aids on my hand. But after the battle, I found the player to be a true keeper. The big difference between the two is that the Aiwa uses 5V of power while the Philips uses 4.5V. Neither of them comes with a car kit, but there are plenty of third-party car adapters that can supply 4.5V. It's hard to find one that can handle Aiwa's 5V and I didn't want to rely on batteries.

The Good Stuff: The digital tuner is excellent. The AM antenna is inside and the headphone cord acts as the FM antenna. The alarm clock function is great. It can be set to alarm with a beeping sound, the tuner, or a CD. I use a powered external speaker and a CD to wake me up. The standard sound and two extra DBB levels sound very nice. The DBB levels produce very clear bass boosts. The player has two small rubber footpads that keep the player from sliding around. My CD's haven't skipped yet, even after I pounded the player a few times, which I wouldn't recommend but it was still fun. The player also comes with a power adapter and huge bulky headphones. Also, pressing a button wakes up the player, but it can cause accidental wake up calls. If you had batteries inside and accidentally pressed a button, the player would wake-up and stay on without you being aware of it.

The Minor Stuff: The buttons are a bit small but workable. I would have preferred larger buttons for use while driving where I could feel my way around the player without looking at it. The power off button is the "Stop" button, but a power switch would have been nice to prevent accidental wake-up calls. The volume control wheel is also small and nearly flush with the casing making it a little difficult to control. The battery compartment is inside the CD compartment, which requires you to remove the CD to change batteries, but unless you plan on using cheap batteries with a two-hour life span, this is very minor. The high beeps from pressing the buttons is probably the most annoying of everything else and I don't believe this can be muted, but eventually you get used to it.

Overall, I gave the Philips AZ923017 five stars because it has all the features I wanted in a CD player. The design issues are very minor and don't take away from the overall quality of the player. I recommend this CD player to anyone who likes to burn his or her own CD's. If you are as picky as I am when it comes to burning CD's, using CD-RW's gives you the added flexibility in making your perfect music CD's.

I found the hold switch to be very useful.. it prevents the player from turning on (or shutting off) accidently when it travels in your backpack. Very pleased overall.

OK, it sounds very nice! But why did Amazon say there was a "built in" rechargeable battery (some reviewers said so, too). I think that Amazon was reporting on a different model, maybe the AZT9505 instead of AZT9500. This model only has battery compartment, necessitating separate batteries (rechargeable or otherwise, alkaline or other). All in all, features are swell and I'm %500 better off having ditched my cassette player. I really appreciate the power-saver mode, too.

Ordered a cheap memorex mp3-cd player which broke, then ordered this one and have had no problems! The FM tuner is great because if their is a lot of static or interference, you can switch it to MONO mode which cuts back on the interference and keeps some sound quality. Even though it doesn't have MP3 support I would still recommend it. A+.

...Things I Like:
The build quality.
Fit and finish.
Good sound at reasonable levels.
Nice, small yet functional remote
Straight forward controls.
The ability to turn the unit off from the remote
The ability to store 30 radio presets regardless of AM or FM
Price ...

Things I Don't Like:
The AZ4000 does not remember where you left off on a track.
You can not turn the unit on from the remote.
The AZ4000 does not read ID3 tags.
Scrolling Text. I find it slow & annoying.
Song titles appear only after the track begins playing.
There are no tone presets.
There is no way to dim or turn off the display (except when using battery power)
There are no auxiliary inputs.

The Basic Package:
For starters, I need to say that I am happy with my purchase of the Philips AZ4000/17 as it meets my basic needs for which I bought it for.
I have yet to find the perfect portable MP3 audio device and the AZ4000 is not perfect by any means, but it is a solidly built machine that does many things quite well.
Most of my gripes have to do with the lack of functions that I think a MP3 machine should have.
The AZ4000 is a solidly built machine whose fit and finish are exemplary for a portable boom-box.
The styling is quite unique and does not look very much like anything else out there.
The controls are straight forward, easy to understand and are tight fitting.
The AZ4000 has a manual volume knob, which I prefer to the up & down arrow buttons frequently found on portables.
It runs on 8 D cell alkaline batteries and it also uses a detachable power cord instead of a wall-wart type power supply which is a good thing.
The remote is small and controls Volume, Source Selection, CD Transport Functions, Tuner Scan and Presets.

...The Sound:
The sound is very good for a boom-box in it's size and price range. I compared it to about 7 other MP3 capable boom-boxes at a local retailer and it sounded better than all that were there, including the Sony Sports ZS-X3CP.
In a small room at moderate levels the AZ4000 does an admirable job of reproducing audio from all 3 sources, CD, MP3 & Tuner.
The sound does fall short of a good mini shelf system with detachable speakers or the Bose Wave CD-3000, but the Bose does not play MP3's and costs considerably more.

Functionality:
The controls on the AZ4000 worked well, as expected. The AZ4000 plays MP3's and CD's quite well, but what surprised me was that it played badly encoded MP3's better than any other MP3 portable I have tried.
When I first began shopping for an MP3 machine, I brought a few CDs with MP3's burned at different bitrates, both constant and variable.
The AZ4000 played all of the MP3 files, and it played a few that none of the other units were able to play, including the Sony ZS-X3CP.

Utility:
Although the AZ4000 is well built and quite sturdy, it's cloth exterior and finer finish makes this machine more of a home machine that can be moved from room to room or used in the garage and patio.
It really isn't an on-the-go beater to toss in and out of the car on a regular basis. For those who need more of an outdoor, weather resistant machine that can take daily abuse, the Sony ZS-X3CP would be a better choice.

Dislikes:
My biggest complaint about the AZ4000 is it's MP3 feature set and considering this is a MP3 music machine, Philips really missed the boat on this one. Unlike many portable MP3 players, the AZ4000 does not remember where you left off on a track. To make matters worse, there is no direct numerical entry or even a times ten (X10) track advance. So if you are 3 minutes into track 145 and have to stop for some reason, you lose your place and to get back is a pain. There are a few other things that are on my dislike list but this one impacts me the most...

I've had this boombox for about 5 months now. After a month or so, it stopped recognizing CD's, both CD-Rs and regular audio CD's. I returned it (just past the 30 day warranty, but a nice rep from pcconnection.com still exchanged it) and my 2nd one has not had any problems whatsoever. The sound is awesome. I usually turn the UltraBass off to conserve battery power, however. This is a hefty boombox (especially with 8 D cells) so I wouldn't want to walk up and down the beach with it all day, but it's nice to have at a picnic. Technical specs say there is a 3 band equalizer (Treble, Bass can be set from -5 to +5) and then there is the UltraBass button (which overrides the regular Bass setting). I don't know if I'd call that a 3-band EQ, but I'm not into marketing... The remote offers every function except setting the sleep timer and turning the unit on. I imagine that you can't turn the unit on with the remote because that would require the boombox to use up some kind of 'standby' power - draining batteries. I paid [$$$]for the unit and compared it to the Sony MP3 boombox at the same price. I like the looks of the Sony more, but I knew that I'd get better bass from a bigger boombox. I also haven't had much luck with Sony portables and FM reception. I really enjoy the AZ4000's radio reception (& 30 presets).

This is the best sounding boom box I have heard in years! Compares only to the Bose Acoustic Wave Music System that cost me ($$$) and does not play MP3.

The MP3 playback can only display the song after it is playing so it can be difficult to search for a song if you do not know the album number and song number. A minor drawback is that it is bigger than your average boom box but the sound more than makes up for that. For me it is all about the sound so for me this is the best MP3 boom box in the market.

CD Player that was originally sent was incorrect. Upon notification to seller, we received an immediate response of apology and a new one was sent within a few days.

Great service!

I bought this about a month ago and it works really well! It has never skipped, the reception for the radio is good and it plays the CD's I burned without a problem! A great buy!

I recently purchased the Sony portable disc player to use primarily for jogging and exercising. I frequently run off-road three to five miles a day, and this CD player has yet to skip on me once. I highly recommend this player.

If you're one who tends to set your cd player and keeps all original settings to the end of the cd, this player is perfect. Sound quality and the anti skip feature are flawless and exceeded my expectations. Changing settings, however, requires removing the unit from your carrying case. Unlike some players that have a dial type volume control on the bottom and a slit in the bottom of the carrying case to access this control, no such convenience exists here. My answer was to superglue a stainless steel belt clip to the back of the player to leave the controls accessible. However . . . since the controls are so small and virtually indistinguishable by feel, some physical contortion is still needed to make changes. Once again, the sound quality is wonderful (even with RW CDs)and I haven't experienced a single skip while jogging. Were I to do it again however, I'd spend a little more for a panasonic with remote control.

I wanted a portable CD player but didn't want to invest alot of money. I found this one and decided to give it a shot. I haven't been disappointed yet. This CD player is lightweight and easy to carry in your hand while walking down the street. I have not experienced any skipping, even while quickly dodging traffic on busy Chicago streets. But most impressive is the 'hold' feature that when activated locks all the controls. This is ideal because the player can't be accidently turned on and your batteries won't wear down. Talking about batteries, they have a long life too! If you're looking for a good value for your money this may be it!

This player is great! It has stacks of features and is great value. The remote is really handy and the headphones are very good too. The Anti skip works really well and can easily match sonys G Protection. Compared to sonys player of the same price range this player blows it away in terms of features and sound quality. Sonys next model up is matched by this product in terms of features but this player is much, much better value. If you are looking for a player which is packed full of great features at a very resonable price, look no further, for the panasonic SX280 is the best value out there.
...

I bought the boombox to listen to non-music content, e.g. books on tape and news. As it happens, its music ability is pretty good, and logic controls for all functions makes it a pleasure to operate. The only drawback so far is a somewhat noisy tape mechanism--audible at low volumes, but not too distracting.

I've had it only for only a month, but so far I am quite pleased with the purchase.

I recently received the Aiwa CSD-FD92 and am VERY satisfied with my purchase. It is an excellent value considering the great sound (best I've heard in a boom box) and the extra features (incl. remote, able to modify sound to pop, rock or jazz, etc., etc.). I plan on buying more for other members of my family as they all want to borrow mine! If you're looking for a reasonably-priced boom box with great sound, you won't be disappointed with this item.

The sound quality is excellent for the price range. Great for a small room. This unit has a lot of features that are only seen in models costing ...more! cd-r & cd-rw compatible, autoreverse cassette player.

Ever since we Bought this like 2 years ago its till working great. its a great stereo for the money but if your looking for somthing to pump out bass and somthing pretty loud try a biger stereo cause this one is a little quieter than some other boomboxes its size, but still a great deal

I bought one of these for myself about 2 1/2 years ago. It's an attractive, rugged and lightweight unit. My kid's kept stealing it so I finally broke down and bought each one of them one of their own. All three have worked flawlessly for over 2 years despite being moved around a lot.

The base is a bit weak, but other than that the sound quality is excellent. Radio reception is excellent as well.

What I really like about it, however, is that the volume is well regulated. It's not that you can't play it loud--you can. But it does stop well short of deafening.

This makes it an ideal indoor unit. Loud enough to play while taking a shower without letting the whole neighborhood know what you are listening to.

On the whole, a tremendous value for the money.

I bought two of these units thinking as a gift for an elderly parent it would be nice and I needed something for my workroom. I was realy impressed with the features and the well intergrated sound. Getting a remote for so little is amazing but getting auto reverse on a good sounding tape deck as well as many other features made this one of the best buys I made this year. Mom loves it and so do I. It is not terribly powerful but sounds great. The combination of features as well as portability make this a great little stereo system for travel a kids room or in my case my office.