jvandegr's Full Review: Sony Walkman D-SJ301 Personal CD Player
For years, I've heard bad reviews of a lot of portable CD players because of their lack of durability. Companies didn't seem to understand that "portable" means
"vulnerable." Sony (and a couple other companies) introduced the "sports" style portables several years ago with the realization that people also wanted portable audio for active endeavors. Finally, CD players were more rugged.
Operation
This model (D-SJ301) is not only rugged, but extremely easy to operate, even when running, walking, sprinting to the airport terminal, etc. First, you put your hand through the included padded hand strap on the back of the unit. Your palm and fingers then easily wrap around the enlarged grip. Your thumb comes to rest on a small, non-protruding "joystick" on the top of the grip. With this joystick, it is easy to play, skip tracks, pause, and stop the player. Located near the joystick is volume dial, which is also easily (but thankfully not too easily) operated by your same thumb. All of these controls, as well as the sound setting and play mode buttons on the top lid, can be locked out by flipping the "hold" switch. This is designed to prevent accidental changing of settings while doing whatever active thing it is your doing. This model plays any properly created CD-R or CD-RW with no trouble. It has several play modes and includes a repeat track option. These are both easily selected via relatively large buttons on the front lid. Up to 64 tracks can be programmed fairly easily. The circular LCD display is noteworthy for its angled display and large numbers, which make it very easy to read.
Sound Quality
The included headphones are extremely lightweight and somewhat water-resistant, a good combination for outdoor activities or sweating it up in the gym. However, the payoff is only average sound quality. Bass is very poor, but treble and mid-range is reasonable. Quite frankly, when I'm running, I really don't care about the sound quality very much. I purchased a $20 pair of Sony studio monitors for use when I'm not outside and sound quality improved dramatically, especially when I boost the bass via the "sound" button. This button allows for the selection of three different bass levels.
Materials and Power Consumption
Sony made the wise choice of using more metal on this unit, although most of it is still plastic, which seems tough enough to take a few hard bumps. Speaking of hard bumps, the G-shock protection really works. Even when subjected to a lot of motion and a few knocks, I have not been able to make it skip. A rubber o-ring keeps the player water-resistant, including the battery compartment. Power and headphone ports both have rubber covers to keep water and dirt out when not in use. Usually, shock protection sucks batteries, but I've gone for over 40 hours on 2 AA alkaline batteries. You can select between 2 different shock protection levels to help prolong battery life. I'm very happy that Sony includes an AC adapter with this model so that I don't need to always rely on batteries. This adapter allows for certain rechargeable batteries to be recharged while in the unit.
Some Quality Issues
After a couple years of infrequent use, this Sony CD player is beginning to have some minor quality issues. First, the volume dial has suddenly become very underdampened. It spins too easily and there is too much play, making it somewhat difficult to adjust the volume level. Second, when I press play to turn the unit on, it frequently shuts itself off before playing a CD. Even when held motionless with fresh batteries and a scratch-free CD it does this. When this happens, it appears that the batteries have died, but I know better now. Opening and closing the lid a few times will eventually get it to work. Its behavior is not consistent at all; sometimes it doesn't do it, other times I have to open and close the lid several times. Again, this does not appear to be a battery or CD issue, but more of a reliability issue with the player.
Sony S2 sports CD walkman for great listening on the goPortable CD player is designed to endure all your sports adventures A/V device has 64-track RMS...More at Overstock.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.