Portable CD player
2008-08-21

 Portable CD player

A portable CD player is a portable audio player used to play Compact Discs. Portable CD players were first introduced in the 1980s, but weren't predominant until the 1990s when anti-skip players were sold. At first, most people thought of personal CD players to be no more portable than a cassette player. Also, since it had no anti-skip feature, they couldn't be used in a portable manner. But in the early 1990s, companies introduced shock absorption to minimize the skipping, which while making them useless for heavy activities, allowed them to be portable. After that refinement, most people used CD players rather than cassette players. Then in 1997, Electronic Skip Protection was used on portable CD players to make it possible for heavy activity use.

Portable CD players have been dominated for years in the media market, and have boosted many electronic company's success, namely Sony's. But since digital audio players, like MP3, MP4, were introduced, the market share of CD player decreased. Now, CD players are still being produced, however, but now many have MP3, WMA, and CD-R capabilities to keep sales up. Thinness is also a big factor, getting thinner and smaller with each revision.

Since introduced, the portable CD player field is dominated by Sony, audiophiles at CNet and Dimension Music say, mostly due to its outstanding "G-Protection," which virtually eliminates skips. Since experts spend the majority of their time reviewing MP3 players and iPods these days, we found no current coverage in professional magazines and websites. Consumer Reports' last comprehensive review of portable CD players dates from 2002, and all the tested models have been discontinued. We found the most reliable reviews to be those posted by owners at Amazon.com, CircuitCity.com and BestBuy.com.

Portable CD players have almost completely lost market share to MP3 players. However, for those who have a collection of CDs and no desire to spend hours converting them to digital format on a computer, portable CD players are still available. The majority of devices today are hybrid players -- that is, models that play both standard CDs and CD-R/CD-RW discs encoded with MP3 files. While many portable CD players do well in reviews, the very basic Coby CX-CD329 (*est. $15) gets low ratings from consumers. At Amazon, owners write that it's flimsy, feels cheap and is poorly constructed. Other common complaints are that the batteries don't last very long and the anti-skip protection doesn't work.

Sony D-NF400 CD Walkman Review Sony's D-NF400 CD Walkman is a well thought out CD player which supports standard audio, MP3 and Sony's ATRAC3 CDs. It offers long battery life, good button layout, a very useful LCD information display and a variety of control choices to enhance your listening experience. Uninterrupted playback via a memory buffer is offered for those times when the player takes a bump. It also can tune to FM, AM, TV and weather stations, with the ability to program 51 total presets. Portable CD players have been around for awhile now. As you wander the aisles of your favorite electronics store staring at all of the plastic packages beckoning your eyes, what features should you consider which will give you the best music experience? Check out our list of recommended ones below. • Anti-Skipping One of the worse things when listening to a CD is when the music skips, especially when you are jostling your player around. How can you keep your music from jumping around? Anti-skipping technology is the answer and it comes it two flavors for you to consider. One, anti-shock, strengthens the laser which reads your CD so there is less likelihood of it missing a beat. The other, a memory buffer, reads the music slightly ahead of what you are hearing and stores it temporarily so that if you hit a bump, you still hear the tunes while the player quickly gets back on track. • Bass Boost When you are pounding hard on the treadmill or the jogging path, nothing gets your blood pumping harder then a high energy song. Want to take it up even a notch further? Consider bass boost, also known as mega boost, which will highlight the deep sounding parts of your tunes to give it an extra edge and feel. • Types of CDs Supported With practically ever computer coming with a CD burner these days, it's very easy to copy music onto a CD-R (writable to only one) or CD-RW (writable to multiple times) disc to take with you. Not all portable CD players support MP3-CDs, as they are known, however. Of those that do, they may only support CD-R or CD-RW, but not both. It’s important to know which types your player will be able to read. • Radio with Presets Sometimes you may just grow tired of listening to the CD you have in your player. Still want some tunes? Consider having a built-in radio with presets so you can always jump to your favorite radio station at the touch of a button.