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I'm looking for 2 - one for a gift and one for me. My old Sharper Image CD player died.
I don't care about fancy bells and whistles -- just decent sound, AM/FM radio (what's the deal with some products that have ONLY FM radio??) and CD player. No need for cassette player.
There's an Insignia cheapie from Best Buy (under $40 I think), and a few Sony Boombox versions on Amazon.
I have an ancient Sony boombox with an RCA "line in" connection that I use with a Roland keyboard since one of the channels on its original amp crapped out. Sound is decent for something in that price range. The bass is there (using bass boost), but with less power. Those boomboxes simply can't put enough power into inexpensive speakers without clipping and distortion, but the Sony engineers did the best they could. A lot of radio uses compression and other degradations, so I don't worry about super hi-fi. Radio is going digital, and a boombox is unlikely to have the circuits to decode that, but should still be useful for a few years.
I was like "No one sells cassette players any more....then I looked... wow. I'm wrong!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by catfancier
I don't care about fancy bells and whistles -- just decent sound, AM/FM radio (what's the deal with some products that have ONLY FM radio??) and CD player. No need for cassette player.
It's cheaper to not include the AM antenna.
Quote:
There's an Insignia cheapie from Best Buy (under $40 I think), and a few Sony Boombox versions on Amazon.
Just keep in mind, these types of devices do not provide earth shattering or heavy bass. They sound good enough though. I have no idea how the Sharper Image unit sounded. It's all subjective anyway.
When the weight of the unit is ONE pound, and the output is only 2 watts RMS, I don't think I would elevate that unit to "quality." It might be time to hit a thrift store or pawn shop for an older generation of ghetto blaster.
When the weight of the unit is ONE pound, and the output is only 2 watts RMS, I don't think I would elevate that unit to "quality." It might be time to hit a thrift store or pawn shop for an older generation of ghetto blaster.
These days, they make ghetto blasters that will knock your socks off.
The issue is the CD Player.
If you could get one of those small portable discman type players and hook it up to BT "Boom" Box, then you could play CDs and get great sound.
Not up to me obviously. I play music from my phone to a variety of devices. I haven't touched a CD in years, literally.
If it helps any, be aware most stand alone dvd players can play cds. The problem you have is getting the Ghetto Blaster that one way or other handles cds. If you find such, guessing either radio or player isnt going to be great quality. You might want to look for a good radio (especially if long range AM is important to you) and separately a good portable cd/dvd player. Or move along with the times and rip your cds to mp3 files. Lot easier to find something that can play mp3.
My advice is don't go cheap, as I think you will regret it later.
I have a Bose Wave, about 10 years old, with a single CD player and AM/FM. The sound is still excellent and remarkable for the size. They are not cheap, but I see that they're on sale at $275, which is less than I paid a decade ago.
Well then OP, I think the question is do you want/need portable or not?
If not, there are many good options to play CD's
If yes, the choices are limited and the sound will not be that great if you want everything in one unit.
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