Looking for a Good Portable CD player

[Exit]

I am looking for a good currently available protable CD player. Does anyone have suggestions on what brand or model would be good (or to be avoided). Also if you can say where it can be bought and approximate price that would be helpful. I am looking for performance, reliability, easy operation and good battery life. Cost is not so much of a factor. I have good headphones already so that is not a factor. I do 95% of my music listening with a portable CD player and headphones. MP3 playback is a plus although not a deal breaker. I've been looking through Best Buy, Circuit City and Radio Shack, especially owner comments, but I thought forum members might have good advice.

 

[markw]

These are pretty much commodities nowadays. Interest has waned since MP3's hit and there's no real development in this area.

Go for price and features. FM is a nice addition, though.

 

[Exit]

Yea I guess Portable CDs don't get much interest nowadays. I went with a $35 Phillips at Circuit City which was rated highly by 70 some buyers. The thing that clinched it for me was unusually long battery life with this unit.

 

[bandphan]

if you can find a used sony d555, they originated from there pro audio division, and can be got for 30-40 dollars

 

[Hi Ho]

I realize you asked specifically about CD players but is there any particular reason you don't want an MP3 player? They are much more compact and hold a lot more music.

 

[Exit]

I still prefer CDs because I have a lot of them, I have read that they have better audio quality than MP3s, and I don't want to take the time to convert them to MP3s. I have made MP3 CDs for the car however. I have a 10 CD changer so I can load it with about 100 hours of MP3s. The car audio system sounds good with the MP3s because of the high ambient noise from the road/car drowns out low level parts of songs more on CDs. I don't see myself downloading single MP3 songs because I like to listen to a whole CD at a time. I can see the MP3 appeal for others though, especially those just starting a music collection. Why by a whole CD if you only like one or two songs in it? Fortunately over the years I have collected quite a few CDs where I like the whole CD. Sometimes the non-hit songs grow on you more as you get tired of hits to the point where you like the non-hit songs better.

 

[bandphan]

I realize you asked specifically about CD players but is there any particular reason you don't want an MP3 player? They are much more compact and hold a lot more music.

as hiho said why not, rip your cds them move them to the portable, and your not limited to mp3 as a format. Do a search on FLAC, or OggVorbis as a higher quailty alt.

 

[Exit]

Bassaholic Portable CD/MP3/WAV Combination

I looked up FLAC and OggVorbis as suggested as I was not familiar with those formats. Unless I missed something, they need a compatible playback device or a PC. The most flexible portable CD players I found were CD/MP3/WAV and a few Sony had ATRAK, but I don’t know what that is either. If I were to try and backup 350 CDs on a hard drive, I would probably try FLAC and then consider a FLAC compatible portable for transfer. It’s the time it takes to process 350 CDs that is the drawback for me. Its easier to just use the CDs for now. I really only use the portable CD player around the house and ultra compact portability is not a big issue.

In the way of a discovery, my new CD/MP3/WAV player (Phillips PHL EXP2561) has a strong bass bias and my Sennheiser HD212Pro headphones also have a strong bass bias. Together they have a really strong and deep bass output for a headphone, maybe too much. The bass is clear and undistorted though. Use of the bass boost circuit is overwhelming. If you have always been disappointed with the bass of headphones, this combination may be your answer. The mids and highs are a little lacking with the strong bass bias, but I am getting use to that. I only listen to rock and this combination really kicks. I haven’t heard good strong bass like this for a long time and it is pretty fun.

 

[stratman]

Got to Mediamonkey.com, you can get the lesser version free, the "gold" for 20.00 dollars, I've had it for 2 years now and it's worked flawlessly, you can rip and burn in many formats, I like WAV or FLAC as they're "lossless" and almost universal in acceptance. Forget the portable CD player get yourself an MP3 player that supports any lossless format and rip and burn away! You'll be happier.

 

[Geno]

Stratman's right on this one...once you've gotten a MP3 player and made up some playlists, you'll never want to go back to hauling CDs around again. The audio quality of a high-bitrate MP3 is, IMHO, practically identical to the original CD.

 

[Exit]

Thanks for the advice. You guys are bound and determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century on music media. Now I will have to get into the subject and see what I want to do with software and hardware.

 

[patnshan]

My Sony and TDK portable CD players are in the closet, it has become this:http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zenvisionm/

I love it and would highly recommend it. I use 256 Kbs MP3's and think they sound good, but it will decode higher if you need it to.

Pat

 

[Exit]

That Creative Zen 60GB player looks pretty cool. From the accessories it looks like you can connect into your HT audio and video. I also see it has a corded remote available but I didn’t see the cord length. What I would like in a player, besides being portable, is to use it like a CD changer in my HT. I would like to select a whole CD as opposed to individual songs. I would like to be able to sit on a couch 15 feet away and select CDs with a wireless remote. I would like the selection control screen to be displayed on my TV. I would like it to hold at least 400 hours of music. Would this player work like this, with the exception that it has a corded remote? If not is there some other player that would? Any ideas?

 

[corey]

My thought would be to split your player need in two, & let form follow function. Select a portable without concern for remote control, and select an HT player without concern for portability.

My favorite mp3 player through my HT is my son's Xbox 360. It can access the complete media library on my computer, and puts on a pretty good Hi Def light show on the TV while doing so. It's easy to select your music by Artist, Album, Genre or Playlist, and it's good at creating playlists on the fly.

There's also a lot of less expensive products that will let you access the music & pictures on your computer. I don't know it it's available anymore, but I've also got a Linksys Wireless Media Adapter (around $75) that does the job pretty well.

 

[Exit]

More inputs the better!

Thanks for all the inputs guys.

I think what I want to buy for a media player is to have one portable player that stores all my CDs (in a lossless format?). It would be portable and you could take it around the house or elsewhere and listen with headphones. You could also plug it into your HT audio and use it with a TV video display and a wireless remote. I like the idea of maintaining just one computer music database for backup and just one single multipurpose player for all music outlets. While the designers are at it, it would be smart to make this one player also compatible for playback in a car’s stereo system. The player would be a complete music collection that acts like a single CD that can be moved from HT DVD player to portable CD player to car CD player. It would essentially be one device that replaces three. Maybe you have to use multiple devices now, but it is logical that designers will move in this direction in the future, if they have not already.

For hone MP3 playback my son has a PS3 which I believe functions like the Xbox 360 for music playback. The only problem is that his PS3 is generally hooked up in his bedroom instead of the HT. Also, he does not let me touch it.

Maybe I am just a year or two away from what I want to buy or maybe it is here today? Keep up with the ideas. I am interested now.

I might try ripping CDs with Mediamonkey now because it might take me a year or more to get the task done. I ripped some CDs with Roxio and I was disappointed with where the song breaks fell and I couldn’t get them to modify. Does Mediamonkey allow you to adjust song breaks, especially in live concert CDs?