Sony CD / MP3 player

Sony has done a bang up job on their latest and greatest MP3/CD player.

The retail was at $119.99 (for all Brits out there, this is about £75). The package comes with headphones, a strap so you can prevent it from slipping from your hands, and of course the player itself.

The player is small, lightweight, and efficient. It’s smaller and lighter than 'regular' CD players. The top has see through plastic so you can actually see your CD spinning which looks cool. The design is silver, sleek and thin.

The AudioCD player functionality does its job, although I rarely use it. It supports CD-text so if your burner supports it, you can have labels for each track. The CD-audio player can run for 30hrs+ with a fast forward/rewind function available. Although impressive, by the late 90's CD-audio playback has been optimized to run almost perfectly on any player, so this isn’t much of a big deal.

The Mp3 playback is what impressed me most. It supports id3 tags which are cool, although I rarely use it. The small LCD display is NOT backlit (cant read it in the dark) and scrolls kind of slow. The DJC01 will buffer a big chunk of the song and play it back from on-board memory. You will notice after you press play, it will stop spinning after 3/4 seconds (after it’s been buffered) but continue playing for minutes. This is where the G shock/anti skip technology comes into play. I jog/workout with high impact aerobics and have never had this player skip on me. I only had it skip once (while walking) when I was using really old batteries. The battery life is decent, at least 20 hours on 2 alkaline batteries. If you’re a fan of rechargeable alkaline batteries, you'll love using them with this player, I can use 2 rechargeable batteries for at least 2 months (I use it for at least an hour every day).

One drawback to this player is that the buttons are awkwardly positioned. Granted, when I am sitting on the subway the buttons are easy to find, but if you work out, you may fumble around looking for "next track" rather than "next folder".

Navigation in MP3 mode is sufficient. You can skip folders and skip tracks but there is no fast forward/rewind. This upset me at first, but it really isn’t that bad, I rarely fast forward/rewind anyway.

The sound quality (in both modes) is quite good when you are using decent headphones. Maximum volume is pretty loud, but at high volumes the sound becomes garbled with bass. The player supports 2 bass boost modes but you can’t customize the exact EQ like other new mp3 players. Remember, this is Sony, their preprogrammed bass modes are going to be awesome -- "Bass 2" will make almost any flat sounding song come out like a High-Quality HI-FI song. If you hold the "sound" button, you will activate the AVLS mode, which I have never used on any CD player I have purchased. It’s mostly for using the Line Out feature (too hook up to your stereo) which also works well.

The player also comes with a hold switch, which is pretty standard, and it does the job. Also there is a program button to repeat the current song/folder/play list, or make your own list on the fly.

The DJC also supports CD-R's and CD-RW's and handles both quite well. I have been using just one CD-RW for the past 6 months, rewriting it with new songs I want every so often.

This player is a dream come true for any audiophile/tech lover.