For the buck, it's a bang
Written: Oct 25 '00 (Updated Nov 23 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reasonable value, especially for the money
Cons: less than perfect, but I wasn't expecting perfection
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| zoots's Full Review: Sony Walkman D-E200 Personal CD Player |
We own a Plymouth Neon with the factory auto reverse cassette stereo. Now, with it being 5 years old the cassette of course is having fits. It won't play a tape forward, it sounds like it's stretching or eating it, so you have to play it "backwards". The trouble is, the reverse won't work either. Depending on a variable that seems to be temperature, it will work the first try or completely refuse to reverse play.
Those who know me will see this goes right along with my normal run of fortunes. Those who have also read my other reviews will know I'm into high end audio gear and may wonder why I even suffer with factory car audio.
It's that last term I find the trouble with. "Car audio" to me is like one of those George Carlinisms like "jumbo shrimp". Those who understand high end home sound find car audio appalling, no matter what the cost. Lets face it, all car decks, even the CD ones, sound bad even compared to average low end home setups.
Particularly when the goal of car audio seems to be to reach a level of such volume and bass reverb that the vehicle is no longer even touching the ground. For someone like me who enjoys tube preamp and magnepan sound, car audio is the netherworld.
But here I was. We were going on vacation again, and I painfully remembered the last trip when my wife, who is a stubborn PA Dutchwoman, put in a tape, tried to reverse it, it refused, so she just keeps trying it, varying what she's doing as if using "body english" is going to somehow help.
Between the noise and the constant machine clicking, I was ready to scream. And she knows I hate it, but it didn't stop her. After what was probably a minute (which seemed like an eternity to me) I switched it off on her, yelled something and if I could have ripped it out of the dash and tossed on the road, I would have. I was mad, she got mad, and the rest of the way home was all hissy. Dunnervetternachemol!
So I was not going to have this trip end this way. I knew if I didn't spend at least close to $200 for a new car deck, the damn thing would probably sound bad and cause trouble of it's own in a few years. I did not want to spend that much for what I consider junk. I needed cheaper junk!
So I decided to look into portable CD's with a car adapter kit. I did look at ebay, but these items are the kinds of things people beat the hell out of and they were still bringing about $25. So I went to Best Buy and found the unit of this review in a complete car kit for $49, so I got it.
My first problem was installation. (It attatches to sticky velcro tape.) Again, as the Neon is my wife's car (my Dutch wife's car) there was no way it was going to be attached on the top of the dash. Pure heresy. (they are fanatical about spotless cars, farms, houses, yards etc...pity me) So I had to find somewhere else. It couldn't go below the stick as the cup and change holders were there and there wasn't enough surface there anyway to "grab".
I eventually settled on putting it nearly verticle on the left side of the glove box. It sits about 35* past verticle as if falling towards it's top. However this presented no problem with playback and the wires were managed completely out of the way set up like this. However, I did need to use extra sticky velcro tape I had as the strips they give are somewhat small and it was rotating on them.
At first I noticed a bit of tape hiss when using it, which is not surprising as it is going thru the tape head. However, this has virtually disappeared over time. I don't know why, but it has. It lessened using the dolby button initially, but that also kills half your Db headroom, so I didn't use it.
I found using the bass boost also helped "squash" this at first, but as the problem went away the bass became too much, so I have since switched it off. Perhaps the part that contacts the head needs to burn or break in, I don't know, but the hiss is gone now.
The unit is easy to load and use, and the way I have it installed makes it easy to get at the buttons. However, being upside down and tilted forward you can't read the display. A tradeoff I was happy with.
When first using, as it has it's own volume control, I found that it was best to set the car volume to about where it usually goes, then hold the volume button on the player down until it comes up to what that level should be. Then I just use the car stereo's volume control. Be carefull, as it is easy to go too far with this, and you get a lot of breakup and distortion when you turn it up then. Don't go too far using the CD volume control, just bring it up, then use the dash knob.
It's best to unplug it from the lighter for overnight etc.. but during day trips, if you keep it plugged in and just hit the stop button when you park, when you come back out and hit play it will pick up right where it left off just like a regular car deck.
Now, play quality. There was the hiss, as I mentioned. It seemed to have trouble with some CD's at first, especially CDR's. It played some songs on the CDR fine, then couldn't play others at all. However, this also has diminished as well. A disc it would not play, it is now playing fine. Right now it's been playing everything OK.
It also handles bumps very well. Surprisingly, good hard jolts don't faze it at all. It's bad concrete roads with the tar strips every 15 feet that caused the most trouble. (boom, boom, boom, boom etc...) If you hit a stretch with constant low bumping or rumbling, it tended to throw it off. Usually it would just stop playing and when the vibrations stopped, it would resume.
So overall, for the price I think it turned out well. I was somewhat unhappy with it's inability to play some CDR's at first, but as this has stopped and I have learned to set the controls to get the best sound from it I have become pretty happy with the purchase. It sounds about as good as any low-mid car unit, and for a quarter the price. Plus, I can always take it out and use it outside the car in future as well.
If you expect it's limitations, and work with it, I think you'll find this is a good alternative to spending much more on a custom install, at least for the short term. It would be a great alternative for a car you plan to have long enough that you'd like to play CD's, but not so long that you want to sink major money into it for a new setup.
As a postnote, now that it has gotten colder (about 20* last night) I have tried it "cold" and it works just fine. I suppose it would be better to bring it in, but lets face it we're all lazy. It cranks right up even with it and the car frozen solid, and plays fine. We'll see how it's faring come May.
I would also note, while I gave it 4 stars not 5, that was basically due to it being cheap (costing) and the initial few problems I experienced. Since then it's been earning all 4 of them with spades, maybe it deserves all 5. Lets see if it lasts, then I'll amend it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
zoots
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Location: Anytown USA
Reviews written: 74
Trusted by: 35 members
About Me:
Visit http://www.indiespinzone.com It's the greatest link in alternative/indie music. You'll be glad you did.
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