Sony CFD-SO1 Boom Box rocks my office!

I was looking for something to take to work that was not tremendously expensive, gave me the options of CD music and AM/FM radio channels. I did not necessary need or want a cassette player, but I got it. Let me tell you about my radio.

Pros
This plays CD-R/RW in addition to the commercial CD’s you can buy in the stores. You can play songs 1 – 15 straight through or use the CD shuffle or even program a selection into the player. You can even do repeat if you have a song that you can listed to over and over and over again without making yourself sick.

It has digital AM/FM stereo tuner with the capability of storing up to 30 presets so you don’t have to hit the tuner up or down every time you want to change the channel. You can store 20 FM stations and 10 AM stations. (That’s a bit of a drag, because honestly, I listen to more FM than AM. I could handle the ratio of 25 FM to 5 AM and be perfectly happy!)

The unit can run on either 6 C sized batteries you need to purchase or with the plug in that comes with the radio.
There is an equalizer with 4 pre-set “types” of equalizer settings. These are Pop, Rock, Jazz and a vocal setting.

There is a cassette tape player in case you might have some books on tape or other items you really enjoy listening to at work. And you can have dubbing between the CD player and the cassette player if you wish to do so.
The buttons on the radio from the power button on the left side, next to the CD, Radio Band (Auto Preset) and Tape selection buttons are all very large and easy to push. On the right side of the radio, the same sized buttons are available for the volume controls. There is one button for decreasing the volume and another for increasing it. I enjoy that the buttons are independent of one another so you have a little better control (I think).

There is a timer available too. You can fall asleep to music, set to one of 6 times and it will shut off based upon which one you chose. You just have to push the sleep button and it will keep changing the time, it starts with 60, but you can click through 90, 120, off, 10, 20, 30, etc. It’s kind of unusual, you think they’d start with 10 & allow you to go up to 120 or some number, rather than bounce around with 60, 90, and 120 and then go off, and start 10, 20, and 30.

There is a nice display that will tell you what track you are on when listening to CD’s or what station and preset number you are listening to. It also includes the volume level. When I first started using it, I though part of the number for the volume level was missing on the right side. But, it’s actually the volume listed by dashes. You have 1 _ for low 1, then 1= for medium, then you would have 1= signifying level 1 high and goes up each number this way.

You do have a MEGA BASS option to give some more bass to whatever you are listening to at the time.
The cassette tape player is on the front of the boom box and the CD player is on the top.

The sound output is 1.7 W with FM frequencies from 87.5 to 108 MHz and AM 530 to 1710 kHz. This has an FM telescopic antenna and there is a built-in AM ferrite bar antenna.

Cons
The items that are a bit weak or make me worry about the sturdiness of the radio/cd player are as follows:
CD door has a single pressure point that you push down to release and insert your disk. The entire disk area seems floppy, for lack of a better word. The lid has a disk holder that moves around and almost wiggles when you hit it accidentally when putting in a disk. The sound is good when playing, but I wonder how long that will last.
I also wonder about the pressure point where you push down to close and open the CD player lid. It just doesn’t feel very sturdy.

The preset feature for the radio stations is a bit of a problem. The manual claims there is a way to get a single station input as a preset if you know the preset number you are going to set. When I follow the manual, it actually keeps stepping through the entire preset feature and going through finding all stations that have a strong enough signal.

The one main station I listen to, you have to have the radio sitting in a certain spot to have a strong “enough” signal to pick it up on the preset scan. I was trying to manually set the station & preset it on the preset numbers, and every time I walked through the set up directions for doing a single station, the entire preset scan started over. It did not work they way the manual claimed it should.


Overall Impressions

I really like this radio. It has a good sound, a lot of features and is a nice sized unit that does not hog up a lot of space on my desk. If the reception isn’t the greatest, it has an antenna on the back to help lock in on a station and the CD player and radio all sound terrific. For the price, if I were to have this radio taken, I would not be out a tremendous amount of money. It’s perfect for work.

If you are looking for an inexpensive, decent little radio, this should be one that you take a look at, as it’s a great radio for home or work.


~Thanks for spending time with me today!~