Review on Panasonic SL MP80 CD MP3 Player by Omar Alradwan

Have owned Sony, Aiwa, Memorex and other portable CD players over the years including some of Sony's best discs. I seem to have been using both for about 3 years - regardless of the brand. It's just a fact. I'm not complaining, I've just resigned myself to buying a new one every now and then. Now that I've gotten interested in MP3s and started running again to keep in shape, I was looking for a drive that had good MP3 bounce and sounded good too. It seems difficult to find both. I tried an unbranded sports disc (Accuphase) - the sound was mediocre, I missed it. Tried a mid-range Sony Atrac with sports disc support - incredibly poor ergonomics and (my fault) when I read the label it won't play MP3s. Returned. I started reading discussion groups with my two criteria in mind. Found this player. *** That's great ***. It *doesn't* skip and I can go into town and try to make it skip. Maybe mine was well done, I don't know. All I know is that it works correctly. The only downer is that you can't search quickly, and like 90% of all drives, there's a hard and fast truth: throw away headphones and buy good ones. You will enter a whole new world, the sound will slightly improve by a few classes. Just compare the price of decent headphones with the actual cost of ownership. Volume is reasonable/satisfactory/enough - not "over the top" or loud, but satisfactory with decent mid-to-high impact headphones. If you like loud, metallic volume, this turntable might not be for you, but it wasn't "weak" either. The sound is warm but clear. I encode my mp3s at 128 or 192 kbps with the LAME encoder. You sound *great*! Heck, in some ways it sounds better than my home stereo. Actually I would give it a 4.5 but I don't want to bring it down to 4. Needless to say how good it is as I want a few more for my friends. I considered the iRiver drive but turned it down due to reports of impenetrable gap protection, which was my main concern. I haven't really listened to them - mostly they get good reviews - I'm sure they're ok. I long for their hard disk player. Until HDD players came along at a reasonable price that was my choice and it's a great sounding device. I'm happy. PS For MP3s, this unit shows the normal Windows filename as a scrolling billboard (if you request it by switching views - otherwise it's track number and time), which works for me. If you are outdoors/active I recommend getting a Case Logic or some sort of clear soft weather lined outdoor case as the finishing touch.