Hello all -

I'm looking for a portable CD player that is suitable for outdoor use. I intend to use it to play CD's on my porch audio system and take it with me on hiking trips, walks, trips to the library, etc. Can anyone give me a recommendation? I'd like it to have a tuner option if possible. And I do care about the quality of sound it puts out.

Also, from a previous thread, I'm looking for recommendations on high efficiency outdoor speakers. I got a little feedback, which is appreciated, but I'm always looking for more.


T.I.A.

-CT

PS - I haven't determined a budget yet, but I'm thinking under $500 for the speakers (total) and under $200 for the CD player. If this is unreasonable, let me know.

I don't have a clue as to efficiency or price but I heard some outdoor speakers made by Infinity a couple of years back at a Great Indoors store that sounded pretty damned good and were supposedly weather proof.

Outrigger is the model name, here is a linc to a pic.
http://204.10.140.18/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15948

I like the Iriver IMP-400 that i have. Its got nice metal cover and comes with a bunch of accesories. It also plays mp3 cd's and has a radio. I bought it a couple years ago so i doubt they still have that model though. But you can probbly find some online for cheap. I think mine was near $300 or so when i got it. Good sound too. But its been replaced by an Iriver IFP-890 mp3 player, which has been replaced by an Ipod shuffle i recently got for free from a bank for opening an account. The ipod is as bare bones of a mp3 player as you can get but its pretty dang small too. and holds a decent amount of songs with the 512mb of space.

I just bought a new Hi MD recorder player. I bought this model for @180. at Amazon as it had a now rare mic input. One that doesn't would be less I'm sure.
It will do 5.5 hrs. on it's 1 gig disk of uncompressed PCM music on 1 disk. It is 3.5 x 3 x 1 in in size. You can change disks too if you like. Of course if you want to mp3 your music you greatly increase the quantity of songs.

Carl

I have had a Sony PSYC D-NF400 CD player for a while now and like it quite a bit. Here's the feature list:

AM/FM/TV/Weather Band Tuner w/station memory.
Supports CD's, MP3 CD's, ATRAC3 and ATRAC3Plus CD's
Displays CD Text
3 preset EQ curves and user cusomizable 3-Band EQ
Automatic Volume Limiter
Shock Protection
Avg. 60 hour battery life (with MP3 CD's at 160kbps) 96 hrs with ATRAC3Plus.

I paid $80 for it over a year ago. It's a nice little player.

Someone else mentioned MP3 players, and another person mentioned iRiver. I've got an iRiver digital music player with a built-in 20 gig hard drive (model H320). It has pretty good sound quality (well... for some people :scratch2: ). I encode all my CD's into Ogg Vorbis format at 128kbps, variable bit rate. They sound almost as good as the cd's and take as much room as medium quality MP3 files. It has a built in FM tuner, can record from FM radio. internal and external mic, and line-in. There are quite a few other features, and even more coming in a little while - a group of programmers is writing an open source operating system (aka firmware) for it. The firmware will give it new features like support for lossless formats, gapless and crossfade playback, and on-the-fly playlist functions. It's a pretty nice little unit, and the new firmware will make it even better!

Hope this information helps. Both of these units are pretty good, from my experience.

hmmmm. my best luck was with the panasonic players. i had a period where i went thru a portable audio craze and had a headroom portable amp, several CDPs, and various headphones. at the time the guys at headroom were recommending the Panasonic players over the Sony (they didnt sell them so it seemed like an honest rec). i bought the Panasonic and later a TOTL Sony and though the sony looked cooler, the Panasonic was a bit better.

this thread got hijacked to digital music players pretty quick, but thats the way i'd go... just cant beat not having to change cds, storing hundreds/thousands of songs... i use a lossless encoder and get great sound.

then again, there's always the audiotecnica sound burger... :D

I gotta eat a little crow here as I went on advice not facts on this new to brand new to me player/recorder. It only does 90 min. PCM recording on the Hi MD. I really hadn't gotten into this and there is so much BS to wade through from all angles. I guess he was referring to the ATRAC3plus 256kbps Hi-SP "lossless" compression described here.
http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html

Carl :stupid:

mr v,
tell us more about this gizmo... got a pic? what do you plan to use it for? live recordings? i am intrigued.
tyler

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007Y6ALM/qid=1124166975/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-electronics/002-3779735-6844855?v=glance&s=electronics&n=172282
I wanted it for the line in and mic options. Yes, it would be nice to record what I can of what I go see live.
Although cheap, I didn't want to be stuck with just a USB cable in and headphone jack out and the mp3 format of what else is out there. Creative
had a nice HD type but it is long gone and I won't buy used electronic gear off ebay. Portable DAT's are expensive, bigger, but the tapes do go 2hr hi res.

Carl

hmmmm. my best luck was with the panasonic players.

I 100% agree. Even their BOTL players back in the day lasted for years with a little TLC. However, if you are going to be hiking/walking/moving with a player, I'd go w/ an MP3 player. Less cumbersome, lighter, and less likely to get dirt/soil/sand in it.

I have an old panasonic SL-s230 that has literally been around the world at least 3 times. I loved this player and it took an absolute beating, the lid spring eventually stopped working after it rolled down the escalators in an airport, but the player kept on ticking. One fall too many eventually bent the shaft so the CDs rub as they spin and it scuffs discs, so I have retired it.

Replacement was a Sony D-NE900 that was on special. very slim CD player with mp3 and atrac3plus playback, a thin recharge battery inside with about 40 hours playback and an external attatchment which bolts on and holds a single AA. Best thing about this player is the sound, better than the panasonic, worst thing was it came with a free 'Anastasia' CD
;)

BTW I think I don't think this one would survive as many drops as the panasonic though.

Do not forget a good headphones. :yes:

clint.