Great unit

Very good little unit. For a budget unit like this the sound is very clear and exactly what I wanted when I first started looking for a CD/DAB/ipod dock.

Great little buy

I bought this as a replacement for a Sony Digicube which I worked out was well over 20 yeays old.
This Clocl Radio is really good, the numbers are not too bright, and I particuly like the 2 alarms, you can have the A alarm for 1 time in the week and then have the B alarm for the weekend, without changing the alarm time settings, the radio is good, but it is a Sony afterall.
If you need a New Clock/Radio, Get this One

excellent radio

Bought this radio for my Aunt whos a bit of a technophobe and even she found it extremely easy to use. Nice contemporary look which will go with any decor. The sound from this radio is fantastic and dosent distort as you wind up the volume. A great all rounder, and would definately recommend.

Brilliant, for the price!

I bought this product for my birthday to go with an iPod Touch, and think it's been a great buy, especially considering it's price compared to the masses of other iPod docks, many with less functionality but higher price tags.

The Good:
~ Great sound quality. It can be turned right up without the sound going horrible, too.
~ There's a dual alarm function, so you don't have to keep resetting your alarm. It can be set to a buzzer, radio or your iPod!
~ There is both FM and AM radio, something many other docks around this price range don't have.
~ Nice and compact, very easy to move around.

The Bad:
~ The power lead is quite short (about 1 metre). If your plug sockets are in obscure places, this could be a problem, but nothing an extension lead can't fix!
~ The radio antenna is a bit fiddly and the instructions don't explain how to set it all up very well for people like me who aren't experts in radio setup.
~ The screen on the front of the dock is very bright, even on the lowest brightness setting. This can make it rather annoying for those of us who like it dark when we sleep. Because of this I've been covering the screen up at night.

Despite a few small problems, this is still a great buy and certainly gives you value for money. At the end of the day, I mostly use the dock to listen to music, and for that it's fantastic and recommended!

Good value and serve it's function

I had an alarm clock which would brighten up the whole room at night (which is not good). This little baby shows the time clearly and big.

Sony's lightweight DAB radio is no lightweight.

Anyone looking for an easily portable DAB radio need look no further than this. It does what it says on the tin. It uses 4 AA batteries instead of the chunky Cs or Ds that other DAB radios use up in no time.

There are some drawbacks, sound quality is poorer than FM for some stations, although this is more than likely due to the low bit rates at which those stations are transmitted, and the sound tends to break up if the radio is carried around indoors. The radio could do with a carrying strap.

Overall, well worth the money.

Great pocket radio

Looking for radio to clip to shorts while running and cycling, and one that would stay in tune. This does the job perfectly.

well worth it

bought these headphones for my C905 as i received the ordinary headphones wih it that kept falling out my ears. they came just a few days later in the packet, brand new and perfect quality. well worth it, especially for the price

Great if you're retired!

This is the second of these clock radios that I've bought. By me, it has two main advantages: first, it has a wall-wart PSU, which means that you aren't going to suffer from the disease which finishes off most clock radios, late-onset transformer buzz: and second, the sound balance is biassed towards speech, so transmitted speech can be listened to at a low level. Other good things are the dimmer range of the display and the excellent FM performance, which means that you can swap between two wanted stations by tuning one on the DAB band and the other on FM.

Offsetting these advantages are the byzantine operating system, which means that setting the volume on the alarm, saving presets and even recovering presets are a pain I have not personally experienced the Midnight Bug, but have a theory which sufferers might consider: if you accidentally hit the set button before dialling in the time, you may inadvertently save an alarm time of 0000. I'm not going to experiment to prove this, since mine is working currently!

For all the above reasons, this device is best for retired people, like me, whose emphasis is on the clock radio rather than the alarm.

Have two, and 'appen they'll breed

I needed a decent digital radio with a CD facility, but delayed buying one as the CD sound quality of the SONY I sampled in a major London store was distinctly poor. This may have been a rogue example or due to a low-quality sample CD (amazing the store didn't bother to sort this out!)

Still needing a digital radio anyway, I bought the SONY XDR-100CDM through Amazon, and found that the CD sound was much more acceptable than with the example I had heard before, though still no great shakes. I then discovered that when I substituted this machine for the personal CD player I used for input to my ancient Bang & Olufsen amplifier and speakers, it produces a surprisingly good Hi-fi sound. The DAB radio also gives good results when fed in in the same way.

Because I needed reasonable sound quality DAB and CD for a stand-alone job in another room, I bought a second set. For this purpose, it is just about acceptable for the price, but I am surprised at the limited number of possibilities meeting my required spec., most being bulky or quirky or both. Are my requirements odd, or is the industry asleep?

Poor performer

This little unit from Sony looks OK. It's buttons are large and well laid out. My main complaint is the sound. I bought it to listen to music so the sound quality was the most important factor. Unfortunately it fails to deliver. The sound is tinny and tiny. The 1.7 watts struggle to push out anything but the very basics from my CD's. A real disappointment. Look elsewhere.

Great for the bathroom!

I bought this radio to replace a DAB radio that was used in the bathroom. Although I have DAB radios throughout the house - and I really like them - I find that they use batteries far too quickly. The other ones that I have are all plugged in to the mains. The one that I had in the bathroom was getting through large D batteries at a silly rate.

My 5 stars is based on value for money and suitability for purpose.

As you might guess, I am happy with it.

Pros -
Great value
Decent sound
Batteries seem to last for ages
A nice on/off button on the top! We keep it tuned to Radio 2 and just switch it on or off when we are in the bathroom

Cons -
None really, but dont expect scrolling screens, memory buttons etc. This is a basic radio which is great for a purpose.

Just what I was looking for

As I travel a lot and like to listen to world service I was looking for a small portable radio, with a built in alarm clock but which also received short wave. Thats easier said than done as radios seem to have gone out of fashion and everyone seems to sell gadgets with too many features. This radio fitted my requirements perfectly, its lightweight, tiny, folds in 2 so is more resistant to falling on the floor, has a little snooze light so you can check the time in the dark and gets excellent short wave reception. You don't even have to change the time as you tell it the time zone and the time adujsts automatically.

What I really liked is that everything is manual, no annoying electronic features that take you 4 hours reading the manual. The sound quality is also very good for such a small device and certainly sufficent for world service, though probably not for someone who really wants to focus on music. I bought this for a studying holiday in Rome and it really served its purpose of allowing me to listen to the local radio and foreign stations, it now travels with me everywhere. The only negative point I can think of is that the noise of the alarm is very irritating but then perhaps its supposed to be.

Slipped discs

MiniDisc? Didn't they die with shellac gramophone 78's?

No. They're just so good for music playback, especially if you hate the compressed digital sound of MP3 players. Yes, I know MD is digital and compressed. It just doesn't sound it.

The Sony MZ-E310S player - it doesn't record - is driven by a single AA battery. There's a jog - button for play and track select, two volume buttons and a Menu/select. It's skip-proof too - jiggling around with the player in my back pocket produces no skip. A hold button under the deck disables the buttons for active wearers.

The sound quality is ecstatically good. My main MD deck records CD's optical to optical - so playback on the MZ-E310 is flawless. The MZ-E310 will also play MDLP - so a single LP MD will hold around four CD's

I bought the player because I'm fed up of MP3's and refuse to accept that they are anything more than convenient. My main hifi has an MD deck, so I can just dump CD's to MD and play them anywhere - including in the car with an iPod transmitter. I do record from the radio too, and Last FM streams. Everything gets chucked onto MD.

At the price the player is very high quality. There are two preset sound EQ settings, both or either can be tailored to your ears, or turned off. The player also supports track groups and shuffle play. The syling is cool, the only hiccup is the bulge where the AA battery sits. But better an AA battery to replace - rather than a built-in recharge-able.

Utterly brilliant device, and makes my iPod sound lame in comparison. There's deep deep bass, crystal clear highs, and amazing stereo imaging.

The only downside is you probably don't have any way of recording mini-disk. But with home hifi MD decks at knock down prices, you might think about getting one. Blank MD's are in plentiful supply.

To sum up - very high quality playback, from optical digital CD-Direct recording. What more could a music lover want? Other than a new MDLP home deck?

Reasonable value but lacks thought in its design.

I bought this radio because I travel a lot and wanted a good quality all band receiver. Good points: It's well made, with good quality construction and a nice solid feel to it, and covers a wide range of short wave bands as well as FM. Reception is good. It comes with a nice soft leatherette type pouch. Bad points: no tone control and the speaker is tinny, Sony have really let themselves down by putting in a poor speaker. It takes 4 AA batteries, and if you use rechargeables (IE: 4.8v instead of 6v as with alkalines) they have to be just recently charged or the radio will not operate. The supplied external wire AM aerial is rubbish. Also to enter a frequency directly rather than use presets, you have to push one button, then enter the frequency you want, and then press another button - not very user friendly.

Top Stuff!

Couldn't be happier with this product and it cost me £175 from Amazon against £250 in my local Hi-fi retailer! I've had a few problems with Sony stuff over the years, but this Micro System is very impressive. Great sound, good finish and I can plug in my MP3 player directly and have all my music available at one time.

Hmmm.....

The clock radio does the job, but I feel that, because when in bed my vision is in line with it sitting on the bedside table, I have to raise up on one elbow to look over the top to actually see the buttons! This is due to the shape of the top of the radio, i.e. it slightly rises up at the front. Maybe I am just too short??
Slightly disappointed, though my previous clock radio was also a Sony, a company I would always recommend.

Rather disappointing

Good selection and capture of DAB signal. Quite easy to use.
Sound is rather woolly and"boxy", but acceptable for bedside listening. Having two stereo speakers in a box 10 inches wide seems pointless. The unit has a clock and Sleep facility, but surprisingly no Alarm function. Display is very bright in a dark room and a dim facility would be useful.
See also the reviews of the identical product in light wood finish.

Nice product

I spent ages in the shop listening to several radios. At this price bracket there was a huge gulf in performance - some of the examples I listened too sounded truly awful. I narrowed my choice down to the Sony and the Pure Evoke, in the end,the choice was made for me - there were no Pure Evokes in stock, just the display one. :rolleyes:
The Sony is great, sound quality is very good considering the price, I've plugged it into my Music Fidelity amp and Mission 753's via a headphone to phono lead and the imagary is very good.

However I have two gripes -
firstly its mains only, which when I bought it I didn't think was an issue - but it is for me now - I'm listening more and more to radio now and I miss the ability to move around easilly.
Secondly - the tuning like all others DABs I have seen is, find the station and then press a select button to tune to it. The buttons on the front are too well blended in and in anything other than perfect light they are hard to see. I either end up pressing the wrong button or I take too long to find the burtton by which time the 'selection' has reverted back to the live station. I MUCH prefer the Pure system of pressing the tuning knob when the correct station is selected.

These are minor issue's, but this is what stops me giving it a 5 star.

Sound quality superb.

This cd player is faultless and I am glad I ignored the negative
reviews of volume, because this is loud enough on 1/3 to 1/2
volume using earphones.

I use these in-ear Creative Labs EP-630/A Earphones ASIN: B0009G6FQI.
which work superbly.

The headphone output on European models is 1.5 x 1.5 mW.
The frequency response is 20 - 20,000 Hz, which I believe
covers the complete human hearing range.

Those that complain must be using the wrong headphones,
or just prefer listening to extremely loud music.

My choice was between an Ipod or the Sony D-NE511 Walkman,
and I chose the Sony Walkman because:
My top criteria was to have the best sound quality...
..Sony Walkman wins, hands down.
You can play your original CDs and you can also play MP3s
recorded onto disc. I have just stuck with playing my originals.


Second was to have portability, without the soundtrack skipping...
...Obviously Ipod comes out top here, but my solution was to
purchase this cd player sports belt ASIN: B00005T39R.
It fits this Walkman perfectly.
The CD player is also jog proof, It has two settings, even on the
first setting it does not skip.

Included in the box is a mains adapter.
Or you can use dry batteries (two AAs) which are not included.
One niggle is that you cannot use rechargeable ones.

This item has been available since 1 Jan 2003, and a newer
version was brought out (Sony D-NE711) but is no longer available.

All in all this is a brilliant CD player that I highly recommend.