Retro Buyer's Guide: Portable CD Players! 

CD's are back because people have started to realize that owning your own music and being able to play it whenever you like, without the need for constant internet access, is actually worth something.

The problem with streaming is: You never really own the music. They own it, and they can take it off from streaming anytime. With CD, tape, vinyl, and other kind of physical media. You own the music. It's yours, as long as you have the player.

A young airport TSA agent was very confused by my Sony portable CD player with remote and CD wallet. An older agent came over and said "you've never seen one of these before?" - "Its a portable CD player! You can listen to music!!". The young agent was clearly embarrassed by this razzing because for a moment there he was very suspicious. This was last week. CD's are AWESOME and I especially love the players that show the disc spinning.

I had a CD player with 45sec anti-skip which i didnt know was a thing. One day at the bus stop my player fell out my pocket, hit a tree root, and the entire top lid popped off and the cd went rolling away. I had enough time to re assemble the top part and pop the cd back in before the music stopped playing. I was absolutely stunned!! What a cool device

I have a basic theory about why CDs are apparently becoming popular again: So the start of the vinyl resurgence came around the end of the '00s. It's arguably still going, but has probably reached something close to a critical mass by now, since high quality turntables are very easy to come by and you can walk into just about any major retail store and find at least some vinyl. Then towards the end of the '10s we started seeing a minor resurgence in compact cassettes too, though people quickly discovered that it's much harder to find a reliable and high-quality compact cassette player. Now only a few years later it does seem like people are flocking back to CD as the physical medium of choice. To me, it seems like everyone who got really into vinyl (myself included) has taken the long way around to rediscovering why CDs took over the market to begin with: reproducibility, portability, and longevity. A CD is gonna play exactly the same way on every CD player, it's tiny and lightweight, and a CD I've played a thousand times sounds just like it did when I first bought it. Not to mention, you can make a perfect backup of the whole disc pretty easily with a computer and some free secure ripping software. Then, of course, everyone else who just kinda passively transitioned to using streaming services over the '10s is learning about the ills of recording and publishing contract disputes, and it's still relatively easy to find your favorite music on CD if it vanishes from the legal internet routes.

Was in to cd's i the 90s and never got out... At the moment there's a treasure trove of used cd's to be found in thriftstores at a cost of basically nothing. A great way to find your old favourites again and even to discover new music. It's an adventure... and if you're lucky you can even snag some real collectable gems! I certainly did! 🙂

CD sales increased in the US again in 2023. As someone with an album no longer on streaming, I'm thrilled to see people wanting to own the music they love again.

I've never lost faith in the CD format, it just works so well. I've just stuck them in my computer and ripped them to FLAC in EAC, and they sound AMAZING. Been doing that for about 4 years now, and I still haven't looked back

I started buying CDs in the last quarter of 2021 because I wanted to own my music, I use a USB CD player and rip them and use my phone to listen but when I'm at home I use the actual discs

This is a great follow-up on Techmoan's "R.I.P. Personal CD..." video.

When I was in elementary school around 1997, there's nothing on this earth I wanted more than portable CD player. I ended up receiving that exact RCA model you pictured as a gift. I was very careful with it but the very poorly-designed door hinge mechanism would break if you breathed on it incorrectly, and the door would fly off of the player. I remember my dad diligently submitting warranty claims for that same issue maybe three times, and the multi-week wait for the player to go back and forth in the mail each time. RCA kept sending refurbished units back. After the third occurrence, they sent a brand new unit back with a statement that they would stop honoring warranty claims for that issue. It broke within a month of receiving it. I got a Philips Magnavox after that, which I still have and still works perfectly to this day.

I remember my dad buying me my first CD player! He took me to Wal-Mart and let me choose which color I wanted. It was mostly silver, and the little part where the digital numbers popped up was surrounded by this really pretty grey-blue color! I LOVED it so much! It took two AA batteries and had the repeat one and repeat all feature. It had an ac adapter option as well I believe and...I remember getting frustrated when I would walk and the song would skip if I stepped too hard but I loved the freedom the cd player gave me at a time of my life where I really had no freedom. I mean, being able to listen to a song by myself was wild!

I wish you'd made this video a couple months ago. I started rebuying my cd collection and wanted a good quality simple CD player and was a bit overwhelmed by the options. everything you said in this video was true and lined up with the homework I was doing myself. At first I wanted a super cool retro 80s looking one like the D-5 or something, but then I discovered they're too expensive and finicky to get into, despite how awesome they look. I ended up going with a Sony D-EJ017CK which was simple, affordable, looked sleek and sounded great. Ive been enjoying listening to all my albums with a set of MDR-7506s ever since.

I love CDs! I've probably got well over 300 collected over the years. The best part is some of those CDs aren't on streaming platforms which is nice because it feels special being able to listen to them. Physical media will never die!

I still love CD’s! They’re my favorite format. They’re nostalgic for me, as we used to have a ton! I now have a collection of just over 100, and the absence of hum/buzz you get from them during quiet moments in songs is just wonderful. I will admit, cassettes and vinyl records can get damn close, but digital silence is just unmatched.

I remember growing up and having this specific CD player from Philips and this just reminded me of how much that thing meant to me :)

2006 kid here who’s getting into CD collecting, started buying CDs with pocket and birthday money around the end of 2022, I like the designs of CD jewel cases, the booklets and the disc designs, there’s something about CDs that’s just cooler to me than LPs, plus they’re dirt cheap. I don’t actually have a dedicated player, I just play CDs on my PS3 (I also import them to the HDD for use during games) and am considering getting an external CD/DVD adapter for my MacBook Air

I grew up right as CDs were fading out so I never really got into it, but my first 'Music Player' was a Sony Walkman so I have real nostalgia for cassettes.

I had a portable Panasonic CD player I bought in 1999. It actually had a 60 second buffer in it and it was very hard to make it skip as a result. The unit did have the switch to turn off the buffer if you wanted to. I did use the cassette adapter to play CD's in my car at the time. It was a nice little CD player that worked very well. I also burned a lot of CD's from MP3's at the time and it was nice to be able to play those in the car. I cannot see CD's dying completely. The sound quality of CD's was already good enough that they will still be useful for a long time.

I got into cds as a kid my dad had tons of cds he let me listen to them growing up. For my birthday he got me my first cd player it's a portable sony one I still have it it works perfectly and started collecting cds when I was 16 and still am to this day and will always be finding more to listen to and enjoy for years to come

"Maybe you're young enough to have never experienced that format in its heyday" are words I wasn't prepared for about CDs. I feel very old now!

If you don't need it to be portable, in my experience by far the cheapest & most reliable method option is to get a used dvd player(even nice brands are likely to be dirt cheap, or even free) - ideally with play control buttons on the front so you don't have to always use the remote.

Love your videos. You never disappoint. Thank you for all the time you invest into creating these videos for us.

Dont forget nearly every car has a cd player in and can get very good quality systems with cd stackers. Alpine is magic for this. I remember when Dire Straits released Brothers In Arms. Albums like this were monumental in the increased popularity of cds and fully showing off the hi fidelity and suburb quantity benefits of digital music.

I bought a couple of Philips “jogproof” CD players from the early 2000s at the thrift store recently, and they really sound lovely for how much they cost. I like to put 3 or 4 of my cds in my backpack every day and listen in the coffee shop while I study. I swear the sound quality beats anything from Spotify (especially when the cd is mixed properly), and I love owning my favorite music.

I never stopped buying CDs. I started buying vinyl around 10 years ago, but CDs have always been my favorite format.

I used to have this RCA cd player with the 45 second anti skip, the best part was that it buffered the audio up to 45 seconds, so even if I opened the lid by accident, the music kept playing. haaaa man i miss those days.

D-151 was my first CD player as well. High quality sound, certainly.

As a DJ, I experienced the turn of 2000 opposite to how you described: I was buying more new vinyl than ever before and listening to mixes on cassette all the time.

There's something truly bizarre about CDs making a "resurgence" because, aside from them still being pretty relevant a decade ago, literally nothing replaced them. Only Bandcamp and maybe some obscure online retailers sell uncompressed music (and usually no artwork or extras, just the music), streaming is a trial period where you own nothing, and while I also enjoy them, cassettes and vinyl are both analog formats that compromise on sound quality (you simply can't argue it, it's objective). I never stopped buying CDs because nothing replaced their exact use case to me. Nothing else was worth the tradeoffs. I'd have to transfer an analog format to use it on my computer, and when they're usually made from the CD master anyway as 90% of modern vinyl is, I'd rather just buy the CD and cut out the middleman. Obviously, I love CDs, so if more people wanna get into them, that's great. Just seems like peak faux-nostalgia to me.

Hey Colin, just wanted to say that even though this isn’t your most popular video, I found it very useful and it got me into collecting CDs, with some great information. Thanks!

I just love CD and they are most most preferred format to listen to music. This format never died for me, and I am happy to see it is seeing a resurgence. I just love the ability to have best of both worlds, in regards to ripping CDs to FLAC or just playing them direct on a dedicated player in my home entertainment center for a chill listening experience. Fantastic video, been a fan for years.

I like CDs because they're a perfect copy of the music, you can just rip them and have a cheap MP3 copy especially if you buy used thrift store CDs

Nice! This not only about experiencing the format and owning media, but also about a significantly better quality of sound. I decided to buy higher end stackable audio components of the early 90s. The only thing that’s usually broken is the tray belt. No biggie to replace

Great video, really takes me back to my own first Discman, but also gives a nice overview of the evolution of the device. Wonderful to watch!

Red Book, still the gold standard for digital audio...

FANTASTIC show! This is right in our wheelhouse! Something else for folks to consider as well is that players made prior to the early 90’s will have older 16 bit DACS which can sound (very slightly) worse. You will notice all of his 90’s and newer players have 1bit DACS which is the gold standard and uses noise shaping and dithering techniques. The D-131 was my first CD player and it was a HUGE deal to have digital sound and to be able to skip - and no rewind! I personally like some of the new players, brands such as HOTT and Monodeal make great players with awesome features such as Bluetooth out (for cars, and BT headphones) as well as rechargeable batteries and SD card integration. I think we are seeing a renaissance of CD player design. And amen to the quality being so very close from one model to the next - it’s really hard to go wrong!

I still have my Sony D-EJ100 CD player. I felt it was pretty advanced for it's time with the anti skip, super long playback life on a set of AA's, it was pretty slim, and had the inline remote. And the bass boost button was sick with the included headphones.

This was a very nice wrap up of the portable CD player history! There were topics mentioned that I had totally forgotten. One more thing: before the electronic shock protection (or rather at the beginning, when it was a feature of high end players), there was mechanical shock protection. My first portable CD player was one from Philips (a car set). The CD player assembly was mounted with dampers in the housing. It was rather bulky and the shock protection was bad. I later switched to the Panasonic which you showed (but with the basic remote) which works very well. And when I see that the value of it nowadays is only 5$, makes me keeping it. Thanks for the Video!

These CD players from the 2000s are terrific both in terms of sound quality and pricing. Hook them up with an expensive pro headphone like say a Sennheiser HD280 ($100) and you can enjoy high end audio in isolation.

Great video! I have bad memories of that D-E305 player though. Between my brother and I, we went through about 5 players before FINALLY convincing the Sony rep that they were absolutely horrible when it came to skip protection; something we both absolutely needed as we walked everywhere. Eventually a new manager was hired and they upgraded us with two units with ESP2 which should have been recommended from the get-go and they were much, MUCH better.

I think the biggest modern perk of finding a portable CD player that can still play mp3 cds is if you’re big into audiobooks. I’ve noticed that a lot of newer audiobooks that still get a physical release are being sold as mp3 cds, probably to cut costs

Great choice with that Semisonic CD! I always loved the pattern on that disc.

My Sony portable CD player had a base unit which cushioned bumps while driving. Cool, but bulky. Neat to see these.

The other thing to add about why they offered car kits for many of these is at the time (late 80s into the early 90s), the car specific CD players were VERY expensive. Sony themselves didn't offer a model under $400 until almost the mid 90's. And as you mentioned, many people were still attached to cassettes so they didn't want to dump their tape deck to go exclusively CD's. CD's themselves were also very expensive at around $15-18 for new releases. That's like $33-40 today. My first car CD player was a Sony CDX-7520 in 1990 and it cost $400 and this was literally the least expensive Sony car CD player you could buy at the time.

CDs are without a doubt my favourite format for distributing music, I've been buying CDs since I was a teenager in the late 90s and although I generally use streaming music these days, I still like to buy the occasional CD, or ask my family and friends to buy me CDs for my birthday etc, I have a number of personal CD players, my favourite being a Panasonic SL-CT800 that my mother bought me for Christmas in 2004, I think it's still working although I haven't used it in a number of years. Panasonic and Sony stopped making personal CD players like these ones quite a long time ago, I wonder if they'll return to making them again, I think they both still make Hi Fi stereo systems with CD players in them.

I had 3 of the ones you showed. The D-36 was my first one. I loved it amd I still have my first CDs I bought back in 1991. I love your videos BTW.

I still have my Panasonic SL-CT800 from when I was starting high school (2004), including its original box, documentation, remote, and headphones. I took really good care of it so it's still scratch free after 18 years. I did have to buy a new battery for it, but thanks to eBay, it's not hard to obtain one. My first Portable CD player was a Sanyo model which had POOR battery life. I mostly had to use it with the AC Adapter. I don't miss that one.

Excelente vídeo, lindos aparatos. Hace poco conseguí uno casi nuevo Philips para carro con todos sus accesorios y con un sonido genial. Ojalá los grandes fabricantes los volvieran a producir. Un saludo desde Bogotá Colombia!

Thanks for the great video on the Sony Discman history. I was checking the Japanese action prices and they are same as the US eBay listings. Your video has made an impact.

I had the Sony D EJ615 with remote back in 99 - 2000. It was my first cd walkman i ever bought. I used it every day when i went to high school and the G-protection worked really well. Never had any problem with skipping songs. Now when i saw your video i will buy another one again just for the nostalgia.

Great video. Very informative and interesting to see the past of a format that people have written off over the last decade and a half. I also recently started getting into CD players as a way of supporting more indie artists that do not have MD or Cassette options for physical releases

Something else to keep in mind is that if you’re only looking to listen at home another option that someone may have at home already is a DVD/Blue-Ray player. If not they can be found fairly cheaply at a thrift store.

You out together an excellent instructional video that all seems quite accurate - thanks and have subscribed.

just bought a discman de456ck and was worried i picked a bad model. this video is an amazing resource on getting started!

It would be interesting to have the same kind of video but with retro ('90 - '00) mini stereo systems with cd readers.

The fact CD players aren't everywhere is making me feel old. I have a cassette, record and cd player, a whole hifi. I always have. I make sure all my CD players have MP3. Its essential some people have disc catalogs from that time and not to mention even today you can burn your entire library to a disc or two and then update it every few years along with swapping out and playing your CD's. If you are to buy one, Id really say to buy a MP3 one, you may lose a hard drive, but losing a physical CD in a booklet is a whole lot harder.

This video got me all nostalgic and I got out the D-CJ01 for some rainy day listening. (Bought new in 2002 and still an amazing player)

I got a Sony Discman D-E555 from 1999 and I love it. Line out and optical out , the works. portable CD players near 2K were just amazing.

I think it's great that older formats are making a small comeback. Cassettes and CDs are my favorite.

I was in high school when the mp3s started to take off and although I did have a portable CD player they were mostly burnt discs because I couldn't afford any originals. I just recently started getting into collecting CDs and so far it's been great.

After several Sony discmans I went and stayed with superior iRiver SlimX mid and top models (titanium shell, dig. optical out, under 1 cm thick, full backlit remote, fm tuner, esp, mp3 playback, eq + presets and some more).

Just recently i have started buying super audio compact discs.paired to a good set off speakers the sound is phenomenal.

As people from my generation (late millennial/early gen Z) get older, it's actually not too surprising that there's been an uptick in CD purchases. Most of us are in our mid-20's and still used CD'S in the early 2000's, even during the advent of the iPod.

I still own a SONY D-33 Discman, and it works like a charm. It can even read CD-Rs, if they are finalized. UPDATE, November 30th, finally my beloved D-33 kicked the bucket, and I'm looking for a good replacement. I only see a SOUNDMASTER and a TECHNISAT discman, and I'm uncertain, which one to pick up. However, TECHNISAT is a german satellite equipment brand, Soundmaster is rather unknown. Thank heavens, my 2009 RAV4, D4D, has the 6disc in-dash changer, so I rip my precious discs into mp3, and insert them in my car. Can you recommend a discman for me? Thank you and season's greetings.

Very informative video. I ended up buying a very good condition used Philips AX2330 for £15, fed up with RU-vid adverts whilst streaming music so going back to the old ways!

I have one from 2003 it is a sony cd walkman d-ej368ck. I purchased it at a thrift store for 3$. Works great and been using it quite reguarly.

With the advent of music streaming, I can't wait to have a guide for digital audio players in the next few years.

They started to go downhill in Europe in the early 2000's when they started implementing volume limiting. Many just wouldn’t go loud enough, especially when using different earphones or bigger headphones. They failed to understand that some cd's are quieter than others and you just couldn’t get enough volume, even at sensible levels.

Very educational and interesting! Nice video

What a wild video. I have had, and still have, almost every Discman on that table. Brings back a lot of memories.

8:22 - My first CD player… I love that you have it.

I built a working Panasonic SLS model out of several busted ones I got at a thrift store back in 98. Loved that thing.

Great video. Completely forgot I owned a D-131 until I saw you feature it and was awash in amazing memories of that unit. Not sure if you’re fielding video ideas, but the miniaturization of portable cassette players in the mid-90’s always fascinated me. Panasonic, especially, was making really thin, high-quality “walkmen”, sometimes with an external AA battery mount to compliment the thin rechargeable batteries that came standard.

This is why I love this channel

By the time I got a cd player in the 90s I found out about mini disc. I still had a cd player at home, but I moved onto mini disc and loved it. My mini disc player had an inline remote, was pretty cool.

Finally! Really glad to've found a decent video on this subject! There are some terrible ones out there! Thanks a lot for your video!

Man I had that d242ck, I haven’t see one in years. That brings back a lot of memories.

Fun video! I haven't used music CDs much in years but still have a big CD collection stashed away . Think my first Discman as a kid was either the D-131 or D-141 featured in the video. Recently dug out my old D-EJ615 (looks identical to D-EJ616 you have in the video), and working on it while I'm watching this. Still works great on AC power but has battery compartment corrosion that needs to be cleaned up. Looks a bit cosmetically beat up but everything works and it's complete in box with remote and all the documentation and everything.

This is a fantastic walk down memory lane for 90s music listening, at least until 98/98 when I got a CD-RW drive and could rip CDs to flac and make my own mix CDs and then in 99 or so when I got my flac/mp3 portable CD player that held a hundred or so songs with id3 navigation. And then eventually I got a second generation ipod 10gb and then eventually a 30gb video when that died. Video podcasts were amazing.

After 5 years of hiatus, I started to collect CDs again from my favorite bands. I recently bought a used Panasonic SL-SX400 Portable CD Player (I believe this was a Japan-only model) and it runs very fine and it has an 10 seconds anti-shock feature but still sounds fine.

D-151 was my first CD player, very nostalgic.

Great video! I just spent the last couple of months gathering up hundreds of used CD jewel cases with light scratches and a few boxes of new CD-r 100 pack discs. I am planning to release my mixtape on Cassette and CD and have been making post's on my facebook page showing all the stuff you have to buy just to put out a project on hardcopy. Now we just need Sony to come back with some new CD/Cassette boombox models that also have Bluetooth capabilities so people can connect their phones to it. Would probably make some good sales!!

I owned two of those models you showed! One of the basic silver and grey ones with mega bass, and then the one with shock protection and Groove. The latter was a replacement for the former which was stolen when my house was broken into. As for MP3-CD, I took full advantage of that when it became available affordably (I think I had a Panasonic player). I could carry 10 MP3-CDs with me to university, a 1 hour trip each way, and essentially have my whole music collection with me.

Make sure to check out thrift shops! It’s still common and easy to find portables in thrift stores, usually for $5-$10 each.

I'm glad you made this video for those who want to try CDs for the first time I'm a big CD fan have been since the late 80s I've had a Sony discman that only died last year and I bought it in the early 2000s I also have a technics 60 disc cd changer that's still in great shape and supports optical plugs which made the sound quality amazing. I still love CDs I still buy them from my favorite bands ❤😊

Great video! Would be cool to see a similar video for portable cassette players.

Wow, this is a great video Sir! When I was 19 I was stationed in Aschaffenburg, Germany and in the winter of 1984 (I think) I bought the Sony FH-7 Mk II bookshelf stereo and the CD player you’re showing on this video. The next month I went back and bought the nifty record player for the FH-7 so I was covered on all platforms, lol. It was pretty expensive but I didn’t go out wasting money at bars or women so I could easily afford it even though they were expensive back then. Back then I had no clue I bought the first CD player I just liked that it went with the FH-7. The CD player would play well and if bumped it would skip but only when bumped somewhat hard. The record player was a compact design so most of the album was hanging in open air as it played but it worked fine, no issues.

awesome content yet again

Sony was just a small portion of this market. I fondly remember the Panasonic Shockwave series of CD players that came in blue or yellow, or the later ones that were clad in aluminum and came with cool accessories like a hand strap.

Thank u for this thorough guide 👍

Great video. My 15yo daughter was using my old Technics SL-XP700, circa 1990, until recently. The audio jack failed, the case developed a crack near the hinge, the usual wear and tear for a 30 year old + machine. This was one of the earliest ‘slim’ players, using gum stick cells + external AA battery case and took a fair chunk out of my first wages lol. I cherished that player for a long time before moving to minidisc then iPod. Now browsing eBay looking for a nice replacement!

I've still got my Sony MZ-R900S player my brother gave me and still load it up with tunes. I love the LCD remote stick looks so cool even now...

Good point about the shock protection on sound quality.ive noticed an improvement on some players with it off.

Great cd player primer! And I'm very jealous of that Tatsu vinyl.

it's funny, i just got into this and bought a sony discman 171, then you put out this video. i had no idea cd sales were going up! very interesting though.

Great Video. Thanks for the Time Travel

You read my mind I was just thinking of picking up a Sony Discman a few days ago!

this is simply divine.

I was in high school in the early 2000's so the ESP Max CD Walkman has a bit of nostalgia for me. Everyone had one. I had a RioVolt SP250 which was packed with features like CD-Text and mp3 playback and I still used the Sony Walkman because of the long battery life and how slim it was.