Panasonic SL-SX430 Personal CD Player

I tend to break portable players. In the last five years, I have had around 6 units and in the change room at my gym, I broke my latest unit, a bulky Memorex POS that fell out of my Gym bag and shattered into two pieces.

So, while I was in NYC, I went to J&R and looked around for a CD player that could play MP3's, since I have several discs which I use for working out. There were several units that range from $49 to $129 and the salesperson could not justify me spending more than the $49 because I go through them so easily. And he recommended this because they came with a wired remote, so I could just keep them in my hipbag instead of constantly taking them out.

The design of the SX430 is one of the most pleasing aspects. It is smaller and light and has a quasi mirror finish that makes it look more expensive than the matte plastic players in this price range thanks to a nice blue ring around the edge that has no purpose, but look good. It would have been cool if it could light up (and the blue looks like a backlit piece) but it is asking for much and things like that tend to eat battery time.

It is also slim on one side, but is fatter on another, thanks to a large bump. I guess the purpose of this was to have the player tilting towards you, but I didn't see the point in adding useless bulk to a device whose purpose is to provide portability.

The buttons on this thing is weak though because they are so small. Players nowadays seem to have all CD functions (play, stop, forward, back, pause) on one large easy to use circular key. This is a throwback to earlier players because there are 9 buttons, 7 of them which require you look at the player in order to use.

However, one good thing about this player is that mine was actually made in Japan. With everything being made in Malaysia or Thailand nowadays, I didn't thing companies like Panasonic actually made cheap electronics in the homeland anymore because of labour costs. Overall the design and aestetics of this unit gets good marks.

The display is a disappointment. On my Memorex, there was a two line display that listed the folder, track and had a scrolling title/artist line. This one cannot display the latter. And it is also not backlit so if you are in the dark, you are on your own.

The unit comes with a wired remote that can accept any headset that has a 3.5 mm jack (all portable headsets). The wire with the remote plugs into the unit on one side and the headset would fit into another. It is around 1.5 feet long and contains play/stop/hold/EQ/FF-RW functions on it. The problem with it is that it is too short. A good wired remote should be far enough away from the player to use remotely, this one wasn't. However, I could clip it to the side of my shirt while the player was on my waist, so I would be able to live with it.

The headset on the other hand only has a cord that is around a foot long, making it useless with other usage. It needs to be used with the remote in order to have a normal cord length, which is a major letdown because the remote does not work with other units. I would recommend a highly sensitive (110 dB or more and less than 25 Ohm) set of aftermarket headsets with a cord that is at least 2 feet. Another annoying thing about this back-style headset is that it has a bar that runs across the curve of the headset. The annoying thing of it is that it is also placed in front of the speaker, making it uncomfortable. I don't know the reason of this curved bar, but for people with large ears, it is a major annoyance. The final problem I found is that there are dual wires instead of a single wire found on most headsets. It can get tangled up.

The sound of this unit was very good. Using my stock headset, it played Jazzmatazz V2 CD with good authority. The headsets are well suited to this unit and it had decent bass. The unit had a slightly forward balance, which is indicative of who this player is for (young kids who listen to rock and electronic music) and the mid-range is recessed slightly. This was emphasized by a pair of Audio-Technica P5 headsets I bought with the player because the mid-range opened up more. The P5's have a sweet mid-range and they were held back somewhat with this unit.

This means that if you're buying this unit for things like vocal music or classical, you are going to be somewhat disappointed. After playing India.Arie's Acoustic soul, I was somewhat disappointed in the sound. Especially coming from the intimate "I am ready for love" recording.

The biggest weakness of this player is not the sound though, it's the power. The player boasts Digital Amplification...blah...blah...blah, but it means nothing. The player is significantly weaker than my previous Memorex at pushing sound volume, even though it is slightly more smoother and melodic. I had to crank it to 80% to play my P5's at a reasonable sound level in Lower Manhattan, where noise is prevalent. But when I got home, I still had to play it at 70%. The stock headsets were much better and I could get sufficient sound at 50% volume.

This makes the picking of headsets crucial for this player. I have a set of ultra sensitive Jensen backphones at home in Toronto, so I will try them to see what sound develops.

MP3 playback has been good, no skipping, no compatibility problems. It played all my MP3 and WMA and is rated to 320 bits.

The player has S-XBS, which is their "enhanced bass" circuitry. It worked well, but now they also have S-XBS plus, which is another step in the bass. It does bloat the bass to a degree, but it is still manageable. The player also has a "Live" DSP setting, but it tended to add noise while trying to enlarge the soundstage, so I never used it. While my Memorex had DSP settings like POP, ROCK and others that my Panasonic did not have, I didn't miss them.

Overall, this is a good player that requires the right set of headphones. However, I cannot recommend it, even though the price is right because it is too weak to play loudly at all. It is a basic unit and for general use it is okay, but I think for $10 more, there are better units out there.