Panasonic SL-CT790 Personal CD Player
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Similar in Portable CD Players
- CD-R/CD-RW Playback: CD-R/CD-RW
- Bass Boost: With Bass Boost
- Anti Skip Buffer: 48 sec.
- Supported Formats: WMA
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SL-CT790: The Reputation, Hype And Tragic Fall Of Panasonic
Pros
Slim design, battery life
Cons
Sound quality, durability
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
The Panasonic SL-CT790 is another recent and expensive disappointment from a company that once had the best mass-market players.
This is my first review of a portable CD player since I wrote a thumbs-down review of a Sony D-EJ1000 nearly five months ago. I have several requirements and desires: The portable CD player must have long battery life; it must not skip much if at all; it must not be overly bulky; most important, it must sound good. I've tried several new portable CD players since my Panasonic SL-CT470 started acting up (it sometimes stopped playing or started skipping for no apparent reason). The Panasonic SL-CT790 is the second portable CD player that I've purchased since the older SL-CT470 started acting up. I purchased it because of Panasonic's recent reputation of producing good portable CD players. Unfortunately, this recent Panasonic player fell far short of the brand's reputation and my expectations.
Features
The Panasonic SL-CT790 is a very slim and lightweight portable CD player with an aluminum lid. In order to achieve such a slim profile, the LCD display and the bass-boost and play mode controls had been omitted from the main body, and relegated to its bundled wired remote control. The player itself has only the requisite Play, Stop and Track Skip (Forward and Backward) buttons, along with Volume Up and Down buttons and a Hold switch. The buttons on the unit are somewhat difficult to press. The remote, which contains the connection for the headphones, features a four-way rocker button that has Play/Stop (at center), Skip Backward (left), Skip Forward (right), Volume Up (up) and Volume Down (down) functions. It felt a bit flimsy, and lacks an important Pause feature. Worse, the player's Resume function resumes play from either the beginning of the current track or the beginning of the next track, not from the exact spot where the player had been stopped. The remote has an EQ button that switches between S-XBS (the factory default setting), Train, Live and Off (Normal) modes, and it doubles as the button that turns off the audible beeps if that button is held down for a few seconds. The other buttons on the remote include the Memory/Recall button for programming tracks or recalling programmed tracks and a Repeat button for repeating either a single track or an entire disc or program. The LCD displays the track number, the current EQ and repeat modes and the elapsed time of the current track (but unfortunately cannot be set to display the time remaining on the current track or the disc), and it displays the total number of tracks and the total time of the disc when a CD is loaded when the unit is powered on. At least the LCD display is backlit for easier viewing.
The SL-CT790 is powered by two flat Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries, which deliver about 30 hours of playback from a less-than-4-hour charge. A plug-in battery wand accommodates two AA alkaline batteries for even longer playing time - up to 100 hours with both the internally-installed rechargeables and the external AA alkalines. Unfortunately, Panasonic had chosen to implement a plug-in battery-wand design with a short length of cable, and provide no way whatsoever of securely attaching the wand to the player (unlike previous Panasonic battery cases, which screwed on to the player body).
Anti-skip
The SL-CT790 features 48 seconds of anti-skip buffering. Unfortunately, like all other recent USA-market Panasonic players, this player compresses the audio in order to fit its relatively small memory buffer. Worse, this anti-skip compression cannot be turned off at all whatsoever. And since this player has no line-out jack (which would have automatically switched the anti-skip circuitry to 12 seconds of non-compressed buffering), you're forever stuck with compressed sound. That's disappointing for such a pricey ($150) player.
Sound
Okay, I've discussed the features, but how does the player sound? Well, this player is a big step down from Panasonic portable CD players of past years. The headphone out - which is the only audio output jack on this USA-market SL-CT790 - delivers slightly muddy, grainy sound that lacks musical detail. The mid-bass is boosted at the expense of the low bass. The treble can sound harsh at high volumes. And despite the 8-milliwatt (mW) per channel power output that looked good on paper, its maximum usable output loudness is noticeably lower than from several players that deliver only 5 mW per channel from their headphone jacks.
Durability
This slim player, despite its metal lid, felt flimsy to handle. One short drop onto a carpeted floor may break the tiny screws holding the hinges on the lid. And the lid never felt secure even when fully closed.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
After my disappointment with a Panasonic SL-CT580 from 2001 that at least sounded decent but proved fragile, Panasonic has managed to degrade the sound quality even further. With this model, Panasonic has managed to finally sink into the mediocrity of everyone else, as far as portable CD players are concerned. And the line-out jack, which I have missed, will never again return on any future Panasonic portable CD player marketed in the USA. Shame on you, Panasonic, for giving us an expensive player that's as mediocre as your cheaper players!
Features
The Panasonic SL-CT790 is a very slim and lightweight portable CD player with an aluminum lid. In order to achieve such a slim profile, the LCD display and the bass-boost and play mode controls had been omitted from the main body, and relegated to its bundled wired remote control. The player itself has only the requisite Play, Stop and Track Skip (Forward and Backward) buttons, along with Volume Up and Down buttons and a Hold switch. The buttons on the unit are somewhat difficult to press. The remote, which contains the connection for the headphones, features a four-way rocker button that has Play/Stop (at center), Skip Backward (left), Skip Forward (right), Volume Up (up) and Volume Down (down) functions. It felt a bit flimsy, and lacks an important Pause feature. Worse, the player's Resume function resumes play from either the beginning of the current track or the beginning of the next track, not from the exact spot where the player had been stopped. The remote has an EQ button that switches between S-XBS (the factory default setting), Train, Live and Off (Normal) modes, and it doubles as the button that turns off the audible beeps if that button is held down for a few seconds. The other buttons on the remote include the Memory/Recall button for programming tracks or recalling programmed tracks and a Repeat button for repeating either a single track or an entire disc or program. The LCD displays the track number, the current EQ and repeat modes and the elapsed time of the current track (but unfortunately cannot be set to display the time remaining on the current track or the disc), and it displays the total number of tracks and the total time of the disc when a CD is loaded when the unit is powered on. At least the LCD display is backlit for easier viewing.
The SL-CT790 is powered by two flat Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries, which deliver about 30 hours of playback from a less-than-4-hour charge. A plug-in battery wand accommodates two AA alkaline batteries for even longer playing time - up to 100 hours with both the internally-installed rechargeables and the external AA alkalines. Unfortunately, Panasonic had chosen to implement a plug-in battery-wand design with a short length of cable, and provide no way whatsoever of securely attaching the wand to the player (unlike previous Panasonic battery cases, which screwed on to the player body).
Anti-skip
The SL-CT790 features 48 seconds of anti-skip buffering. Unfortunately, like all other recent USA-market Panasonic players, this player compresses the audio in order to fit its relatively small memory buffer. Worse, this anti-skip compression cannot be turned off at all whatsoever. And since this player has no line-out jack (which would have automatically switched the anti-skip circuitry to 12 seconds of non-compressed buffering), you're forever stuck with compressed sound. That's disappointing for such a pricey ($150) player.
Sound
Okay, I've discussed the features, but how does the player sound? Well, this player is a big step down from Panasonic portable CD players of past years. The headphone out - which is the only audio output jack on this USA-market SL-CT790 - delivers slightly muddy, grainy sound that lacks musical detail. The mid-bass is boosted at the expense of the low bass. The treble can sound harsh at high volumes. And despite the 8-milliwatt (mW) per channel power output that looked good on paper, its maximum usable output loudness is noticeably lower than from several players that deliver only 5 mW per channel from their headphone jacks.
Durability
This slim player, despite its metal lid, felt flimsy to handle. One short drop onto a carpeted floor may break the tiny screws holding the hinges on the lid. And the lid never felt secure even when fully closed.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
After my disappointment with a Panasonic SL-CT580 from 2001 that at least sounded decent but proved fragile, Panasonic has managed to degrade the sound quality even further. With this model, Panasonic has managed to finally sink into the mediocrity of everyone else, as far as portable CD players are concerned. And the line-out jack, which I have missed, will never again return on any future Panasonic portable CD player marketed in the USA. Shame on you, Panasonic, for giving us an expensive player that's as mediocre as your cheaper players!
