Sony CFD-ZW770 Cassette/CD Boombox

I bought this boombox about a year ago, and to be honest with you, I did not expect a terrific performance from it. I mean, what can you possibly get out of $120 stereo? Well, if you think -not much, you're in for a shock. Let's say I was pleasantly surprised, and I'll tell you why.

Well, first of all the price beats anything of similar characteristics. Usually you can get a Westinghouse boombox with a cd player, or something similar, but let's be serious- domestic-designed stereo's are not as good as Japanese. Plus all of them are made in China anyway. So, what would you choose? A boombox designed by Japanese or by Americans. Unless it is made by guys at Cambridge Soundworks. But that's a totally different price.

Now, let's take a look at the features available in this stereo;

1)CD player- one cd-Cd player. I don't think I need to explain what that is.

2)Double cassete deck- very useful for recording stuff from radio, cd's, or just another tape, the quality of recording is absolutely fine, no background noise, or "bugs". Perfect for making mix-tapes.

4)FM/AM radio- sorry no presets. One at a time, and that's the only drawback of this boomox, you can't change stations with remote control, you have to do it by hand, and yes, one at a time.

5)4 band graphic equalizer- very cool little thing, you can fade vocals, or high notes, or low notes, or the whole music, and leave only vocals, and can soften music, make it sharper. Easy to use- all you do is slide little handles up and down.

6)Remote control- who doesn't love remotes. Don't have to get up from the bed, to change a track or switch to radio. Very useful.

7) Surround sound- excellent feature. It makes the sound bigger, and it fills the room better. Some background noise appears, but it's blocked by the actual music. music seems to be more alive, it becomes sharper, and more"colorful". It is a very useful option, and very cool.

Functions:

1)Sleep- if you don't want to be interrupted to change, or shutoff your stereo you can put it in a sleep mode, and it will shut off automatically after a couple of hours. I found it very useful when I put in some slow quiet music, and go to sleep. That way I didn't have to worry about stereo playing all night long.

2)Programmable Cd- You can program the order in which the cd is going to play tracks. Example- 1,2,5,8,11 etc,. It's a good thing when you don't want to listen to the bad part of the album, but only want to hear the good stuff.

3)Phone jack- well, you can stick your headphone thingy in it. Unless you want to do something else with it. I don't want to know what it is.

That about covers all the functions. Oh, I forgot- it's only 25W. Not very powerful, but good enough for my apartment. That was the thing too, I didn't want to get anything too big and fancy because I won't have any use for it. I'm one of those guys who doesn't like when music is way too loud anyway. I listen to music.

That reminds me of a story told to me by my biology teacher way back in high school. There is that guy who goes to musical school, but poor man has got no talent. He tries this and that but he just can't get the right tune when he's playing his instruments. So, his music teacher tells him" Jimmy, you have to listen to music more, you have to listen a lot, and try to be one with the music". So, the guy goes home, puts a cd in his stereo, and turns it up to the maximum, he does that every day for about a week, and he slowly loses hearing, finally after month of that torture, he goes to his teacher and tells her that "listening" only made it worse for him. Teacher shakes her head and says "I told you to listen to music not overwhelm yourself with it". The moral is that if you want to really feel the music try listening to it carefully, in a quiet empty room with good acoustics. Whatever it might be, N'sync, Semisonic or Beethoven.
Ok, back to my review.

You are probably asking- if he likes this stereo so much why did he give it only four stars. Well, it's not completely flawless. After all, Japanese speakers are not the best around here. American speakers are better. But this Sony comes with a set of Japanese, but you can substitute them for domestic.

Second disadvantage is that there are no radio presents, so if you are stuck with a commercial break on one station, you'll have to change it manually.

Third- it's really isn't that powerful if you want something that will blow your roof off.

Overall, I really enjoy using it, it's easy to use, no complicated button combinations or anything. Sound is good enough for my apartment, because I don't have a hell of a lotta space to fill with sound. I don't know what to say, all I can say is that it works out well for me. If you decide to get it, then I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

P.S- the one pictured above is almost the same that i'm talking about, except for one more equalizer option and radio presets, but now it costs about a 110 bucks.