Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Reviews get confusingly cross-posted so let me start by saying this is a review of a refurbished Sony ZSRS60BT CD/Flash Drive/Bluetooth/AM/FM player. They call it a boombox but boomboxes are a thing of the 1980's when a boombox was as large as a suitcase, used a dozen D batteries, and shook windows and walls. This player has a lot of excellent qualities but control of sound frequency is not one of them. However, since I wanted it for voice cd audiobooks, and voice mp3 podcasts--it's great for that. For music, I'll have to use something else. Threre's no way to cut the high frequencies and that makes it tinny and obnoxious for most music sources. It would be perfect if it had any sort of tonal shaping capabilities. Strangely, this player has no frequency equalizer, no tone control, not even a sparse array of pre-set equalizer settings like rock,classical,flat,etc. There is--what they call--a mega bass button but it doesn't do much through the player's tiny speakers. The so-called--megabass--is only effective if you wear headphones or if you are using this device as a pre-amp to some other stereo or sound bar. So, lacking tone control, for music, I couldn't stand it. I think the lack of audio tone control is why some reviewers say it has poor sound--because it has no means for cutting the highs. You wouldn't want to use it in an office or home for background music because at moderate to low volumes, only the "tinny" highs come through. I have thought about cutting some plastic or cardboard to cover the speakers but that would look ugly. (Covering the speakers would attenuate the highs by muffling the "bright-sounding" center region of the speaker cone. The sound would then be forced to exit the player from the rear of the speakers through all of the vents in the player's case. It would be an effective approach but rather crude and rather ugly.) If you use it for its bluetooth (BT) capabilities, you can shape the sound if your input device has an equalizer. But, mostly, bluetooth transmitters are cell phones and they have removed the ability to swap charged batteries in a phone. I can't use my cell phone as a player because I need the battery power for voice calls. I also can't clutter my phone memory with entertainment music and audiobooks. I've got to save that memory for important things. And, they took away the memory card slots on phones. I've got to plug an adapter to my phone's usb port to use a memory card so I can't power the phone using the usb port if a memory card adapter is in there. So, actually, I don't find any usefulness for the bluetooth capability because my phone is my only bluetooth transmitter. I guess they expect me to use my phone to stream from a cloud and power my phone at the USB port but I don't want to waste data for hours on end just streaming to my BT player. (I really miss my old Galaxy 4 phone. I could keep charged batteries available, the charger only cost about 10 bucks, batteries cost about 3 bucks, and I could swap memory cards and charged batteries into it all day and all night. It would be a great BT transmitter. But, it's old little CPU just can't really keep up these days with things I need to do.) For voice, however, this Sony ZSRS60BT it is just perfect for my needs and purely excels in that regard. I got a refurb at a greatly reduced price and it looks new to me. Voice sources like radio talk shows, mp3 voice podcasts, cd voice audiobooks, and so forth sound just fine. It will play mp3, wma, and some aac from a flash drive. It will also play mp3 and wma from cd (optical disc). I haven't tried aac on an optical disc. If plugged in, it is always in standby drawing 0.9w and it will always display the word "standby" if it is plugged in and turned off. If you have a flash drive plugged in, and if you turn it off (which actualy puts it in standby) it will remember where your place on the flash drive if you leave it plugged in or as long as you have charged batteries installed. It won't remember where you were in a cd unless you leave it turned on. If you turn it off (which actually puts it in standby) it won't remember where you were in a cd. It will re-encode disc files to flash drive files. It is preset to re-encode at 128kbps stereo mp3 onto the flash drive. (You can't change the 128kbps setting.) It takes about 45 minutes, though, to do the disc to flash drive conversion and the file names are simply numbered entries in the root of the drive. If you put several discs onto the flash drive, each track is just sequentially numbered starting from where the last conversion's numbering scheme left off and there is no metadata (ID3) tag. It is lightweight so its easy to move around with me. The AM radio seems to be just as sensitive as other radios I have. Sensitive means it can pick up a distant station and ignore some static and some interference. The FM band is also just as sensitive as other radios I have. It plays mp3 files of all kinds and hasn't refused any so far. For voice, it sounds good. It will display title and artist of a metadata tag (ID3 tag and such). This player will accept AA batteries. It's supposed to use C batteries but due to the configuration of its slots, AA batteries effectively fit without using adapters. This is great for me since I already have a charger bank of about 16 AA batteries for various devices around the house. I use Eneloops (Japan) which are 1900mah and I use some Energizer Accu's (Japan) which are 2400mah. Those give about 10 hours of flash drive playback. It's no fun changing batteries in devices like these, but, that's just the way it is. I'd rather hassle with swapping AA or C batteries because the other option manufacturers often force upon us is a built-in Lithium that is practically impossible to find and is quite bothersome to replace when it requires disassembly of the device to solder in a new Lithium pack. Most rechargeable C batteries you get these days are nothing more than a AA battery in a C-sized shell so using AA rechargeables are just as powerful and cost quite a bit less. Yes, there are full-powered rechargeable C batteries out there. I think they are about 5000mah or so but they cost quite a bit more. Full powered C batteries (≈5000mah) would give you about double the playback time (≈20 hours) compared to (≈10 hours) AA batteries (≈2000mah). Sony missed the mark by eliminating sound frequency control. If it had some way of cutting the highs, this little cd/mp3/bluetooth player would be in many more small offices and homes all over the country. I can't stand to listen to music on it, but, it is great as a voice audio book player.