Home > Consumer Reviews > Koss CDP-1689CP Personal CD Player with Car Pack and 40 Seconds of Anti-Skip Protection

Nice looking, great sound, good headset, anti-skip works great. I walk everyday and this unit bounces inside my coat pocket or backpack without a skip. Sometimes I jog a little - still no problem.

However - the designers didn't use it like I do: It needs a belt clip - geez, pretty basic - or at least a carrier of some sort.

AND, the control button array is on top and I've found it will turn on if bumped when setting my backpack down. The result is a battery drain.

Finally, the headset plug goes into the side of the unit ruining the narrow width and sleek design. It won't slide into most pockets as a result. They should put the protruding plug along the front or back edge, not the widest, side edge.

I bought this CD player a while back, hoping it would solve my problems... I was using a 1989... YES, 1989 SONY discman until now... no antiskip of course, which is why i bought the koss. The first thing to go was the battery door, would not lock. The headphones I must admit were pretty decent, but my ears hurt after 20 minutes or so... i'm an inner-ear headphone person. The cassette adapter was kind of quiet, with poor stereo seperation. The headphone jack developed a bad contact, so I found myself using the UNAMPLIFIED line-out jack. I finally realized this player was on its' way out... so I managed to trade a SONY DISCMAN (1994) with car kit for it, with a friend of mine. A month later, the KOSS broke (LCD cracked)... and NOW, 5 months after (not to mention 5 years)... the SONY works perfectly still! He regrets trading with me. I recommend you go spend an extra 20 dollars and get a nice SONY Discman! KOSS should stick to headphones! I am not an abusive person, my stuff usually lasts VERY long... this player isn't designed for the real world... much too fragile!

This is two products in one, which sounds good for $50. (1) It's a discman. (2) It's a car cassette-to-CD converter. That's great if it works as both products.

But for me, it hasn't worked. On the first one I got, the volume control didn't work, so it was no good as product (1): discman. On the second one, the volume control works, but it sounds horrible in the car on anything that has electric guitar on it (ie most of what I listen to). So this second one fails as product (2).

At the time of writing this review, I'm not sure whether or not I will again send back an unsatisfactory product to Amazon. I suspect that the discman part of it is fine, and that a decent car cassette-to-CD conversion thingy would set things right.

But as far as quality goes, I have to score this product as an unacceptable zero for two. It gets one star on the dubious basis of "What can you expect for $50."

I got the CD player 2 days ago. I'm pretty happy with it except I found one minor flaw: The door of the CD compartment is kinda loose and it juggles a little bit when you shake it. I think I might buy some more to give away as gifts later on.

I have purchased 2 Koss cd players, and one stereo. Koss products do not last. They are not durable, and will skip if you sneeze hard. My advice is stick with the trusted and true brands. Remember: There is a reason why Koss is so cheap!