Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DE451 Discman Portable CD Player

I have had this Discman for 2 years. While I admit that you can't do much with it, like run or move around a lot, it has always worked well. One time, I tripped and fell right on top of it (it was in my pocket). The headphones broke, but the Discman didn't miss a beat. I think that's pretty good. My only problem is that if you simply tap the lid, it skips. If you just want to listen to it in a car or something, get something to post it on and it will work fine. If you want it for running or something of that nature, look elsewhere.

This Discman does the job quite nicely. I got it to replace a Panasonic portable CD player from 1994 and was pleasantly surprised at how much better it is. The battery life is WAY longer. I haven't actually counted, but the 16-hour advertised battery life sounds just about right. I used to use the AC adapter all the time with the Panasonic, but I don't even bother with this Discman. ESP works great to prevent skipping, and it rarely skips under normal conditions even without ESP (my old player skipped constantly, especially in the car). The sound is great. There's two bass settings, megabass and groove. I find groove to be TOO bass-y, but megabass is just right. The only feature I really miss is backlighting on the display when running off AC power. The Panasonic had that, and it made using the player at night in a car a lot easier. Also, when you hit pause, the player beeps regularly and frequently. This is good because you don't accidentally leave it in pause and chew up all your battery life, but it's really irritating when you've paused it to talk to someone and you keep hearing this beeping.

Wow! This CD player is amazing. I'm a swimmer and I go on a lot of out of town trips, and I take it everywhere I go. I was disgusted by some of the bad reviews for this. The sound has really good quality, and it never skips. Even on my scratched CDs, it barely ever skips. If you want a n awesome CD player for a reasonable price, this one is great!

All right. This is the best player I have ever had. I take this Player to school everyday for 3 years. It takes a beating. I's got virtually all of it's silver paint scrapped off, but it still keeps working. I've dragged it up Mt. Manadnock it nearly white out conditions. Once my pack broke on the way up. Then I was litteraly throwing my pack down the mt. with 20 ft. drops. When I got in the car and took out my player it worked fine. I was amazed that it could take such a beating and still work! As far has I'm concerned some of the other reviews are really underating this CD Player!

My advice -- avoid this product. Within three months of light use, it began skipping ever more frequently. Within six months it had deteriorated to the point that I had to stand completely still to avoid the skips. So much for portable listening.

For the price I expected durability. What I got was a disappointment.