Home > Consumer Reviews > Coby CX-CD239 Portable CD Audio System with AM/FM Tuner

The unit came with a speaker buzz and a repetitive tick when
playing CDs, mainly because of manfacturing and design
shortcuts.

On opening the unit I found two unshielded flat ribbon cables
folding and tucking these between the circuit boards fixed
the buzz, adjusting the CD's sled trim pot fixed the
CD player's (focus?) tick. By the way these things are thrown
together, I sure many other units would have these same
basic problems. After "repairing" then CDs sound fine
through headphones.

The FM radio has a poor signal to noise ratio and sounds
also sounds "thin" though the speakers.

I only "repaired" my new unit only because my kids like
the looks, other people would just ask for a refund..

...but that's about it. The radio hardly receives anything, only about 3 FM stations come in. I know it's this radio that has the problem, since my coworkers can get stations I can't even find on this thing's dial. Since I bought it so I could listen to the radio at work, I'm returning it. I never tried the CD player, so I can't say how that works. It didn't come with an instruction manual or anything at all in the box except for the radio itself - not that I needed a manual, it's a radio/CD player, it's not that hard to figure out, but it shows you the kind of quality product you're dealing with here. Oh, and it does take 6 C batteries instead of the power cord, but because of the way the cord has to plug in inside the battery compartment, you can't have batteries in it in case the power goes out. I guess that's what you get when you don't buy a big name brand. I won't be making that mistake again. I am VERY unhappy with this radio.

I don't know what problems others are having with their radio-CD player but mine works great. I specifically asked for one of these at Christmas to use in the office, where I listen to classical music on streaming audio from my local NPR station.

The radio sounds as good as the signal I got from streaming audio and the CD player worked fine this morning when I played a new version of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 at work. It has plenty of volume for an office product and holds the FM signal from my radio station much better than past radios I tried to use in the office.

In addition, I'm happy to say the players plays all my homemade CDs even though the instructions specifically state that it will only play CDs that have the CD label impressed on them.

All told, I report much happiness with my machine, at least in the first few weeks I've used it. The radio is terrific and the CD players works fine.