Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-MP80 CD/MP3 Player

This CD/MP3 player is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to carry a large selection of music without being burdened by bulky stacks of discs. A single MP3 CD will hold eight or nine hours of music, even at the high bitrate I prefer. In theory, I could put my entire music library-- over one hundred albums-- on ten MP3 CDs and fit them in a single CD wallet.

The sound quality is excellent, easily in the upper levels for portable CD players. The headphones that come with the SL-MP80 are unexceptional but perfectly adequate, although audiophiles will probably want to use their own set of lightweight headphones to really get full performance.

Durability is another nice touch. I'm currently on deployment at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait; heat and dust make this a tough tour for electronic devices, but this one has held up like a champ. It sees particularly rough handling as I like to take my music with me when I exercise, but so far I haven't even scratched the case.

The only complaint I have is a minor one: The SL-MP80 does not read v2 ID3 tags! The older ID3 format is supported, but the newer extended format isn't. The v2 standard is hardly new, and I don't see any compelling reason to exclude it, but for some reason this unit simply doesn't support them. It will, however, read ID3 v1 tags, as well as MP3s with both v1 and v2 tags.

All in all, I couldn't suggest a better portable CD/MP3 player.

*The first thing that I must mention is that the only difference between this player and the MP70 is the 80's ability to play WMA files. If you don't need that functionality then DO NOT get this player. The MP70 is about 10 bucks cheaper.

Now on to the actual review:
At first glance the player looks pretty attractive, although a tad bulky. When it was started, it took about 10 seconds to load the cd and start playing.
The audio quality was quite excellent especially if you like listening to music with a lot of bass, such as rap , r+b, alternative rock, etc; the EQ bass mode takes care of that.
The battery life does indeed live up to its claim. I still haven't listened to the cd player until the batteries have died, and I use the player quite a bit.
The only thing lacking with the player is the inadequate navigation system. To get to track 100, you have to click the skip button 99 times. Although this problem can be somewhat remedied by putting songs in specific albums, panasonic could definitely improve this aspect of the player. Then it truly would be the best.
Overall, the ML-70/80 are definitely the best bangs for the buck. Its affordable price, great functionality, and aesthetic design will provide countless hours of entertainment.

It must be hard to be a gadget designers. You take an excellent CD player and decide to add the ability to play MP3 and WMA files while selling the new model for the same price, and then, to your surprise, you get a bunch of whiners complaining why you didn't make it capable of showing porn movies and also washing dishes at the same time, all for the same low price.

The point is, this is a very solid CD player that can also play MP3 and WMA files. The interface is very simple, just like on a regular CD discman. Yes, if you had 1000 songs you'd have to press the forward button 999 times to get to the last one. But this is not meant to be a dedicated MP3 player. For that you have the iPods, the RCA Lyras, the Rio's, the Archos jukeboxes. If you listen to a lot of MP3's, you should get a dedicated MP3 player, not this. This is for those of us who listen to CDs on the go a lot, and sometimes have a CD-R or two burned with our favorite MP3s.

Tip - to get around the "press forward 99 times to get to the 100th song or 999 times to get to the 1000th song" problem, put a dozen songs in each folder. The Panasonic automatically designates each folder an album, and you can skip to the next album by holding down the fast-forward button.

As for the criticism of the volume, I guess it's a very personal thing. I listen to music on the earphones for about 1.5 hours each day, usually during my commute to and from work. I believe my hearing is excellent -- at least that's what my company doctor tells me -- so to me, the bundled Panasonic headphones are already pretty loud at volume level 18, even on a noisy subway such as the No. 1 train or one of the older N trains here in New York. But I usually use a set of Aiwa headphones with bass boost and in-line volume control (bought at Centure 21 downtown near the World Trade Center site) and everyone I've let try out this combination says the volume is more than adequate, even at mid-level settings. I think the upshot is, you have to try it yourself. If you have indulged in loud music directly over your ears over the years, the sad truth is you probably should cut down the amount of music you listen to and work with a specialist to restore some of your hearing abilities.

So these are my 2 cents on the excellent SL-MP80. (The slightly cheaper SL-MP70 does not support WMA but is otherwise identical. I have a longer review for that model because that's what I eventually kept.) The sound quality is great, battery life is excellent (although it's stupid for Panasonic to put the battery compartment inside the player so you can't change batteries without taking out the CD), and the design is stylish. I think you'll like this CD player a lot, assuming you are not too hard at hearing.

Have owned Sony, Aiwa, Memorex and other portable CD-players over the years, including a couple near top of the line Sony discman's. I seem to get about 3 years use out of any one - regardless of brand. It's the just the fact of the matter. I don't grouse, just resign myself to buying another one every so often. Now that I'm into MP3 and have started running again to stay fit I was looking for a discman that had good skip resistance with MP3's and also sounded good. Hard to find both it seems. Tried an offbrand sports discman (Accuphase)- mediocre sound, skipped. Tried an mid price level Sony Atrac capable sports discman - incredibly poor ergonomics and, (my fault) had I read the label, doesn't play mp3's. Returned it. Started reading discussion groups with my 2 criteria in mind. Found this player. *** It's wonderful ***. It does * not * skip and I can go to town trying to make it skip. Maybe mine was made on a good run, I don't know. I just know it works right. The only drawbacks: You can't fast search, and, like 90% of all discman's out there, one hard and fast truth: ditch the headphones immediately and get some good ones. You will come into a whole new world, sound will improve a couple grades easily. Just figure the price of decent headphones into the real cost of ownership. Volume is adequate/satisfying/enough - not "extra" or blow you away loud but satisfying with decent mid to high efficiency headphones. If you're into LOUD metal volume this may not be the player for you but it wasn't "weak" either. The sound is warm but clear. I encode my mp3's at 128 or 192kbps using the LAME encoder. They sound * great * !! Heck...it sounds better than my stereo at home in some ways. Really I would give this a 4.5 but I don't want to knock it down to a 4. I shouldn't say how good this is as I want a couple more for my friends. I considered the iRiver discman's but backed off due to reports of unbulletproof skip protection which was a primary concern for me. I really haven't auditioned them - they get good reviews mostly - I'm sure they are fine. I covet their hard drive player. Until the hard drive players come down to a reasonable price - this was my solution and is great sounding unit. I am happy.

P.S. For MP3's this unit displays the regular windows-named filename in a scrolling billboard way (when you ask for it by switching views - otherwise it's track # and time) which works for me. If you are outdoors/active I recommend obtaining a Case Logic or some kind of see-through padded outer case for bad weather as icing on the cake.

I'm such a spoiled..., i just love to navigate through a mp3 cd (RioVolts did it beautifully, but the battery life is horrible) and this device just isn't friendly that way...a downright pain in the... if you have a bunch of random songs. Additionally, the resume feature only works on one cd and starts at the beginning of the track (again, RioVolts do multiple cd resuming and resume wherever you are in the track). Best sound quality and battery life I've ever had the pleasure of partaking of in a cd/mp3 player though...the concert hall setting makes the sounds resonate beautifully. Oh ya, one more bad thing...no protective case...which is a must with these delicate and thinly designed cd players.