Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-CT520 Portable CD / MP3 Player with D.Sound Technology

Overview: Fantastic sound from a small device. Very light - weighs about the same as 2 CD cases. No vibration when CD is playing. I bought this player over the Sony models because this featured 3D-stereo and mp3 remastering (upsampling), and it is worth it! Made of plastic, however the design shows quality as all the parts and buttons fit together precisely. Buy this for $44 and you will not regret it.

Pros: Using high-end Sony Studio MDR 7506 headphones -- Fantastic sound. Deep, but clean bass on Extra bass setting. Clear highs and a very balanced and natural uncolored sound quality.
3D-stereo setting gives a natural spaciousness without sounding artificial. Sounds like a high-end Solid State stereo system when playing regular CD's. Sounds like a high-end Tube/Solid State stereo system when playing mp3s on the remastering (upsampling) setting. Recognizes mp3 folders.
Mp3 remastering (upsampling) feature makes even low bit-rate songs sound practically like the original CD recording.

Cons: Will fast forward/rewind through a song on a regular CD, but will not fast forward/rewind through a song in mp3 format. (If you will need to fast forward/rewind through long files, be sure to burn them to disc as a regular audio CD, and not mp3). Turning on the mp3 remastering (upsampling) feature lowers the battery life somewhat. ID3 mp3 tagging does not seem to be implemented on this model CD player, as mp3's did not show the song or artist name.

I dunno about the rest of you people but I really wanted to test the mp3 remast ering feature od this cd player. First, I [...] dowbloaded a lo-fi 64k/sec .mp3 file of the same song, burned them to an audio/.mp3 CD and then compared them by listening to them. I was simply DUMBfounded at how close this wimpy little lowest bitrate .mpe coul d sound sooo close to the "lossless" audio file which I downloaded. This is Amazing, from now on I am going to use this over my 20GB .mp3 player BECAUSE IT DOSEN'T HAVE THIS FEATURE. I can throw 300 songs on 1 cd and have one for every day of the year!, I am a musician/sound-engineer and I this this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, if you are going to buy a .mp3 player or a cd plyer (like this one) make shure it has D-sound. This is the only brand in mp3 players I will buy in the future! GET THIS CD PLAYER for $40 and see for yourself, I am hooked. Plus with both battery compartments installed it'll play for 144 hours in .mp3 format that's like 6 days of continuous listening of of 2AAA's and 2AA's!!!! DONT LISTEN TO ANY OF THESE OTHER sound challenged individuals!

ok so if ur reading this cd review then your amoung the many who can't afford the massivly overpriced ipods (200 bucks give me a break !)and ur looking for something to listen tomusicon untill the day whenthey become affordable. if so, for an mp3 cd player this is quite a buy here are the pros and cons.


Pros
1) great sound quality
2)panasonnic finally got the idea of the live sound gizmo (you can hear the vocals!), but it's now called the 3d feature.
3) it's got this new A/B feature that lets you jump between 2 points in a song.
4) it has a programming feature that allows you to play up to 20 songs in a cd in any order you want
5) there is a new train setting thatsounds real cool
6) its really thin and compact
7) although it runs on aaa batteries it has a aa charger if all u got are those.

cons.

1)the buttons are kinda small ( i don't mind but some may)
2) it's slightly complicated to use
3) that screen that shows you track#, elapsed time, and battery reading is on he remote nt the cd player along withthe buttons for everything except for volume, skip, play, and pause, so your pretty screwed if u lose it

so overall although there are a couple of minor setbacks overall it's a pretty good cd player. it has some other features but i don't really get those. considering this is the only customer review so far i hope this is helpful

I bought this player recently and I love it. For the price that I paid this is great. The sound quality is good and the anti-skip work well.

The battery life is good and specially the external case that can accomodate AA batteries is helpful.

The headphone is good too. The few shorcomings are 1)No display on the player 2)Small length of the headphone cord 3)Small buttons, but having said that I am more than happy to compromise on these shortcomings.

If i was a picky person, i would complain about the small buttons on the side of the player, no display on the player, the buttons on the remote are small, the display on the remote only shows the track number and play time, the extra battery pack gets in the way, and the cord on the headphones is short.

Now, being the person that i am...Once i mess around with the buttons on the player or remote for a week or two, i already know how they are set up. so what's the point of complaining? I have short, fat fingers, and i have no problems with none of the buttons at all. Why do i have to worry about seeing the title of the current song playing? I have all that info in computer. Now i don't mind the song count, it will give me a heads up on how many songs are left before i have to change the cd. The headset, granted the cord is short for my taste, but did we forget how long the cord on the remote is? It still sounds great, and it's adjustable so your ears won't hurt after using it for a while. The remote has a clip, so clip it on your shirt pocket, and you'll have plenty of headset cord to move around with. Finally, the extra baterry pack. Again, Panasonic could of added a clip on it, but hey, it's still a great idea. I live in florida, yes i got hit with those hurricanes in 2004, and i've been out with power for quite a few days. I wish i had this cd player back then, because it was a pain trying to change the batteries in my old cd player at night. With this one, i just had to plug in the extra battery pack, and in no time, be rockin' again. So for me, it's perfect, it has what i want, and i'm very happy with it. If you're not a picky person, then i highly recommend it. Crank it up, and enjoy.