Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony CFD-S350 CD/Cassette Portable Boombox (Silver)

Only had it for 6 months and already it won't play my cd's, so now it's basically a very overpriced fm radio, with relatively poor reception on many stations. Very annoying. I expect more from Sony. This is the only Sony boombox I have tried. I have a Philips at home, which I've had about 8 years and still works like a charm.

I've owned several multi format players over the years and this one sounds the best of all of them. It delivers sharp, crisp sounds without sounding tinny or like it's in a barrel. The bass boost works fine on my unit. If you can't tell a difference you might want to get your ears checked.

I like it because it's small enough to fit on my desk comfortably and it can be carried easily. The handle lays down flat when you don't need it. The antenna folds away nicely under the handle when the radio isn't in use. The earphone jack is placed nicely on top and you don't have to go hunting for it. The power and the sleep buttons are conveniently placed side by side by themselves so you don't accidentally hit them and turn the player/radio off. All in all I like the placement of the buttons, someone put a lot of thought into the placement and use of the buttons when designing this nice little machine.

The LCD display is easy to read, it has larger than average letters and numbers. If you didn't have instructions for this unit you can almost figure it out without them. It's very intuitive and user friendly.

The remote is not too small or too large, and the buttons are a good size, not too small to press easily and not too close together. They're also very clearly labeled so you know which buttons control which functions.


I still have plenty of cassette tapes left and they all sound very good on this unit. It doesn't hiss when playing them. CD's sound clear without any extraneous noises and the high/low range sounds good to my ears. If you want some piece of an audiophiles dream then go pay the price for it. I like listening to all kinds of music from Irish drinking songs to trance and it all sounds great to me on this little box.

I haven't used any batteries yet, I bought mine for indoor use, to listen to my CD's and tapes.

I give this unit five stars for:

Good design set up
Size
Ease of use and functions
Sound quality
Price

Follow up: December 23, 2006

I'm still really enjoying my little machine. I really really like the repeat function. It also has a repeat shuffle function that shuffles the order of tracks around while it repeats and that's kinda neat. There's another function that's really great and that's the programmable track repeat. You can program it to repeat a particular track however many times you want. I tried several CD's on 'repeat all' and it kept playing the CD over and over again til I stopped it. Out of curiosity mostly I let the same CD run, all day long and half the night, just to see if it would do it. It did. I am still very pleased with this unit and its' performance and would buy it again.

October 12, 2007

My little machine is still going strong. I've had no problems with it whatsoever. All in all if it bit the dust today, I will have gotten my money's worth from it. I've used it to death. I've played CDs, and tapes, and listened to the radio, LOL. It's been going nonstop since I took it out of the box;)

Edit August 15, 2008

This little box is still going strong. There are those who said there's no repeat function. To that I reply:

Here's a link to a pdf file of the owner's manual and instructions, direct from Sony's website:

http://www.docs.sony.com/reflib/docget.asp?manualid=36460&DL=',600,560,10,10,'Manuals'

Check it out yourself and see what this nice little music box will do;)

Update December 12, 2008

My little box is still going strong. if it bit the dust tomorrow, I've gotten my money's worth, LOL. I've played this little box a countless number of hours. I'm still very pleased with the performance.

Good sound for a small boombox but potential buyers should be aware that battery life is very short. Six Energizer size "D" batteries will only power the system for about 5 hours! The user guide says 7 hours but we have not found that to be true after 3 sets of batteries. Not a problem if the unit is plugged in but we bought it to use outside.

The boombox is okay but I'm afraid it'll break in no time if I'm not careful with the CD component. The part that comes down on the CD seems loose and have to be very careful when playing the discs.

F.Y.I. You can't play recordable discs or bootlegs on there. So that sucked

This is the second Sony portable CD player I've had that played fine until just after the warranty expired. In both cases, the CD player at first started skipping, then refused to play or recognize CDs. This is not a dust or cleaning issue, but a problem with the manufacturing that apparently either causes the optics to go out of alignment, or the motor to spin either at the wrong rotation rate or at a variable rate. (I guess it could also be a problem with the stepper motor that moves the optics in and out to follow the tracks.) No matter the cause, I won't buy another Sony CD player. Shame they bought Iawa too, because now I can't trust that brand either.

I spent about 15 years servicing industrial and broadcast audio and video equipment, and what one engineer said (somewhat jokingly) then applies now: "Sony products are great, as long as they have no moving parts."