Joggable CD player with 40sec antiskip, excellent sound quality, long battery life,

maybe price ($89-99)

I picked this portable CD player up a little over a month ago, and I really love it. The SL-S3600J is a special package of the SL-S360 CD player with a cool neoprene jogging pouch. The pouch is definately worth the extra $10 compared to the S360 even if you don't jog (great for walks or work-outs at the gym). Even the packaged headphones are actually listenable (especially useful for when you're exercising and sweating and don't want to use your nice headphones).

When I plugged my Grado SR60 headphones in and listened to my first CD (Tori Amos), I was really impressed at how good it sounded in an absolute sense. I was able to compare it in the store to the Aiwa XP-70 which is a similar unit (both have 40sec antiskip, and long battery life). After a couple listens (especially with solo piano) the Aiwa struck me as brighter and grainier, while the Panasonic struck me as having a more natural tonal balance, with a wonderfully smooth (as in lack of grain) sound. It has the best retrieval of natural detail I've ever heard from a portable. Plus it hasn't skipped yet (and yes I've jogged with it).

I mainly bought it to use during exercising, but it sounded so good with the Grados that I had to try it in my main system. Again I was struck by a natural grain-free sound, but it very quickly showed some weaknesses. It was noticably less dynamic than my Philips CD920, with a narrower soundstage. I had very little sense of soundstage depth too. Overall the presentation was just less engaging than the Philips. But despite these deficiencies, if my philips died I could enjoy living with the Panasonic until I could replace it. I'm very pleased.

On the feature side it's got all the basics: shuffle, bass-boost (which is just enough but not too much), hold, resume, plus it is track programmable. One neat feature of the design is that you actually get longer battery life with the anti-shock turned ON, so there is little need to ever turn it off (I can't really tell a difference in sound quality of on vs off).

http://www.prodcat.panasonic.com/shop/product.asp?sku=SL-S3600J

Similar Products Used:

Awia XP-V70, my ancient Sony diskmans

anti-skip, overall sound quality, long battery life, very practical to use, high output

soundstage (but doesn't matter as much with headphones)

I wrote a long review on this posted under the SLW360 reviews. I totally agree with Jessica Severin's assessment below including the comment on limited soundstage. The only thing I would add is:

1) It has high output which allows you to choose a variety of replacement headphones. The original headphones aren't very good and should be replaced if you want high quality sound.

2) At current blowout prices for refurbs, this is a stone bargain. I bought a refurb (two, actually, from two different souces) and so far the refurbs work like new.

Similar Products Used:

Early Onkyo & Sony models