I bought this CD player in 1987 to replace an unreliable Realistic player (the tray wouldn't stay open and it overheated quite easily). I paid $212 at Service Merchandise (that's around $400 in today's money). I was immediately struck at how much better this player sounded as compared to the Realistic. The build quality and reliability were top notch at its price point. I've had this player ever since then. This thing is built like a tank and built to last. It has, however, gotten slightly quirky in its old age. Once in a great while it will stop like it's jammed. This is more than likely to happen on CDs that are somewhere over 70 minutes long (remember: this unit was made when CDs were 72 minutes max). It also has become slow to load. This is more apparent on CD-Rs and the redbook layer of SA-CDs. Other than that it still works like a trooper. If this model were available again I wouldn't hesitate to buy it... As long as it still says "Made in Japan" and still has the same build quality.