Price Paid:  $140.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
I would not purchase this unit if your are looking for quality. This is a cheap unit. This is my second Kenwood CD player. My first was the DP-R4440, which was bought in 89, and a much better unit. The laser on that unit worked for 7-8 years. Not to bad. The laser on my 103CD is starting to go bad only after 3-4 years of use. It costs about $90.00 to get a new laser, without installation. So if your looking for a cheap disposable CD player this is the one for you. The player seems to read CD-Rs ok, but no optical digital I/O. The player also repeats songs in random mode and then (sometimes just stops playing), very annoying, my old unit did the same thing, I thought they would have fixed this by now. Well, this is the last Kenwood component for me.

Strengths:
Price (cheap) you get what you pay for

Weaknesses:
Poor sound quality
Repeats songs during random play

Similar Products Used:
Kenwood DP-R4440 CD payer, Kenwood 104AR receiver

Summary:
the sound is very harsh and hard to listen to for a long period of time at high sound levels. for sound my sony discman blows this out of the water. not a very bad cd player but i have to give it a one for the poor sound.

Strengths:
always worked most of the time

Weaknesses:
sound

Summary:
Very, very good, Kenwood! A great, cheap CD changer that's durable, provides great sound quality, and looks nice too! The display on this model is much more pleasing than the digital-clock looking one of the 206. Finally, Kenwood includes digital optic i/o's on their lower-end models...motor is a bit noisy, as mentioned above, but is not that much of a problem. If you have a Kenwood reciever or don't need a remote and you're on a budget, get this thing!

Strengths:
Cheap, durability, optical output

Weaknesses:
Disc autoplay on startup gets annoying, loud motor (although much improved from older models!)

Similar Products Used:
Kenwood CD206

Summary:
I would recommend this cd player for anyone who wants a great product and doesn't want to pay a premium price for a higher end model. I would probably buy one with an optical I/O next time I am looking for a cd player.

Strengths:
Good sound for the price, durability--haven't had one problem with it since I've owned it.

Weaknesses:
No optical digital I/O -- would be nice to record from CD to minidisc with no sound loss

Similar Products Used:
Sony's mid-priced c5-disc cd changer

Summary:
For a basic, very cheap CD player, this one's great! It adds a liveliness and a more natural feal not found in other basic class CD players.