Classy look. Nice sound.

Cheap plastic cover. Flimsy, wobbly. Kind of loud spinning with ESP on.

Overall, very good. I'm on my fourth year of using it heavily, so durability is not a problem. Didn't sound as good as the Sport, but has proved to last way longer. (Sport died on me after 2 years).

I don't like the pause in music when hitting the ESP button-- the Philips doesn't do that.

Overall a nice CD player that has served me extremely well. Cost a lot for a discman, though (I paid retail).

Similar Products Used:

Sony D-181, Sony Sport Discman, Philips Portable CD player

I was once a "loyal Sony customer" who thought Sony was not capable of making pieces of junk. After I bought the D-368, however, I learned the true nature of that particular company.
First, I will tell everyone about the good aspects of the D-368. It has top-mounted controls. That's about it.

Now for the juicy stuff. I purchased the D-368 from Magnolia Hi-Fi in August of 1997 for $150. The first one was screwy. I took it back and got a replacement D-368, which was also screwy. I got that one replaced also by another D-368 (stupid me!!!) which, as you guessed, was also screwed up (I will list the problems later on in the review). That third unit was "repaired" three times by an independent service center and another three times by Sony and still didn't work right. Sony decided to replace it with another D-368. That one was even screwier than the previous three. I sent it back to the Sony Service Center and they "fixed" it. When I got it back, it was even worse. I called up Sony again (approximentally the 150th time, which is not an exageration) and they agreed to buy the unit back. It took me more than 2 months to get my check from Sony because of a "snafu" in the check authorization process. What's worse, the service technician at Sony told me that whenever I sent in a D-368, it met Sony's own specifications (meaning it was not defective, technically speaking).

Now for the collective list of problems that I have had with the D-368's:
1. Static sometimes occurred when I was listening to a CD and the only way to correct it was to give it a sharp "tap" on the lid.

2. The first 1-2 seconds of a track were not played when advancing forward from one track to another.

3. The unit skipped for no reason on brand new discs with no scratches and on discs with a few light scratches associated with normal use.

4. When advancing from one track to another, the unit would sometimes go into what I call "digital la-la land", meaning that the display would go blank, the disc would spin, but no music would be playing.

5. When advancing from one track to another, the unit would display the behavior of number four plus the disc would start spinning faster than a disc in a 32X CD-ROM drive and would vibrate more than a 32X CD-ROM drive. (Maybe the Sony thought that it was a Corvette?)

Additional characteristics of the D-368 are: poor defect tracking, a high-pitched squeal from the replacement motor in my third unit, and since this unit was made before Sony improved their bass boost, the Mega Bass button should be labeled "MEGA TREBLE" because that is all that it boosts.

In short, if anyone gives you a D-368, throw it in the trash can and buy an Aiwa. I have had two of those, one had a bad laser, but my current one, an XP-V50, has worked flawlessly except for one time when it "flaked out." It hasn't happened since I reset the unit by leaving the batteries out for 2 hours.

It plays my CDs and sounds good

cheap plastic scraches easily

I don't know what is with the other reviewer. This is a fine CD player. I have been using it for three years almost every day with no problems at all. Bass boost works great. Unit does not skip easily. The sound quality is excellent with no audible hiss or distortion from the unit. No complaints from me.

Similar Products Used:

other portable CD players