cd players

Contrary to the product title, there's no wood on this device. The speakers which come with the unit rate about a C+. An RCA Phono jack in back provides output for an external separately-powered subwoofer, which the unit greatly needs--but good luck finding such a stand-alone subwoofer at prices commeasurate with the price of this unit.

I set aside the bundled speakers and plugged a set of $20 computer speakers with subwoofer into the headphone jack. This improved the sound a great deal. It's difficult to spread computer speakers wide enough to get decent stereo separation, but the improvement in sound quality compensated for that.
I admit, I was using a string bass concertino to test it--some people might not notice the loss of bass on the original speakers, depending on what they listen to and how closely.

Where the instructions say it comes with 4 equalizer presets, they mean just that: there's no interface to the equalizer, all you can do is select flat or one of the pre-fab settings.

The unit runs a clock when it is "off" (on stand-by). It uses motors to open and close the CD-compartment door, but you can shut it off with the door open and it will not attempt to close the door while displaying its "Bye" message and switching to stand-by. If power is lost with the door open, you can gently close it most of the way, though it's engaged to the motor so that might not be good for it. If it's closed with a CD in it when power fails, you can in fact get the CD out (unlike most home tray-based players) but you'll have to be gentle again. Are these qualities good or bad? You decide.

This is apparently a version of a later product to be released "really soon now". It doesn't have the "blue ice backlight" behind the CD chamber which the later product promises.

As CD play first starts up, the machine makes a substantial "thwunk" noise which could obliterate the first notes of music if your CD has no silence or room tone at the beginning.

I'm using the CD unit without the bundled speakers, with a $20 set of computer speakers with subwoofer, to present music to very small groups while on the road. A boom box might be a better choice for many people.

I received this same product for my birthday. Its much, much better looking in person than the picture shows. It has a brushed aluminum finish and is also wall mountable. I love mine because it is very compact, yet offers excellent sound quality and it dosen't come with a cassette player, which I think is really great because who uses cassettes anymore? nobody! Everybody who comes into my dorm room notices this immediately and asks "where did you get it?" I could sell 50 of these easily.