Sony ZSRS60BT CD Boombox with Bluetooth and NFC (Black)

Shopping for a boombox has been quite the experience these days.After my 16-year-old Panasonic boombox stopped reading CD-Rs, I felt it was time to get with the times and look for a good portable boombox which offered great sound and could utilize the latest formats and features. Despite still having quite a few cassettes, I didn't feel it was necessary looking for a unit which could play tapes. Many of the boomboxes on the market today still offer a cassette player. This may be a great convenience for some, but I really wanted to purchase a unit that was "future-proof." Standards are always evolving but I felt this Sony, the ZSR60BT, would at least fit the bill in the meanwhile.I purchased the unit via Amazon and have been quite pleased so far. Unpacking the box revealed that the boombox is a bit smaller than what I originally thought it was. Build quality is reasonable for a product in this price range. It does feel a bit lightweight which may disappoint some, however, all buttons and knobs are well constructed. Like all things, if you take proper care of the unit you should have issues or problems with reliability. The unit is quite simple -- it offers CD, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3 playback (and via USB flash drive), AM-FM radio, and even a USB-to-CD recording feature.Features wise, I love the USB option. Instead of messing around with CD-Rs, I usually just attach a thumb drive to the unit and it plays all my MP3 and WAV files without issue. An added benefit, for some, is that this boombox also recognizes and plays .MP4 files should you have them. It doesn't accept FLAC or any of the high-resolution formats like DSD, etc. Although since Sony has been pushing "Hi-Res" audio, I expect later models to incorporate playback of these formats later on down the road. Still, its probably not a huge issue unless you're a diehard audiophile. As I listen to mainly talk programs and lectures (throw in the occasional music CD here and there), I find this unit to meet my needs perfectly.As far as the sound quality goes, I was pretty pleased. Granted, we're at the mercy of the law of physics here and there is only so much sound you can produce out of such a small speaker. The sound here is relatively warm; there isn't any grating or shrillness which is always a good sign. Depth and soundstage for music is quite decent; however, I feel the separation between instruments could be a bit better. Nonetheless, it's still a pleasing sound that can get quite loud. The MEGABASS feature does add a nice bit of oomph in the low end; when the feature was disabled, I could spot the difference immediately. I generally prefer the bass boost for both music and talk radio programs.If you don't have unreasonable expectations, I believe you'll find the Sony ZSR60BT to be a satisfying portable boombox. As I use the unit primarily for recorded talk programs and the occasional CDs, it has fit my needs perfectly. If you're a die-hard audiophile or want to really blast some music, I know Sony offers an elevated model (at around $200) which would probably be a better option than the 60BT. I expect it will be a very high step up above this, but for under $100 I don't think you can beat this unit in regards to playback, features, and convenience.5 stars, highly recommended.

Sony ZSRS60BT CD Boombox with Bluetooth and NFC (Black)I bought this product for 2 purposes: As a reliable CD player for my wife, and as a means of playing music for our church small group. This unit rated the highest in the Amazon reviews I read for comperable CD boomboxes. I adjusted to highest volume and it is loud enough for a large living room to hear an audio file with teaching/preaching. I thought that the audio quality was as good as might be expected for a small boombox like this one.The first thing I did was to try all the functions to make sure that everything was functioning correctly. Everything was functioning correctly. I was happy to see that the Bluetooth connection worked from 20 feet away even with 2 walls in the way.The next thing I did was to use the unit to burn our music CDs to a USB flash drive. I was delighted to find that each time I finished a group of cds, I was able to simply transfer the files created to a new file that I had created, i.e., contemporary, worship, Terry, Erin, etc. The unit works fine with multiple USB folders, allowing me to navigate between folders and selecting play tracts for each folder.The CD boombox didn't come with an instruction manual, but I found one at: [...]Instead of keeping a stack of cds around the unit I have purchased a number of mini USB flash drives, and am putting each genre of music on its own flash drive so that my wife doesn't have so many folders to go through to get to what she is looking for.One of the nice functions is the random playback mode. It functions for all the files on the USB drive or cd, with continuous random playback.Paul

Reviews get confusingly cross-posted so let me start by saying this is a review of a refurbished Sony ZSRS60BT CD/Flash Drive/Bluetooth/AM/FM player. They call it a boombox but boomboxes are a thing of the 1980's when a boombox was as large as a suitcase, used a dozen D batteries, and shook windows and walls.This player has a lot of excellent qualities but control of sound frequency is not one of them. However, since I wanted it for voice cd audiobooks, and voice mp3 podcasts--it's great for that. For music, I'll have to use something else. Threre's no way to cut the high frequencies and that makes it tinny and obnoxious for most music sources. It would be perfect if it had any sort of tonal shaping capabilities. Strangely, this player has no frequency equalizer, no tone control, not even a sparse array of pre-set equalizer settings like rock,classical,flat,etc. There is--what they call--a mega bass button but it doesn't do much through the player's tiny speakers. The so-called--megabass--is only effective if you wear headphones or if you are using this device as a pre-amp to some other stereo or sound bar. So, lacking tone control, for music, I couldn't stand it.I think the lack of audio tone control is why some reviewers say it has poor sound--because it has no means for cutting the highs. You wouldn't want to use it in an office or home for background music because at moderate to low volumes, only the "tinny" highs come through. I have thought about cutting some plastic or cardboard to cover the speakers but that would look ugly. (Covering the speakers would attenuate the highs by muffling the "bright-sounding" center region of the speaker cone. The sound would then be forced to exit the player from the rear of the speakers through all of the vents in the player's case. It would be an effective approach but rather crude and rather ugly.)If you use it for its bluetooth (BT) capabilities, you can shape the sound if your input device has an equalizer. But, mostly, bluetooth transmitters are cell phones and they have removed the ability to swap charged batteries in a phone. I can't use my cell phone as a player because I need the battery power for voice calls. I also can't clutter my phone memory with entertainment music and audiobooks. I've got to save that memory for important things. And, they took away the memory card slots on phones. I've got to plug an adapter to my phone's usb port to use a memory card so I can't power the phone using the usb port if a memory card adapter is in there. So, actually, I don't find any usefulness for the bluetooth capability because my phone is my only bluetooth transmitter. I guess they expect me to use my phone to stream from a cloud and power my phone at the USB port but I don't want to waste data for hours on end just streaming to my BT player. (I really miss my old Galaxy 4 phone. I could keep charged batteries available, the charger only cost about 10 bucks, batteries cost about 3 bucks, and I could swap memory cards and charged batteries into it all day and all night. It would be a great BT transmitter. But, it's old little CPU just can't really keep up these days with things I need to do.)For voice, however, this Sony ZSRS60BT it is just perfect for my needs and purely excels in that regard. I got a refurb at a greatly reduced price and it looks new to me.Voice sources like radio talk shows, mp3 voice podcasts, cd voice audiobooks, and so forth sound just fine. It will play mp3, wma, and some aac from a flash drive. It will also play mp3 and wma from cd (optical disc). I haven't tried aac on an optical disc.If plugged in, it is always in standby drawing 0.9w and it will always display the word "standby" if it is plugged in and turned off. If you have a flash drive plugged in, and if you turn it off (which actualy puts it in standby) it will remember where your place on the flash drive if you leave it plugged in or as long as you have charged batteries installed. It won't remember where you were in a cd unless you leave it turned on. If you turn it off (which actually puts it in standby) it won't remember where you were in a cd.It will re-encode disc files to flash drive files. It is preset to re-encode at 128kbps stereo mp3 onto the flash drive. (You can't change the 128kbps setting.) It takes about 45 minutes, though, to do the disc to flash drive conversion and the file names are simply numbered entries in the root of the drive. If you put several discs onto the flash drive, each track is just sequentially numbered starting from where the last conversion's numbering scheme left off and there is no metadata (ID3) tag.It is lightweight so its easy to move around with me. The AM radio seems to be just as sensitive as other radios I have. Sensitive means it can pick up a distant station and ignore some static and some interference. The FM band is also just as sensitive as other radios I have.It plays mp3 files of all kinds and hasn't refused any so far. For voice, it sounds good. It will display title and artist of a metadata tag (ID3 tag and such).This player will accept AA batteries. It's supposed to use C batteries but due to the configuration of its slots, AA batteries effectively fit without using adapters. This is great for me since I already have a charger bank of about 16 AA batteries for various devices around the house. I use Eneloops (Japan) which are 1900mah and I use some Energizer Accu's (Japan) which are 2400mah. Those give about 10 hours of flash drive playback. It's no fun changing batteries in devices like these, but, that's just the way it is. I'd rather hassle with swapping AA or C batteries because the other option manufacturers often force upon us is a built-in Lithium that is practically impossible to find and is quite bothersome to replace when it requires disassembly of the device to solder in a new Lithium pack.Most rechargeable C batteries you get these days are nothing more than a AA battery in a C-sized shell so using AA rechargeables are just as powerful and cost quite a bit less. Yes, there are full-powered rechargeable C batteries out there. I think they are about 5000mah or so but they cost quite a bit more. Full powered C batteries (≈5000mah) would give you about double the playback time (≈20 hours) compared to (≈10 hours) AA batteries (≈2000mah).Sony missed the mark by eliminating sound frequency control. If it had some way of cutting the highs, this little cd/mp3/bluetooth player would be in many more small offices and homes all over the country.I can't stand to listen to music on it, but, it is great as a voice audio book player.