Customer Reviews

Panasonic SW967 Shockwave Water-Resistant Portable CD / MP3 Player with D.Sound Technology (Blue)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this item to replace an older Panasonic CD player, the SL-SV553J. I wanted a CD player instead of an IPod or Flash MP3 player because I wanted good sound quality and I don't care so much about having a really tiny player. Also, this is less than half what you'd pay for the other.

In any case, the sound quality of the SL-SW967V is a big step down from my older Panasonic player. This doesn't make sense to me, but I've tested it carefully and it really is much worse.

My test -- I have a remastered version of Pink Floyd's "Animals." It sounds great on my older player. But on the new one it sounds muffled and cheap. I noticed this immediately.

So I tried the two players side by side. I switched headphones to make sure that wasn't the problem. Actually, the headphones on the new player do sound worse than those on the old one, but that didn't account for the difference. Even with the newer (worse) headphones the older player sounds much better.

So I tried both players with an excellent set of Sennheiser headphones. The older player again was much better. The newer one still sounds muffled and cheap. I am returning it.

This is a big disappointment. Panasonic has made some good CD players and I thought this would be another one. The styling is nice. The buttons are soft rubber and well laid out. The case is hard and kind of metallic looking. All very nice.

But the sound is mediocre at best. If you care about the sound, look elsewhere.

The Panasonic Shockwave SW967 CD/MP3 Portable Player is available in silver and blue. Shockwave is Panasonic's name for its line of portable audio players that are more heavy duty than a regular audio player. The Shockwave has thicker plastic, more screws, rubber buttons, and a rubber gasket designed to protect it from bumps and moisture. I haven't dropped the SW967 yet but I have a old Panasonic Shockwave cassette walkman that I've dropped a few times from waist height and it wasn't damaged.

I used MAC OS X and iTunes to rip and burn MP3 CDs. I used iTunes to import/rip songs in higher quality 192 Kbps MP3 format.

Using the 192 kbps MP3 format I am able to fit, depending on song length, about 100 to 150 songs on a CD-R. If you encode the songs in the slightly lower quality but standard 128 Kbps you could fit even more songs on a CD-R because the audio files would be smaller(use less memory space). So I create a playlist in iTunes and then I burn a CD-R.

This Player has excellent battery life. Panasonic claims 100 hours of battery life with a MP3 CD if you use 2 alkaline batteries under the following conditions: EQ IS OFF, HOLD IS ON, DIGITAL REMASTER IS OFF AND A 128 KBPS MP3 CD-R. I was able to get 75 hours of battery life under the following conditions: EQ SET TO S-XBS, HOLD IS OFF, DIGITAL REMASTER IS OFF AND A 192 KBPS MP3 CD-R.

You can set the EQ to 5 settings, 3d-1, 3d-2, S-XBS, S-XBS+ and off. 3d-1 and 3d-2 make it sound like surround sound. S-XBS boosts bass and S-XBS+ boosts it even more. I found the S-XBS to work fine, setting it to S-XBS+ increased the bass too much. Digital Remaster is supposed to improve sound quality when listening to MP3s, but it also drains the batteries more. I didn't notice any improvement with it on so I keep it off. The SW967 doesn't have ID3( a tagging format that shows title, artist, album, track number, etc.,) on the display. When playing a MP3 CD it just shows Album number and Track number. When I created a playlist with 145 songs in iTunes and burned it in MP3 format to a CD-R the player shows the track number but it just shows 1 for the album number all of the time. I don't know why it always displays 1 album even though I created the play list with songs from many albums. The Shockwave has repeat, shuffle, and program play modes. This player has a AM/FM Stereo receiver built in, it has 20 FM and 10 AM station presets, something that iPods and other MP3 players lack. The reception depends on your headphones, it is OK.

The player comes with a hand strap and behind the neck headphones. One nice feature of the Panasonic Shockwave MP3/CD player is that when you listen to CDs and turn if off the next time you turn it on it "remembers" the last song you played and goes back to the song and the exact time in the song you were listening to when you turned it off. If you remove the CD from the player then this doesn't work.

I was thinking about getting an iPod but when I compared the features and price I decided to get this. An iPod Shuffle costs $100 and has no display, no radio, 15 hours battery life and holds about 100 128 Kbps MP3 songs. The SW-967 costs about $80 and has a display, AM-FM Radio, 100 hours battery life and holds about 160 128 Kbps MP3 songs. So if you don't want to spend a lot of money and you want to get a rugged versatile player I recommend this one.

If you like GOOD sound, get this CD Player. With the stock earphones included in the package, it produces a great range of sound including nice, full bass. The lid is sealed for water; it's a tight unit. Stay away from the iPod; stick with the tried and true. This player is terrific. Sign me: Particular About Sound Quality

I like it. Had it about 4 months. Sound is good and it tunes AM and FM well enough. I compared it to a $100 portable radio and it pulled all the area stations just as well.

For MP3 the display doesn't provide much information, just "album" (directory) and track. It remembers where it was if you shut it off an restart. I have an iRiver that's spoiled me with respect to information display.

Battery life is good, at least 20 hours. Unit seems rock solid physically. It travels well.

Downside for me is it doesn't work when I'm using it while running, which is the reason I bought it. It does meet spec, which is 45 seconds of anti-skip. But the continuous bouncing from running keeps it from catching up. It's flawless for that 45 seconds. For exercise, I'm sticking with a flash drive MP3 player and the nuisance of converting CD's to MP3's.