Customer Reviews

RCA RCD101 Ultra Compact Boombox (CD and Cassette Player, Digital AM/FM)

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

 

 

I expected much better sound, even for the price. I bought a Philips Boom Box for my other son for less. That one sound sooooo much better! This RCA sounds like it's coming thru a tin can. Extremely disappointed!

I bought this for my home office. Basically, I was looking for a small, attractive unit with CD-radio-tape functions.

The footprint is small, taking up about a 18-inch area. Not bad.

The look is nice. In order to get the smooth contour to the system some ergonomics suffer. For instance, the tape buttons are placed almost vertically on the front of the unit, so when you push a button (stop, pause, play, etc.) you tend to push the entire unit back a bit. Annoying at first, but once I got used to it and used less force I stopped minding.

OK, the sound: there is no treble tone control, although there is a bass boost. I use the base boost when listening to music and turn it off when listening to spoken word (talk radio, books on tape, etc.). Works well for me. The music sounds fine (although you shouldn't expect this to replicate the sound of larger units with spatially distant speakers -- the stereo separation here is small -- about a foot). I have had no problem with any audio book I've listened to, as long as the base boost was turned off.

By the way, turning the bass boost on and off is pretty easy -- just hit one button and you're done.

The radio presets are fine, but they are not represented by separate buttons (i.e., one button for each preset station). Instead, there is one preset button and by hitting it over and over, you "scroll" through the presets you've programmed. This is kind of irritating.

The radio reception is fine, especially if you're used to listening to popular, powerful stations. I can get my local NPR station fine, but a couple of other local public radio stations -- including the classical music station broadcast by a local college -- come in with a lot of static. So I'd say the reception is fine, but not extraordinary. (All this might have to do with where you live and how you position your unit, of course.)

All in all, I'm satisfied with this purchase. I didn't expect a lot since it looks nice and is inexpensive. I should also mention that I don't use this as my primary media device, only as an office unit. So my expectations have been very adequately met.

In short: This is the sort of inexpensive, small, multifunction unit that works well in an office cubicle, in the garage on the workbench, in the laundry room, etc. It won't replace a component-based stereo system, but at this price and this size, you shouldn't expect it to do so.

I purchased this product because I wanted a 3-in-1 player for the kitchen. CD's sound great; the radio is just OK; but the corker was the sound for the tapes. Ugh! They are so muffled with this machine that you can't understand any words. There is no tone adjustment. Forget the talking books! Did I get a lemon? I sure wish I could find out who to talk to! I could have paid less with a different brand. I thought it was "safe" to buy RCA before actually hearing it. Buyer beware!

you need to get this. batteries last long awesome bass.