Customer Reviews

Sony ICF-CD553RM Under Cabinet Kitchen CD Clock Radio (Silver)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Pros:
Looks great.
Extremely easy to install.
Functionality is very good.
Sound is very good.

Cons:
The dial/knob is NOT for volume or tuning, which is somewhat counterintuitive. Other than that, no flaws.

Overview:
I installed this radio just a few weeks ago. Install was extremely easy. The included template made drilling the 4 holes an exact science. And the height-adjustable legs made the fit perfect and were very simple to place and adjust, and using these the unit should fit under any cabinet setup.

It does look nice, which is important in a kitchen, and we just remodeled ours, so this looks the part.

Functionality is generally very good. Like I mentioned under weaknesses, the knob is used for the timer, which is not how most radios are set up. But we've already gotten over that. Radio is easy to use, including setting the presets and such. Likewise for the TV and weather stations. I haven't had much trouble with reception, but that will depend entirely on your own situation. The CD player is easy to use as well.

And the unit sounds good. For a small sound system, and one that is mounted under a cabinet, which is not the most acoustically perfect area, is sounds good. And the enhanced "MegaBass" and "MegaExpand" features do help quite a bit. I tend to keep them on all of the time.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with this unit.

After reading the other reviews I thought maybe I wouldn't have the reception problems others have mentioned because we live in a suburb of Denver and our kitchen has lots of windows. We tried the radio in several spots and finally found one where the signal seemed clear. However, when I stand in one area of the kitchen not too far from the radio, the reception gets very fuzzy. You have no flexibility with this radio because there is no external antenna.

I listened to several under counter radios in the store (this one, the GE, etc.) and this one has the best sound quality but unfortunately I returned mine because the fuzzy signal when standing in certain spots was too annoying.

If you only listen to CDs, you will be happy with this. But if you want to use it to listen to FM radio, look elsewhere.

This radio has excellent sound quality! I live in a rural area (two hours from the nearest "city"), and I have wonderful FM reception with this radio. The only reception problems I've had have been with the Weather bands -I can't pick any up in my area -and with one AM station. Because the AM antenna is inside the radio, the placement of your radio will determine what stations come in best. In other words, you can't move the antenna to get better AM reception once it's installed.

It took fifteen minutes to install this radio. A template is provided for the screws, so all one needs is a drill for the four screws.

This radio uses buttons instead of a knob for adjusting the volume, and for locating stations. I would prefer knobs (hence my rating of 4 stars.)I would also like to see a scan option for the selection of stations. (If it has this option, I've not found it.)

I can't praise the sound quality of the radio enough. To me, this is the best feature. There are several different options to choose from when deciding on the sound quality. I like this because it allows me to choose one for listening to talk radio, and another for listening to classical. It makes a difference.

Try it! If you aren't pleased with it after a few days, you can always return it.
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Back with an update after using this radio for many months. While I still think this is a decent radio, I've become rather irritated with the come-and-go nature of the reception. As the seasons change, so do the stations that I'm able to pick up. (Since it's in a fixed position, it is difficult to tune-in a station that's fuzzy.) This requires constant resetting of the stations that I've preset. Since there isn't a scan button, one must stand there and bump the radio up bit-by-bit until finding a new station. (Call my lazy.) These days, I mostly use the radio for its CD player and the very handy kitchen timer.

I still give this radio a wonderful rating on sound quality, but if I could, I would bump the rating down to 3 stars.

I can't believe what I've read about this unit. This is a piece of junk! I don't normally complain and I'll put up with a lot, but this unit is almost worthless.

Reception is very poor on all bands. I was suspicious right off the bat when even the directions tell you that for optimum reception, you must extend the cord because it is the FM antenna. That's a great design - to have the cord laying all over the counter for a space-saving under-the-counter radio!

The tuner appears to be digital, but it is really a poor quality analog. There is no signal rejection whatsoever. As you approach a frequency in an attempt to tune in the station, you can't really tell if you are right on it or not, unless you happen to know the frequency. The stations fade in and out, depending on where you stand in the room!

The mounting template looks like a simple rectangular arrangement for the mounting holes, but it really is a trapezoid, farther apart in the rear than in the front. If you are mounting the unit across two cabinets, you can't use the template anyway.

The CD door wouldn't open. You could hear it trying to move, but it never would open.

The left rear mounting on the unit was defective (stripped) from the factory.

Overall sound quality is tinny at best, with the bass boost having little or no effect.

Save your money and buy a small boom box and set it on top of the frig.

After going through 5 of the ICF-CD543RM models (bad CD mechanisms) Target got one of these and I upgraded. We've had no problems with it, and sound is suprisingly good. We live about 5 miles from downtown and generally our radio reception is good, and have not had issues with bad radio reception like others have. I'm not surprised if you live at the edge of a broadcast area that reception might be poor because (other than placement in your house - which is limited), you are not going to use the cord draped around your cabinet hardware to improve reception.

My only complaint is that installation is a little tricky and you should definitely pull the template out of the box first to make sure it's going to work with your cabinets. Anything other than a deep, standard cabinet set-up would make this nearly impossible to install. Use the dimensions of the unit as a rough guide, but the truth is in the template.

I've had this unit for a few days. The sound is accurate and reasonably full -- comparable to a small-to-medium sized boom-box. Controls are intuitive, but for the timer knob (as someone else has noted).
A few comments:
-Reception for TV channels (it plays TV sound in addition to AM/FM) is mediocre. Don't buy it for this purpose unless you live very close to the broadcast signal.
-Installation is very straightforward. They have cleverly designed, variable length spacers so that the unit hangs just the right distance below the cabinet. They call for 9/32" holes, which I think are unnecessarily large. Look at the mounting scews before you drill. I think I drilled 7/32" and that was more than adequate.
-It requires you to drill through the bottom of your cabinet, and the screw-heads are plainly visible on the bottom shelf.
-It protrudes by about an inch beyond my conventional 12" cabinet. Even so, it's not unattractive.
-This is actually sold through Crutchfield, so free shipping is not an option.

Overall, I think this is an attactive and capable stereo that performs as advertised.

My wife had been wanting a kitchen radio/cd player so I got her this Sony hoping it was top of the line. Well it is nice looking and was very easy to install. Unfortunately the sound quality is not so great. I was disappointed in the lack of bass, but I guess you could say we have gotten used to it because it does get a lot of use. My wife plays cds and uses the radio, which works fine and my son blasts his music while doing the dishes. We even used the TV band to listen to the president deliver the state of the union address while we ate dinner. My wife also likes the kitchen timer. So bottom line is that it is functional and quite good looking but don't get your hopes up for symphonic sound because in that department it is no better than a small clock radio.

Got this unit as a Christmas gift. Installed it but all radio stations have background static that is very annoying. Thinking it was location or interference from other kitchen appliances moved it around with no improvement. Then started going to different parts of the house and outside. Again no improvement. My $8 clock radio gets perfect reception when sitting side by side with this piece of Sony junk. Thinking the unit was defective I took it back and got another. Same problem with the 2nd unit. This time I got desperate. I took the unit apart and installed my own separate antenna (an optimized FM music Dipole antenna) directly to the radio receiver. Again, no improvement. I am now certain that this unit has some sort of internal architecture that creates the constant background static in the radio receiver. Since I got this as a gift it will stick around. If I purchased it or had the receipt, it would go back so Sony can dump it into their junk pile. This has been the only Sony product I have been disappointed with.

I bought this after christmas because I did not recive one and was so excited. I have always wanted a radio in my kitchen, one that did not take up too much space. After the two hour installation I plugged the unit in expecting it to work and low and behold, the CD player would not open. I read that there were similar problems with this happining from the other reviews but bought this product anyway. (stupidity on my part) I called sony and they only pay for shipping out a new replacment not for you to send it to them, even though this is a brand new product and I am a brand new customer. Sony sucks and this crappy radio sucks. I hope sony reads these reviews and will start to make better products. I will never buy anything from sony again!!! Oh, the only reason for a 1 star is because there are no 0's

I bought this unit to replace an old boombox on the counter.

This first unit I received had obvious shipping damage to the unit itself, with no damage visible to the outer box. This would have made Amazon look pretty bad, except their exchange procedure is great -- swapped out immediately.

We experimented to find an installation location with good sound, as described in instructions. We did note some areas in kitchen where sound would not have been good.

Installation was a little more challenging than expected, but not a problem. Use the template! The screws are spaced nearly square on the bracket but not quite. Don't make any assumptions.

Radio is good to work with. Controls are not exactly intuitive, but are okay. That knob really should be the volume. The remote is great. The unit is very attrative -- nice clean appearance with neutral style that would look good anywhere.