Sony ICF-CD837 AM/FM Stereo Clock Radio with CD Player (Black) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)...there is no digital tuner so no 5 station presets; no "birdsong, gushing river" or any other nature sounds; no headphone jack; and sure as heck no freakin' subwoofer (not that any subwoofer small enough to fit in a clock radio wouldn't sound like crap)! WAKE UP, Amazon, and check your facts!!!
However other than that, this is the best fifty dollar CD clock radio on the market (which says a lot about how sad the CD clock radio market is, at that). For one thing, it actually has a fairly attractive (or at the very least, inoffensive) form factor, compared to the gaudy-colored cutesy round models Sony and other makers have come out with in the past---are these industrial designers smoking crack or what?
Also I was impressed at how easy all the controls were to use---didn't even have to look at the instructions, it was that intuitive and also very ergonomic. This is about the main thing that Sony still does better than anyone else, provide ease of use. The green LED display is just the right size and brightness, and a big improvement over the horrible backlit LCD displays that many other clock radios have. There is an external FM antenna that helps somewhat---better would've been a detachable external antenna so you could hook up a better one to it. The adjustable "nap" timer is a very handy feature, as was the wake-to-CD alarms (2 of them) allowing you to choose which track you want to wake up to on the CD. I just use George Winston's "Winter" CD, it's nice and soothing. Even the buzzer on this thing is fairly pleasant.
I bought this mainly because I was tired of being jolted every morning by my Phillips clock radio's air-raid siren of a buzzer, and also because my city (Houston) has the absolute crappiest FM stations you could imagine.
What I really wish though is that Sony, Panasonic and other audio makers would just start putting alarm clocks in their minisystems so you could wake up to some half-decent sound quality music. This Sony is still way better than the Timex (hopeless!), Emerson, and other cheap generic garbage that Walmart sells but what can you really expect from tiny 1 watt per channel speakers?
Keep your expectations low though and this clock radio won't be too bad. I still could never bring myself to fork over three hundred bucks for the Cambridge cd clock radio.
What I really wish this clock radio had: 1. a 9V battery backup like my Phillips had, 2. having the CD, radio, or buzzer gradually increase in volume early in the morning, 3. MP3 capability (the box says it can play CD-Rs but don't know which format exactly), and ESPECIALLY 5. a headphone jack so that I could hook up this thing to some cheap self-powered computer speakers which would be a HUGE sound quality improvement.

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This ICF-CD837B AM/FM Stereo Clock Radio with Compact Disc Player is the perfect tool for helping you get up in the morning. The giant green LED display is easy to read from anywhere in the room, and the AM/FM stereo tuner gives you a wide variety of entertainment options. Burn your own CDs and wake up to your favorite songs with the CD-R/RW playback. Extendable snooze lets you get a little extra sleep in the morning - up to a full hour. Extendable snooze buttonCD-R/RW playback2 3/8 stereo speakersColor -BLACK Dimensions(WxHxD) -9 x 4 x 8 1/2 (229 x 104 x 218 mm) Weight -3 lbs. 10 oz. (1650g)

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