Customer Ratings & Reviews

1982, the year of pinnacle sound quality. The CD became the first consumer platform to offer audio quality, not only digitally, but also in the highest fidelity possible. Fast forward to 2020, nearly 40 years later. The CD is an all but forgotten medium for audio recording. Being displaced by digital files, streaming, and vinyl that preceded it. But the CD left its mark on the world, with over 200 billion audio CDs being produced. The CD still stands as the best format offered physically for audio, and still offers superior audio quality to digital and streaming. So why not capitalize on this glut of digital music? The Memorex Portable CD Player with Bluetooth (MPCB630GN) MSRPs at $30, so even compared to the golden age of portable players, it undercuts almost all - even before adjustments for inflation. It does this while including ESP (electronic skip protection - important when the portable player could be jostled causing ‘skips’ during playback), bluetooth audio, Digital Bass Boost System (DBBS), and digital volume control - all of which were once premium or even unobtainable features years ago. So does this make the MPCB360GN superior to all its forebearers? No, not at all, just an echo of the past in many ways. First of all, bluetooth on this unit implements A2DP. While ubiquitous, it doesn’t offer anywhere close to the fidelity offered by CD audio and is hampered further by seemingly not quite as good as some players' implementations. However expecting AptX at this price point would be shooting too high in my opinion, and even the convenience of bluetooth audio is enough to outweigh the downside in quality. It certainly isn’t horrible, and a huge plus that’s very unique in the portable CD player world. The wired audio quality, when hooked to a pair of headphones that retailed for nearly 5 times its price was nothing to write home about either. Audio quality here based on the built in amplifier was limited with electric noise, hissing and a bit of softness in general. The audio superiority of the CD is not on display here unfortunately. The DBBS did an OK job with boosting some audio presence. I didn’t notice any clipping, even at the maximum ‘32’ volume on the unit, but it did sound compressed. At normal listening levels headphones sounded close to what I expected, but something felt off compared to a better quality device. At least it was brave enough to offer a 3.5mm audio jack. The ESP was a bit buggy for me. Initial skips where the buffer would start playing seemed to happen at random. Once the ESP buffer was full, things got better, but initial playback was jarring and filled with artifacts as the swap between stream and buffer wasn’t handled the best. Even so, it seemed to take quite a jostling for the CD player to even have an issue with skipping ,so some may prefer to avoid digital artifacts by simply turning the ESP off. It took sometimes 5-10 seconds to start playback. From a cold start, it would take at least 15 seconds to get playing. This isn’t good performance, even in retrospective. It does support MP3 CDs, but unfortunately I had trouble even digging up most of my old CD collection, let alone the equivalent of mix tapes in the CD world. The documentation didn't give much of a hint if anything other than MP3 was supported. Obviously MP3 CDs are less friendly to work with, but hold a lot more music while sacrificing audio quality. Luckily, you’re not going to notice any sacrifice, so I’d recommend using MP3s. Overall button layout is decent, and the built in screen will seem familiar to anyone that’s used a CD player in their life. The buttons from top to bottom are ESP on/off, Program order/skip 10 tracks (useful for audio books), Mode/Bluetooth (holding enables bluetooth and bluetooth pairing, otherwise swaps between repeat, repeat 1, random and play first 10 seconds of each track modes), play/pause, stop/off, next track/fast forward, previous track/rewind, volume +, volume -. Unfortunately there is little to differentiate buttons, and it will be necessary to look at the device for most of these button pushes. The side of the device reveals a 3.5mm audio jack, DBBS switch, 4.5V barrel jack (come on, would it have been so hard to just have micro USB?). The bottom of the device has a pull door that exposes the two (included) AA batteries. Overall, I plopped in a set of energizer lithium batteries. Even with bluetooth, this device seems to sip power frugally, and I have seen over 10 hours easily on these higher end batteries, without so much as a battery warning. Unfortunately, there is only a low battery warning, not a level, so you may want to keep a spare set of AA on you just in case. Overall construction seems above its MSRP. There is no creaking, and the device presents as a solid circular device. Again, I’m surprised they can produce a device this cheap and turn a profit. It’s a shame that the market probably wouldn’t support a higher end device, as this device just doesn’t bring the audio quality you’d want to see from a CD. Don’t think for an instant that this device wouldn’t be at home as a running buddy, or playing old CDs in a pinch, but it's a far cry from the higher end of portable CD players of yesteryear. Also it does come with earbuds, but I’m not much for that style, so I left them in the box. I wouldn’t expect them to be high end, but they’re a nice courtesy if you lack bluetooth, or other headphones. Overall it's hard to complain about a CD player that has bluetooth and retails for less than a burger in Vegas. It's not the pinnacle of sound quality that its medium ushered in, but for utilitarian playback and exercise it seems sufficient. Bluetooth is a great convenience, and other than your normal bluetooth “is it in pairing mode… is it connecting… maybe I should turn it back off, oh wait, it connected!” experience, it offers great flexibility. If you’re looking for a casual player, the memorex is good, if slightly flawed.

I enjoy audiobooks when I travel but my new car did not have a CD player. They seem to be a thing of the past in cars. So I found this CD player which I can bluetooth to my Bose speaker. So I still get to enjoy my books!!!

I love this player so much that I bought a second one for home, the first one was for work. The controls are simple to use and it plays my mp3 cds very well. I would recommend this to anyone wanting a portable cd player.

My new car does not have a player and I have a zillion cd's. So I chose this one. Has a cool Dynamic Base Boost, and will read scratched disc as well. Last fair on batteries, but I will find a 4.0v 12 volt adaptor.

Read carefully some reviews and I get one for my corner work soft.It friendly working, easy to connect my JBL bluetooth speaker.The sound is good with it price.

This was a gift for my stepson. He played his CD's all day and enjoyed the sound of the speakers. It was a nice gift for his birthday!

Not for good music listening. The sound is all treble. No bass. No stereo sound. This cd player would only be fine for listening to books, teaching, or motivation talks on cd. I had an excellent portable Sony cd player but left it behind when I moved thinking that I could just reorder another one. It had great stereo sound and good listening setting options. Terrible mistake not bringing it along! I won't find another like it. Now moving on to the MP3 device to download music digitally.

So happy with this! My mother loves her CDs and was sad when she purchased a new car without a CD player in it. This was super easy to set up and allows her to play her CDs through her vehicle!

Great purcase for all our old CDs especially for those long car trips when you want something different to listen to.

I purchased this portable CD after returning an unworkable CD player from Amazon. Never thought Id buy a CD player again but needed it for mindfulness practice, using bio-lateral CD's. Works great.

It's great in a relatively quiet environment, but using it in the car, where in my state, earbuds are no allowed, an external speaker limits the volume.

Just what wife wanted for her use in her car. Stable no skip player. Easily paired to Bluetooth speaker. Purchased power adaptor and FM adaptor separately.

When using Bluetooth to transmit, skips the first letter on many sentences on a book on disc. The would be he; carrots would be arrots. Annoying! I returned and replaced, but problems still existed. Also batteries are very hard to replace.

Very easy to use. I like the way it remembers where it was on the CD when I restart it the next time I use it. This worked even after I changed batteries,

This is a complete piece of junk. You have to buy the power cord separately. And you will need it, because two AA batteries last about one hour. I have a multi-size dc adaptor with 7 different connector sizes. None of them fit. The Bluetooth wouldn’t connect to our speaker. Save your money.

Where I instruct exercise classes has a sound system that is extremely outdated. The player will bluetooth to the TV in the room with ease and I don't have to mess with the old system

Exactly what he was looking for. Has worked very well and he is very happy with it. Best of all, he can listen to his favorite cds without bothering me!

Not easy to figure out for Bluetooth setting even with instructions also stopped working after my daughter used it 2x and no longer able to return

Maybe you’re like me. You bought dozens of CD’s back in the day and have not gotten around to ripping many of the songs you like off them. Now you want to listen to a CD, but since your current player doesn’t have Bluetooth you have to go through the house trying to find a cord to connect it to your speaker. You won’t have that problem with this Memorex player, it has Bluetooth built right in, so now in addition to using your current Bluetooth speaker to listen to songs on your smartphone, you can use this device to listen to all your CD’s as well. It comes with two AA batteries, so you don’t have to search for those. Just pop them in, push the play button and then press the Bluetooth button to pair. My speaker found the player immediately and I was set to go. There’s a digital readout of course to find the cut you want. It has a “program” button, so you can select the cuts you want to listen to in the order you’d like. You can also push the ‘electronic skip protection’ button to give you a 40 second buffer in case you are moving the player while listening. I really don’t think that buffer is even necessary, I shook the player while it was playing with the skip protection off and it never missed a beat. It’s nice that it’s there though. The player comes with wired ear buds with three different tip sizes if you want to listen privately. There’s also a “bass booster” on the device, but I really didn’t hear much difference on several different recordings. There’s no power button on the player. Push “play” and the unit comes to life. The unit will turn itself off after a few minutes after the player stops. I find this both good and bad. Good, in that you don’t have to remember to turn off the player to keep from wasting battery power. Bad, because when the player shuts off, it loses Bluetooth connection and you have to re-pair every time you turn it back on. This is not a big deal at all, just something you should know. Bottom line, I’m going to use this player often because of the number of CD’s I bought back in the day. It’s easy to use and for under 30 dollars it’s a great buy.

Awesome CD player and well worth is money. I bought this for my teenage son and he has hearing aids that are Bluetooth capable and this integrated with no issues.