Personal CD Players

Hear Your Favourite Sounds on the Go With a Personal CD Player

Small and portable, personal CD players let you listen to your favourite music wherever you go. Countless pre-recorded discs are available, or you may already have an impressive collection of CDs for your home system. If you’re considering buying a personal CD player, eBay has many models, new and second hand, to get you out and about accompanied by great sounds.

You can listen to your CDs via a pair of headphones plugged into the player’s standard 3.5 mm headphone jack socket. You can also connect a lead from the player to an amplifier’s input for playback through your stereo system at home.

Many personal CD players also offer a range of useful extra features. Depending on the model, these include:

• CD-R and CD-RW playback capability: In addition to playing pre-recorded, commercially available CD-DA discs. Many players can also play music stored on home recordable CD-R and CD-RW discs.
• Hold function: When carrying your personal CD player, it’s possible for buttons to be accidentally pressed. The Hold function temporarily deactivates all the buttons to prevent that from happening.
• Anti-skip feature: Portable CD players are prone to receiving knocks while you’re on the move, which can cause the player to momentarily stop reading the digital data on the disc. Anti-skip or anti-shock functionality overcomes this gap by immediately switching to a temporary back-up of the section being played. This gives the player time to recover and resume playback without you even noticing.

Personal CD players are powered by small, typically AA-sized, batteries for outdoor use. Many personal CD player models are sold with an AC adaptor, too. Simply connect it to a 220-volt mains power socket to save battery power when using your player indoors. Some models also provide an adaptor for powering your CD player in your car. The adaptor plugs into the car’s 12-volt cigarette lighter or DC output socket and also connects to the DC power-in socket on the CD player.

The arrival of compact disc (CD) technology onto the audio music market marked a significant change for the better in audio quality from previous technologies. Crystal clear digital reproduction of music without the scratches heard on vinyl records or the hiss from compact cassettes was a welcome advance and is now the standard.