CD Players for kids

February 23, 2005 8:26 AM

I want to buy my kids a small bedroom CD player each and I'm having trouble finding something affordable but with decent quality. Any recommendations? I'm in the UK.

I've looked on Amazon and Argos and the like, both for CD clock radios and boomboxes, and the reviews generally suggest poor sound quality or some other unattractive fault (flimsy mechanism, makes a humming noise), or they're just expensive. Both kids have crappy players now - I'd like to buy something a bit better so they don't grow up thinking all music sounds that bad. I'm thinking £60-70 range. Many companies seem to get it wrong for that money. Does anyone get it right?

posted by sagwalla to Shopping (8 answers total)

I believe this was discussed already, check it out.
posted by knave at 8:29 AM on February 23, 2005

knave: i don't think that really covers the spesific topic...
posted by delmoi at 8:31 AM on February 23, 2005

Well, here's a bose wave radio for $150.
posted by delmoi at 8:35 AM on February 23, 2005

I bought my daughter a small boom box type CD player from Dixons. Cost only about £20, sounds fine and even plays CDRs. This is key as I can then make her copies of my CDs, which she can scratch up at will.

I'm sure Argus must also sell a few. Don't bother buying a kiddie CD player in a toy shop. Those are junk.
posted by gfrobe at 9:04 AM on February 23, 2005

We have one of these for our kitchen. It's pretty small, solidly built, it's a Panasonic, so the sound quality's decent, and as well as the FM/AM radio, it plays CD-R/CD-RWs without complaint. It's also got a very robust opening and closing mechanism for the CD player, which I'm figuring is important since you're talking about kids here, and a remote, though arguably that's just one more thing to lose/break/buy batteries for. Oh, and it's ~£60 online, maybe a little cheaper in the shops, once you factor out the postage.
posted by Len at 9:24 AM on February 23, 2005

This probably doesn't suit your kids, but who knows: the Muji CD player is small, slightly above your price range, and different enough to be cool.
posted by o2b at 10:46 AM on February 23, 2005

Just get any old discman and a pair of Sony SRS-Z1 speakers.
posted by krisjohn at 9:47 PM on February 23, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for the great ideas. I like the looks of that Muji gizmo, but I'd want to hear the sound first. I'll also give Dixons a look, and think about that Panasonic.
posted by sagwalla at 3:29 AM on February 24, 2005