Sony Stereo CD/Cassette Boombox Home Audio Radio, Black (CFDS70BLK), 13.7 x 6.1 x 9 inches

More imported junk. Cassette player lasted 8 months before it started eating tapes. Now the cassette player is unusable, it drags on the tapes. The other features (CD, AM/FM) seem okay, they haven't been used much. More disposable junk from China with the Sony name on it. Update: 02-24-17 Sony CFDS70BLK CD/Cassette Boombox Home Audio Radio, Black: I bought this as a gift for a blind person. Prior to this he used a Radio Shack Cassette Player/Recorder for over 30 years, ~two hours a day until it died. He takes care of his stuff. This unit was purchased primarily for the Cassette Player/Recorder feature; his library is mostly cassette. Slight initial confusion to play tape on this unit, the cassette play button symbol appears backward to him and me however, this does not detract from the unit. He was thrilled by the great sound quality from all the features of the unit - AM/FM, Cassette Player/Recorder, CD Player. He bragged how much he enjoyed this unit, and is grateful to have something he needs. After eight months of slight use the Cassette Player/Recorder is useless but the radio and CD player continue to work, they both have excellent quality sound. When we were shopping for a Cassette Player I recommended Sony without hesitation; I associate Sony with quality and to large degree I still do. He and I both are very frustrated with Sony’s letdown in quality. This unit is very well designed electronically; it sounds great but suffers from terribly inferior mechanical components associated with disposable products. Without further risk of humility I will refrain from being so quick to recommend Sony and some of their consumer products for any value and longevity. I do not recommend this unit to anyone. Update: 11-11-17 Sony CFDS70BLK CD/Cassette Boombox Home Audio Radio, Black: Sony customer service made good for my friend. During the one year factory warranty period, Sony provided a cost free replacement of the defective cassette player. He is equally impressed with the sound quality of the new unit though he’s now reluctant to use it much. Jeannette was helpful with her timely reply to my post. Sony’s customer service was eager to uphold the company name and professional during the return process. Customer satisfaction? Sony makes some great stuff and proved to stand behind its product. I own several Sony’s, confident they will perform when used. Things wear out from normal use but for sixty bucks plus tax for a dependable music source for 8 months use is certainly not my expectation of value. It was a hassle to him to rely on others to help with tech support to troubleshoot, find the box, all accessories, pack, label, and ship the defective product. Label alone was 4 emails and label delivery. Using inferior components in this product tarnished Sony’s reputation for quality. Update 09-08-22: The replacement unit is still working fine after 5 years. I raised the Star Rating from 1 to 5.

It is good to see that cassette players are still available. I bought specifically because this may not be the case for much longer The engineering and design of this player seems quite good. Excellent FM reception. The antenna did not seem flimsy to me as someone else noted. I play a cassette with no issues; FF, Rewind, and Play all functioned well. It seems like a very decent cassette player. A played a standard CD (Sibelius Finlandia) and it sounded very good. Sony makes nice sounding units. The first MP3 disk I tried could not be read, but I suspect that is because of the sampling rate that I used for the files. Standard mp3 files should work with no issues. The manual also describes the folder format required to play these files. Please leave a followup comment if you have successfully tried playing mp3 files. The plastic housing does feel cheap but it is finished well and looks good. The boombox is also very light which could be a benefit for some. For the price, this is a respectable radio that has Sony's experience and reputation behind it.

Works pretty good. For playing back cassettes you have to use a fairly fresh player. If the deck is greater than 10 years old, the rubber components get hard and the tape starts to slip and drag causing wow and flutter. So even though I have 4 cassette decks, I had to buy a new one because the others have gotten too old. There are so many rubber components in a cassette deck that the cheapest thing to do is just retire it and buy a new one. Usually no amount of swabbing with alcohol or any magic rubber restoration does any good. This Sony was a good find. It works well and the price was not a killer. It works pretty good for playing back cassette tapes. (and dubbing them to my computer) I haven't compared it's radio reception to my super radio but so far it appears to receive fairly well. I haven't tried the CD player. However, I do have a couple of complaints. 1. The cassette push buttons are black with embossing to identify their functions. The embossing is not painted so it is black. Black button with black label. That means hard to read except in direct sunlight. Had to use my label maker to create some labels for readability in low light. 2. When powering from the 110VAC 60Hz power line there was slight background hum in the output. Very slight but since I was dubbing to my computer for permanent archiving, there was no sense in dubbing a version with a permanent hum in it. It was a fairly pure 60Hz sinewave so it was probably ripple on the power supply. I unplugged from the power line and used just the C batteries and the hum was completely gone. So I have a pile of C batteries and several hundred cassette tapes. That should keep my spare time filled for several months.

I hesitated in buying this unit, thinking that something this small and compact was going to sound tinny. (After all, if one wanted sound quality, one had to spend hundreds of dollars!) Needless to say, I was wrong. Though not meant for filling a mansion with sound, the Sony CFDS70 boombox is PERFECT as bedside/apartment radio, computer companion or numerous other needs. (Especially if there is a power outage.) I didn't think units with radio, CD and tape players were being made these days and now regret throwing out many of my old tapes and CDs. But thankfully I didn't discard all and am now enjoying old favorites that on the unit, sound new! The small size and light weight makes it easy to move the unit from one room to the next. I can listen to music making dinner, working on the computer or lulling to sleep. (It has a sleep timer by the way.) This is a great product and is highly recommended. Thanks, Sony and Amazon for making this available at such a reasonable cost!

I'm an older person who cares about most about radio quality and the ability to record songs from the radio onto an audiocassette. As far as radio quality goes, there's no comparison between the similar-sized Greadio unit and the Sony CFDS70BLK. The Sony is far, far superior in both radio sound and tuning--in fact, the radio sound and tuning are as good as my more expensive, larger, 22-year-old radio/cassette recorder. However, the Sony CFDS70BLK does not have the Bluetooth feature or a plug-in spot for an MP3 Plug-in Thing that the Greadio unit has so it depends on what you want to use the device for. As an older person, I'll stick with this more-old-fashioned Sony CFDS70BLK with its better sound and tuning and forego the Bluetooth and MP3 socket spot that the Greadio has. I'm sending the Greadio back and keeping this great-sounding Sony.

UPDATE 10/20/22: YIKES! I just tried to dub from an iPod to a cassette. Now, I grew up on cassettes and spent years as a radio DJ back in the day using cassettes. I’m not new. I understand this cassette recorder is Type 1, Normal bias (it’s not switchable). I bought brand new Sony Normal bias cassettes. The noise level on this recorder is way above acceptable! The hiss is so loud, the recorder is basically not even useable! I feel like an idiot for trusting the Sony name this time. Why even include a cassette recorder if the quality is so low that the deck is not useable? It tarnishes Sony’s otherwise good name. I’m past the return window already. Too bad. I consider the cassette deck a deal breaker! I’m extremely disappointed. I’d rather they omitted the tape deck and installed a CD burner instead. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I have not put it through it’s paces yet, honestly, but I have used the CD player. I bought this to play the backing track CDs that come with music lesson books (guitar and piano). So far, it functions fine for that for the most part. I would really love to have a remote control for it so I could cue and play a track without having to move my body position to start the track. As it is, I have very little time (4 metronome clicks) to get back into playing position before I have to start playing along. I played a cassette once also, and tested the AM/FM radio functions. Somehow, I missed the fact that you cannot record on a cassette via a microphone on this. There’s no internal mic and you cannot connect an external one. Had I known that, I probably would have kept shopping around. The unit functions just fine. It’s good quality and I expect years of service from it, it’s a Sony after all. It’s certainly not Hi-Fi and the bass boost (Mega Bass, I think it’s called) is laughable. Over all, for a portable, utilitarian cassette deck/CD player, it’s probably as good as you’re going to get. Another disappointment is the cassette door does not have a window. So if you’re a nostalgic audio nerd like me, you won’t get to see the tape reeling. It’s a small bummer, but not a deal breaker. If you absolutely must have something better, you’re probably going to need to prowl the vintage market and vintage electronics are a gamble. This one doesn’t like water, moisture, dirt, or dust. She’s delicate. I’d recommend this unit if you need a, no-frills cassette deck/CD player with AM/FM radio—and if you plan to use it in a clean environment (no work sites for this one). It’s functional and utilitarian.

i don't know if i would call this a boombox compared to others i have had which were large, loud, and gaudy looking. I would call it a nice desktop radio/cd/cassette player, so it is actually a great fit for my use. I was looking for a portable speaker with a Aux IN port and with a digital AM/FM radio and this is perfect for what i wanted. i will probably never use the cassette player or the cd player, but it is small and light enough so that it doesn't matter. it is easy to carry to another room and listen to my iPad or smart phone with the Aux port at a louder volume than these devices normally provide. I should add that the saving of the radio stations to the memory is a chore, but it is worth it to me to do it once and have it set up, rather than fiddling with an analog tuning knob and not being sure of what station is tuned in.

This has such a wimpy sound. I can't believe it. I spent $50 on this and expected so much more. We purchased a Sony boombox 13 years ago, and the difference is unbelievable. The old one has a very nice sound and is very durable. It is heavy and has stood up to several moves and four children. As a result, it has several dents in it, but it's still going strong. But this new one is so small and lightweight that I feel like it could break if I breathe on it. I purchased this to replace our old one, because it seemed the old one was broken. It turns out that it was just the power cord that had gone out. So, I was able to compare the sounds of both. This new one has such a wimpy sound. You can hear a constant "whirr" underneath the sound. Then the sound of the music is just small and bad. Turning up the volume doesn't help the sound; rather, it just produces a loud bad sound. Turning the "mega bass" on or off doesn't help either. At first I thought I was imagining things, because I really was looking forward to this stereo and I expected it to sound as good as the old one. So I tried several different CDs to make sure I wasn't being too critical. Then I put the same CDs into the old one, and wow, what a difference. It has such a clear, big sound! Whether you turn the volume up or down or the "mega bass" on or off, it's a very good sound. I'm sending this new one back right away for a refund. I can't believe how junky things are nowadays. For $50, Sony should be able to make a decent CD player. Just unbelievable. We will be keeping the old boombox, and we'll simply buy a new power cord for it.