Portable Stereo Sony CFD-550L
The appearance of this model is typical for portable recorder firm SONY - streamlined body, the front panel with difficult terrain and unbalanced the cassette compartment door. Loading a CD from the top, the player controls are located nearby, at the top of the front panel. There is also a small display, which functions mainly kept to display player modes. Clock and timer in the cassette recorder available. Under the bar handles are located three-band radio graphic equalizer, controller functions Mega Bass and stereo balance. Adjust the volume of electronic, allowing you to control it with the remote control. By the way, features such as direct access to any track on the CD by its number or switch mode Mute (decrease the volume by 20 dB) is only possible with the remote. This can hardly be considered a fault system, because otherwise the front panel would be burdened with multiple buttons. Loudspeakers are mounted on the housing via the hinges and if necessary, can be spaced apart.
In the CD player of greatest interest is the system error correction when reading called "super advanced strategy Sony". For the experiment, we used two not very high-quality CD, who "seized" even on stationary decent players. It should be noted that one of them on the CFD- 550 played flawlessly. Other advantages (and disadvantages, too) compared to other models of the device, in my opinion, has not. Frequency response seems standard, but a strong influence the tone controls (even in the middle position is non-linear response of the amplifier) is not possible to obtain reliable measurements.
Quadband radio - FM, SW, MW, LW. Setting only smooth, by turning the handle. Shortwave possible to fine-tune the frequency. Selectivity and sensitivity of the medium, and the FM stations are so tight, it is not always possible to tune out noise. In this connection of an external antenna is not provided.
Double cassette recorder works only on tape type IEC I and allows you to record soundtracks from domestic sources - CD player and tuner, and duplicate tapes to normal and double speed. The mechanism works only in one direction, the recording quality is satisfactory. Decline at high frequencies is negligible. The disadvantage is very tight keyboard, requiring considerable effort to switch.
A few words about the amplifier, which is the weakest link in the system. Measured at 8 ohms undistorted power output was only 2.5 watts, and for the machine of this size is not enough. In addition, the scheme has a poor dynamic characteristics: a square wave signal is reproduced with high distortions. And this, unfortunately, affects the sound - it is a "smothered" and expressionless, and some transparency is observed only when playing traditional jazz.
Two-way speaker systems, high-frequency piezo. When connecting to another machine sounds good, although the use of two tunnels bass reflex speakers with this diameter is hardly justified.
