Yesterday I went through Panasonic, Philips and Sony Websites and was looking for new portable MP3/CD-Players. To my surprise, there are hardly any good and versatile products from those manufacturers.

Philips EXP510: no equalizier, no fm-tuner, fat, ugly, no backlit display

Panasonic SL-CT800: no equalizer, bad anti-shock, no backlit display, no fm-tuner

Panasonic SL-CT700: dto, but very smart design

Sony D-NE1: no equalizer, no fm-tuner, but looks good

One good thing about Sony and Panasonic is the long battery-life. But its fairly easy to charge batteries, therefore I would choose iRiver-products with a better variety of features.

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Hmm... I have the CT500 and it hasn't skipped a single time, even while hopping around town, going up and down stairs, etc... of course, I haven't taken it jogging. If the CT800 has the same anti-shock device I would say that is not an argument.

Destron

P.S. The battery life is great

my pana CT800 hasn't skipped at all since i've had it...even when set on POS 2 (10 seconds as opposed to 45). and there IS indeed an EQ on the 800....settings are: S-XBS, TRAIN, LIVE, and OFF. and the only display on the unit, the remote, is indeed backlit.

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Mea maxima culpa! I just read the specifications on the Panasonic-Website. I probably got that wrong. A backlit display is very important to me and its good news, that the CT800 has got one.

45 seconds anti-shock seemed to be very little. But, according to your post, the effect of the anti-shock-mode depends on its algorithm and the way it works.

To be honest, after reading your and Destrons post, I now should regard the CT800 as an iRiver competitor. What about the headphone-amp. Is there enough power for koss porta pros? Which headphones are you using with your CT800? iMP-400 delivers plenty of power (2x 12mW).

to chewmanji:

Just found your post at "SlimX 350 or Panasonic CT700/CT800?" thread. That gives a more than sufficient answer to my question.

But, how would you describe the differences in soundquality between "Piece of crap" 1 and 2?

to me, POS 2 (10 seconds) sounds cleaner, richer, and fuller...POS 1 (45 seconds) sounds in comparison compressed...i would say the differences are much like those between a 320 kbps MP3 compared to a 128 kbps MP3.

iRiver iMP-series have that too, but only when normal audio-cds are playing: in this case the soundquality is getting bad if you want to take full advantage of the antishock-mode (180 sec instead of 45 sec).

For mp3-files there is always and only a 480 sec antishock-mode (imp-250... upwards) with superb soundquality.

By the way, is the CT800 capable of reading UDF-CD/RWs that are written with InCD or DirectCD? iRivers can do that, which is very convenient, 'cause you can use your CD/RW just like a HardDisk and change and modify mp3-files at your PC (windows-explorer) within seconds. Sonys MP3/CD-Player cannot read such disks, as far as I know.

The design of the CT800 is very stylish and sexy, apart from the three "buttons" on the top.

i would like to hear about Sony D-NE1's headphones out. used to have a D-CJ01, loved the design, but soundz like a ass

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I haven't even touched Sonys D-NE1, but I would like to know this, too. This special "ass sound" might have something to do with the extraordinary long battery-life. Just not enough power to read and play compressed data properly???

I guess iRiver decided for sound-quality without making any compromise in favour of battery-life (there's still plenty), whatsoever.

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i actually don't have any CD/RW on hand to test it out, and i am not sure how to make a UDF-CD/RW, so i can't answer you're question.

yes, the three "buttons" are a little useless...they are simply three little windows to let you see the CD spinning.