I've recently gone back to my old trusty Panasonic portable CD player (SW405). While the sound is quite pleasant unamped, I wondered if my Ety's (ER4P) would benefit from a more powerful amp.
Well, I was in Walmart today getting a card for Mother's Day. I recalled this thread, and decided to try out one of the newer Lennoxx/Durabrand PCDP's. The Lennoxx players have a headphone-out amp rated at 20mW/per, compared to the 9mW on the Panasonic. The manual doesn't state at what load, so I assume that is 16ohms.
Anyway, long-story-short, it is a piece of garbage. The store I went to had both the CD85 ($19.99), and the CD96 mp3/CD player ($29.99). I only had an extra twenty bucks on me so I opted for the CD85. I carefully opened the sealed bubble case, popped in a set of AA's, and the latest Joss Stone CD. Plugged in my Ety's and prepared for audio nirvana. Alas it was not to be (not for $19.99 anyway). The headphone-out displayed an incredible amount of power, but also an incredible amount of scratchiness and hiss. Completely intolerable. Not what I remember from the CD87 I had a couple of years ago at all.
So, just an FYI to anyone who might have been curious about this line of PCDP's - don't bother. My old SW405, with its smooth headphone-out, beats it down easily even with less power. If I really want more volume, I can add on my Supermini.