First Impression

Sony has shown us their new addition to the boom box section. It is supposed to be durable, waterproof, great sounding and able to play mp3s. This is no normal boom box, though.

Unlike the little Sony psyc boom box, this has awesome sound and goes very loud. Even at full volume it sounded great. It has great sound quality, and supports ID3 tags. It also can display the file name on mp3 files. It is better to have it just display the filename though, since it tells all of the information about that song. The screen is too small to have it show the artist and title in the filename so you'll have to select it and wait for it to start scrolling. You can also select it to show it by album, title, and artist if you want.

Quality

Just by looking at it, you can tell this is for the active person. The handle is in-between the speakers, it can stand on its back, and is very light. They're not BS'n you folks, it IS waterproof. I had put it into a baby pool at a swim club I used to go to just to see (while there were no kids on it, it is disgusting) if it was. If you keep it in there fully submerged for awhile, it'll turn off or just stop. Then you'll have to dry it in the sun for awhile, and dry off the cd. If you just keep it in there for 10 seconds, or just spill water on it though, still play just fine.


Sound

As for the sound quality, it is superb. The bass is great, even at high volumes, which is impeccable for a one piece boom box on batteries. It has easy to locate buttons, and a generally easy to use interface. You simply push a small stick up and down to change the track, and keep it down to fast forward and rewind. With filenames showing for mp3s as you change tracks, it is very easy to locate the songs. Unlike the newest Phillips boom box, which doesn't show filenames or ID3 tags, that's VERY annoying when you have over 80 songs on a disc.

Flaws

First, the small gripe.

The radio couldn't get reception if it was right next to the tower with the antenna for the station. No matter what, it has cruddy radio reception. Rarely is it good.

The biggest problem with the S2 is that the mp3s constantly skip. I have tried roxio, I have tried the windows xp burner, I have tried MusicMatch, and a few other computers, and they skip. So I downloaded a new mp3 file, tried it, and it still skipped. Then I took a cd of my own, made mp3 files, and they too skipped! Not on all of my songs, but many. When I converted them to wav, they worked just fine. So I tried it in Best Buy on another Sony boom box, same problem. Tried the same exact set of cds (Memorex color cd-rs, Imations, and a few Memorex cd-rws) over to the Phillips boom box that didn't support ID3 tags or show filenames, not one skip. So I called Sony, told them the story, and sent it back for repairs. When I got it back, it was still broken. I called them, and after a few weeks, I am finally getting my money back and also got a tech supervisor to admit that, that particular line of boom boxes may be defective. Stay away from this if you want to use it with mp3s.

Wow, never knew somethin' I wrote could get on the front page, oy ! Worst mp3 machine ever!

Pic of this flaming sh*t here;

http://images.bestbuy.com/images/esku/angle/11120939anA.jpg

Great to hear about what to not get! Anyway good review neo it is great so see some hardware related stuff again. I actually read it twice since I was so surprised it was up! The skipping problem, no id3 tags, or anything make this a show stopper also the fact that it resembles a futuristic brazier for some odd reason (could be just me?).

It has id3 tags, just a small ass screen so they suck. The_phillips_bb didn't support id3 tags.

Sony sucks. In my opinion. I've had a large variety of there products and they all suck

Oh dear. Sounded so nice until the mp3 bit. They don't half come up with some mistakes don't they?

Sony anything sucks. Everyone of their products is fragile and costs way too much!

Yea, they suck. I heard they were with the R.I.A.A. and supported them, so my theory is this; they made the boombox not work with mp3s purposely so people will buy cds.

yep neo that last qoute sounds about rite

I used to work at Best Buy and the Sony equipment, by far, was the best selling. In my opinion though, people followed the hype. Sony is crap. The best things in the boom box section when I worked there were the Phillips boom boxes. At that time, only really high end equipment supported MP3 (in other words, Best Buy didn't carry them as Best Buy is anything BUT high-end). It was only until about a month before I left Best Buy that portable CD players were starting to support MP3.

As far as my personal opinion on brand preference, go Panasonic for portable, Phillips or Panasonic for boombox, and NOTHING for shelf systems because those things are the biggest enbarassment to the audio industry I have ever seen!

My .02

Damn, so sony's mp3 boombox skips?? Even the first generation genica player didn't have that big of a prob in comparison (it's still dodo though ). I guess their only good mp3/cd product is that portable player of theirs. Oh well just like sony whose behind everybody in the mp3 market to screw that one up

cool!!!