I have had this player/recorder for a number of years now, and except for some problems at the start because it has a fault when delivered I haven’t really had any problems with it. I have used it extensively, take it with me when I go bike riding, use it at home with a stereo system, and with headphones, used it with various types of disks, recorded from the radio, from CDs digitally and through analog cables and I must say that I am very impressed with the sound quality that it produces. The only problem I have with it now is the original battery shipped with it is pretty much dead, it just dies if I try to record something with it, so instead I just use AA adapter pack. The digital bass like all of the Sony digital bass functions I have listened to seem to cut out a bit of the higher frequencies in order to amplify the effect of the bass notes but it still sounds ok. The main reason I bought this player however is because of the size, it is not much larger than the MD itself and also very thin. I still haven’t seen any players that are much smaller than this one.