I purchased this CD player for $50 back in 1996. I did not expect much out of it at the time, I just needed a cheap portable CD player. The moment I tried this unit out I was amazed. This unit has the best, most dynamic full bass I have ever heard in a portable CD player. If you set the X-Bass to the maximum setting you get a full bass from virtually any headphone without accenting the high range. This is great for a car when the road noise dulls the bass but the treble is still easily heard. I tried to replace this unit with 6 different portable CD players, none came close (I tried Sony, RCA, Magnavox and Craig). Tempted by curiousity I took it apart once. It uses the same pickup mechanism as the Sony D-121 portable but that is where similarities end. The circuit board is nicely set up for the most part, looks more like a higher end CD player internally, nicely mounted components. The there are quite a few larger sized capacitors for the headphone out, probably yeilding more power which is why this unit sounds so good through the headphones. In comparison to my Magnavox AZ6822B, my two RCA units, my Sony and my Craig it has the neatest board layout, no sloppy assembly. This unit is just all around excellent if you can live with a CD player without anti skip. Keep in mind there are two versions of this unit bearing the same model #. There is a 1-bit and a 16-bit version. Mine is the 1-bit. It says this on the top of the CD player "1-bit Digital CD Player" the 16 bit model says "16-bit Digital CD Player". The 1-bit has all the controls labled on the top, the 16-bit has the X-Bass and hold switches labled on the bottom of the unit.