Sony ICFCDK50 Under Cabinet Kitchen CD Clock Radio

I was pleased at the sound and features of this unit. It picks up FM really well and does good on the distant stations. On AM, it does well. It picks up the locals well, and the distant ok. Great sounding for talk-radio- not too much bass. Can be heard well enough to listen through the hums and static. The presets set easy, and is quite simple to run the whole thing.The CD player lacks a little for me. Just plays, and fast-forwards. No random, or repeat or program. When it plays to the end of the CD, it shuts off. Strictly plays CD's. No MP3, or anything else like that.From inserting a CD to playing, it could play a little quicker.The line-in feature is really cool. The cradle would hold most players. It does have a timer that plays louder than the music. Good if you like it loud.As far as the sound in general, it really will surprise you how well it sounds. I had an open mind the first time I turned it on, not expecting to have my hair straightened or anything. It has plenty of volume- enough to hear in several rooms or over the kids at least. The only equlization it had was a bass boost. That gave it a more full sound. I do wish there was at least a treble/bass setting to adjust.I had the location of mine down to two places when I bought it. I turned on the FM radio and held it in one place that was in a corner. Ok, but it sounded like it was in a cave. The next place was from hanging cabnets with no walls around it. GREAT! I recommend doing the same before actually drilling the holes. The cord is 5 feet long. The local hardware store had the tracks to hang/hide the cord to make it look classy. Make sure to test the radio and CD player before installation. My first unit had a defective CD player. No problem returning it- good job Amazon!They supply a template of paper to get the holes right. The best way to do it is to lay the paper in the bottom of the cabinet.Its a great radio/ CD player. If you want to feel the music around you in 6.1 Dolby, then get a system like that. This is a great space saver that sounds great.

I installed this in my kitchen underneath a cabinet and it looks great. It's only about 4 inches in height or seemingly less, and was easy to install with the paper hole alignment guide provided. You put the paper guide into the cabinet and then you use a drill to make the holes through the bottom of the cabinet. I countersunk the screws into the wood by using a slightly larger drill bit to make small areas for the screw head. I didn't use the provided spacers, and instead just mounted the unit flush against the cabinet, and it looks great!Now about the unit, the sound is great for our kitchen. I always leave the megabass setting on, without it it does not fill them room as well. I can crank this unit way up and hear it in all the rooms of my house, and it does not sound bad or like the speakers are going to break. So that's great, you can crank this baby!!!The CD player works great, just like you would expect. Clock is fine. Timer is fine. Also hooked up to my ipod through the audio-in cord provided and that worked great as well.Five presets buttons (actually 10 FM and 5 AM) make it really easy to switch around. The remote controller is neat, but don't really need to use it as I can reach the unit just as easily. Controller does not reflect off walls or anything like that, so you need a clear line-of-sight to make it work.Overall, this is a great product and my wife and I love it!

I have been looking for an inexpensive radio for my work bench for quite a while. What I really wanted was an AM/FM radio that I could mount out of the way and that also supported an input for my MP3 player. I was starting to think that no such item existed until I came across this radio - so I bought it and mounted it under my work bench.The sound quality is good for a radio in this price range and there is a handy battery backup for whenever the power gets cut momentarily (which is fairly common out there just because I'm always dinking around with stuff). I also love that my MP3 player hooks up so easily, which gives me acces to pretty much all my music when I don't feel like listening to the radio. I kind of doubt I will ever use the CD player.Unfortunately, I immediately found that the quality of the FM reception was so poor I couldn't stand to listen to it (AM was fine). After a couple of days of playing around with the position of the power cord, I realized that the problem was feedback from the battery charger for my cordless drill that is plugged into the same outlet. Once I realized that, I changed how everything is plugged in and now the FM reception is very good :). It's too bad this doesn't just have an external FM antenna so people don't run into this problem - I docked a star just for this reason.I'll make one more comment about the more expensive version of this radio, the ICF-CDK70. When I was having all the reception issues, I thought I'd go give that one a try and I realized that this model (ICF-CDK50) is better in pretty much every way as long as you don't care about the CD changer. The ICF-CDK70 is bulkier, it does NOT have a battery backup, it still has the FM antenna in the power cord, it uses the same speakers, and it doesn't have the handy preset buttons for radio stations. In some ways, I can't believe they call it an upgrade! If you are considering one of these, I highly recommend sticking with this model.Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase.