Crosley CR79 4-in-1 Entertainer Plus Recorder - Paprika

I got this and it worked for about 5 minutes. I tried the cd player and it doesn't read burnt disks. So now I'm taking it back.

Please don't waste your money. They are very cheaply made. The first time I ordered one, the CD player didn't work. The second one has a problem with the turntable hitting the arm holder, although I can make it work by weighting down the right side of the arm holder. As others have noted, the sound's not that great either. All in all, I wish I'd bought something else.

I bought a very similar item (looks exactly the same but it's a 3-in-1 instead of 4-in-1) directly from Crosley's website. It has a 30 day warranty. When it arrived, the turntable didn't work, but the CD and cassette worked. I had read numerous user reviews of the Web, so I paid only $100 for it on the Crosley website (it was on sale), and I fully expected it not to work, so two out of three functions ain't bad. You get what you pay for. Users who sent it back complained that the shipping was pricey (it's a big heavy box) and they still got another one that didn't work, so I am either going to live with the dead turntable, or get a old time radio guy to fix it. I'm sure it's something very simple, like a part got dislodged in shipping. The sound is crappy but authentic - dimensional stereo, coming through really old time speakers with coppery fabric "shields" just like my parents' speakers from my childhood - so when you put 1930's, 1940's, 1950's music on it, it sounds much cooler - how it must have sounded back then. Worth it if you have a "you get what you pay for" attitude. Shipping was quite inexpensive and there was no tax, from the Crosley website.

I bought the CR79 because I wanted something that would look nice in my paneled livingroom. I chose this model specifically because of the external speaker outputs. I thought that if I did not like the sound quality of the built in speakers, I could hook up my own.

Let's take the features of this item one by one, in the order of from the worst to the best.

The CR79 has the cheapest looking turntable I have ever seen. It would be very easy to break something just by inattention. I put a good quality stereo record from the 60's on it, and the sound was like something from the 1930's or 40's. My wife described it as "music in a can".

The AM/FM radio is better, but the sound is all in the mid-range, lacking any real base or clear highs. The reception wasn't too impressive, either.

The tape cassette was considerably better. But I had never before seen one where you have to open the door by inserting your thumb into a hole and prying it open. No button to push to eject?

The CD player has better sound than the phono, radio or cassette, but wouldn't you expect that anyway? Even so, it still lacks range.

The CR79's best feature is its appearance. There's no denying it looks nice sitting there in the living room. It looks well put together, and does not dominate the room. The wood finish looks like a rubbed oil finish that might not be all that durable. A coat of urethane would be a good idea.

It's too bad that the Chinese manufacturer of these units did not make them sound as good as they look. This unit is overpriced for what it delivers. It is not a sound system at all, but really just a home decoration item.

I returned it to Amazon the next day and ordered the TEAC DC D6300. It is everything the Crosley is not and five dollars cheaper as well.

I received this as a gift, thinking that it would be an acceptable way of listening to my old LPs, but it's incredibly lacking in sound quality. There is no low end at all. The unit sounds worse than a 40 year old transistor radio with a 2 inch speaker.