When our daughter's latest CD player died, we decided to go shopping for something better. Since she was eleven, Eva's had a succession of very inexpensive portable CD players. Not surprisingly, none of them lasted very long. Now almost through high school, Eva felt (and we agreed) that she was ready for something a little more substantial than yet another $20 "disposable" player.
Investing more money in a portable player meant investing more time in the selection process. Whatever we purchased would have to last Eva for a long time.
Even parents do homework
The first thing Eva and I had to do was talk money. Between what she'd saved from work, and what dear old Dad was willing to front, we determined we had about $90 to $140 to play with.
Once we'd established our budget, we were ready for the next step. Coming up with the short list players in our price range was a task that Eva was more than happy to let me take care of alone. It turned out to be a pretty simple process. Spending a little time at Crutchfield.com, I soon had a good idea of what players we needed to look at. The site allowed me to pull together the units available within our budget, and do various side-by-side comparisons.
As I looked over the products, some patterns began to emerge. Certain features, such as random play and track repeat, were listed again and again. This consistency helped me get a feel for what was standard for our price range. Some features, such as MP3 CD playback capability, were only available on the higher end models. I made a note to talk with Eva about some of these differences. As the list filled out, two basic questions emerged; why and what. Why a CD player instead of a MP3 player (or some other kind of portable unit), and what kind of player did Eva really want?
 CDs and CD-Rs are still the format of choice for high schoolers. |
Why a CD player?
This was an important question to ask. There's been a significant shift in the buying patterns among young consumers. MP3 portable players are growing in popularity, threatening to supplant CD players as the portable of choice. Looking at the trend a little more closely, though, the majority of these buyers are college students, 18 to 22 years old, who have ready access to fast Internet connections. Downloading MP3s onto their computers, these young adults prefer computer-based technology such as iPods and other MP3 portables to store and manage their music collections.
This change from audio CDs to MP3 files has only just started to move down to the high school level (14-18 age group), and seemingly not to any significant extent in our area. While a few of Eva's friends have the capability to create MP3-encoded CDs, most stick with either audio CDs they've purchased or recordable CDs (CD-Rs) they've burned. From a standpoint of formats, a CD player made the most sense for Eva.
What do they really want?
To answer the second question on my list, I took a look at how I use my portable CD player. I quickly listed what features I thought were important (and unimportant). From there it was pretty easy to go point by point and anticipate how Eva might respond to each one. I wanted to make sure we were really looking for something to suit her needs, rather than mine.
My player is something I take along on business trips, usually for use on the airplane or for relaxing while in hotel rooms. At home, I use it to listen to music without disturbing others — in short, for sedentary personal listening.
I already knew that Eva's usage would be much more social and decidedly more active! She and her friends all consider portable CD players standard equipment for school field trips; they pass time on the bus swapping CDs and CD-R mixes. Eva's on the local swim team and spends a lot of time at the pool. While waiting between events, she does a lot of listening, and trading discs with friends is an important part of that activity as well.
Eva and I tend to listen to different kinds of music (although sometimes not as different as you might think) that place different demands on the player. She prefers a lot of bass, and a LOT of volume! Normally I don't use the bass boost, and find too much distortion and aural discomfort when the volume's cranked to its maximum.
http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO-rgbtcspd/reviews/20030826/portable_cd.html
