The sound WAS pretty good. The lid opening made it difficult to place the CD into the correct playing position. It could not play some of the longer CDs, for example the live CD of Grateful Dead, which even my car's sound system can handle. Its effective life span turned out to be less than 18 months. Just out of warranty, it developed a fault. The LCD showed 'No disc' even when there was a CD in position. Overall: The operating life of this unit is not very good for the price and represents very poor value when compared with some of the cheaper models on the market.