Key Takeaways
- The Arafuna Portable CD Player is a portable offering high quality lossless audio, 12 hour battery life and EQ presets.
- This CD player has a retro feel, but also offers modern features like a rechargeable battery and support for micro SD cards.
- Although the built-in speakers and included earphones could use some improvement, the Arafuna is a solid choice for those looking for a portable CD player.
CDs are still one of the best ways to listen to music, as they offer high-quality, lossless audio on an affordable, portable medium. But these days, many people don’t have CD drives on their computers, and if you’re interested in the format, you need a way to listen to your precious CDs. That’s where portable CD players come in. The Arafuna Portable CD Player from Amazon is one of the best options out there right now.
The Arafuna is similar to most of the portable CD players that were popular in the early 2000s, but it does have some modern features, like a rechargeable battery and EQ presets. We put the player to the test to see if it’s worth getting your old CDs out of and buying one.
Recommendation
Arafuna Portable CD Player
The Arafuna portable CD player is equipped with a rechargeable battery that can play music for up to 12 hours, and it also comes with EQ presets, which is very convenient.
- brand
- Arahuna
- bluetooth
- no
- weight
- 9.2 oz.
- battery
- 12 hours
- size
- 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.14 inches
- port
- 3.5mm, USB-C (charging only)
- Simple and easy to use
- EQ Presets
- Micro SD is also supported
- The built-in speakers are not great
- The included earphones could be better
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Pricing, Specifications and Availability
The Arafuna Portable CD Player is priced at $65 and is available from Amazon. It comes in one color, Classic Black. It’s the same size as a standard portable CD player, with dimensions of 5.5 x 5.5 x 1.14 inches and weighing 9.2 ounces.
The Arafuna is powered by a rechargeable Li-ion battery that charges via the included USB-C cable. Battery life is around 12 hours, and it takes around 4 hours to fully charge the 1400mAh battery.
This CD player has a 3.5mm port for wired headphones or earphones. It also has built-in speakers for those who like to listen to music loudly. Of course, you can also connect to speakers using the 3.5mm port. Arafuna comes with a pair of earphones that are not very good. It comes with two pairs of ear tips of different sizes. This device does not support Bluetooth, so you will need to use wired headphones or earphones.
While the Arafuna is a standard portable CD player, it does have a few features that set it apart from cheaper or older portable CD players: in addition to the aforementioned rechargeable battery and built-in speaker, it also has anti-skip technology and EQ presets.
What I like about the Arafuna portable CD player
It has all the features you would expect from a CD player
I love the Arafuna Portable CD Player because it’s easy to use. It’s a standard CD player, you just put a CD in, turn it on, and press play. You don’t have to do anything else to enjoy your music. In true retro technology fashion, I also love that it doesn’t have Bluetooth connectivity. The size and shape of the device reminds me of the old Sony CD players I had in my youth, with its compact, round shape and ease of use.
But the Arafuna has some extra features that the CD players I grew up with didn’t have. For example, the Arafuna has built-in speakers and can play music from a micro SD card, both of which weren’t common in older CD players but are nice to have. And, most notably, it has EQ settings.
You can choose between Default EQ, Bass Boost, Pop, Jazz, Rock, and Classical. The Default EQ setting is a standard consumer sound profile with a slight boost in the bass and a balanced treble and mids that is enjoyable as a default setting. The next setting, Bass Boost, has an overwhelming amount of bass and sub-bass frequencies that blend together and overshadow the trebles with the volume of the bass. The Pop and Jazz settings are very similar in that they both have more boosted treble, but Pop sounds a little flatter than Jazz. Jazz has slightly more mids than Pop and a little more bass. Rock is a very enjoyable EQ setting, with trebles that fall into the general boosted range of guitars, a louder snare, and a little more boosted bass. It sounds beautiful with bass lines, but doesn’t detract from the rest of the track. Finally, the Classical setting has more bass than the default EQ setting, but is otherwise similar. I liked the Rock and Jazz settings the most. I think the default EQ settings are enough for most people, but it depends on your listening preferences.
We think the default EQ settings will be sufficient for most people, but it depends on your listening preferences.
I tried these EQ settings with Sony WH-1000XM4 and Audio-Technica ATH-SR50 headphones, as well as Skullcandy Jib and Sony MDR-EX15AP earphones, and all gave similar results. If you use studio headphones with a flatter frequency response, you may not hear the bass as loud as some of the EQ settings claim, but the Default, Bass Boost, and Classic EQ settings should be plenty loud.
The device has skip-proofing, which worked very well in my experience. I experienced no skipping or buffering while listening to music, even when walking around, shaking, or tossing the CD player up and down. So, the Arafuna is the perfect CD player to take on a walk, a run, or a bumpy train ride. I can’t say the same about the portable CD players of my childhood; those old ones would always skip.
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What I didn’t like about the Arafuna portable CD player
There are some small flaws
I really had a lot of fun using the Arafuna, so it was hard to find anything I didn’t like about it. The two issues I was able to identify were very minor and generally not an issue, but they’re worth mentioning because they could be a significant issue for people with different listening habits than me.
Secondly, and related, the Arafuna comes with earphones, but they’re not very good or comfortable.
The first potential issue is that the built-in speakers are decent but not great. That’s fine if you want to hear the gist of the music on a CD, but if you want to hear and enjoy every nuance of the CD, we recommend using headphones or good external speakers instead.
Secondly, and related, the earphones that Arafuna comes with are not very good or comfortable. They only come with two ear tips, one big and one small, neither of which fit my ears very well. Therefore, I recommend using your own earphones or headphones with this CD player.
Should I buy the Arafuna portable CD player?
The Arafuna is a solid choice for anyone looking for a CD player to take on the go or enjoy at home. It’s compact enough to fit in a tote bag or backpack, and its 12-hour battery life means it’s no problem to use on trains or planes. The EQ presets are a really great feature: The Arafuna checks all the boxes for a great CD player, with micro SD support and EQ being two big pluses. The Arafuna has so many similarities to the CD players I used most as a kid that I felt a deep sense of nostalgia while using it, but the features and design have been updated enough that it was an overall better experience than using a 20-year-old Sony CD player.
The Arafuna is not for people who want to listen to loud music through a CD player without connecting to external speakers – the built-in speakers will not satisfy you, so in that case you’ll be better off buying a stereo with a CD player.
Recommendation
