Sony ICF-CD543RM Kitchen CD Clock Radio (Silver)

Budget kitchen renovation for clear sound
Like other reviewer's, the CD player stopped working after a couple of months of use. It took several months to get my unit fixed. It was very hard to deal with their uneducated customer service reps. Fortunately, it has been working since the repair.

AM/FM reception is poor. Most stations are unpleasant to listen to due to the high level of noise. What Sony suggests for optimal reception is rotate the unit horizontally, stretch the power cord and reinstall the unit.

CD does not work
We have had the radio/cd player for about 8 months, we use the CD maybe two to three times a week. We wanted to get in the Christmas spirit and play Christmas Carols, nothing came out of the CD player. I should think a CD player would last more than 8 months. Very unhappy about the quality of the CD player.

Looks good, but avoid unless you want a paperweight
We went through 5 (yes, five) of these within a year. The CD mechanism was very poor and would eventually stop playing CDs. Luckily Target exchanged it every time for us. I kept exchanging it out of spite until Target got an updated model, the Sony ICF-CD553RM Under Cabinet Kitchen CD Clock Radio (Silver), which I paid 20 bucks more for and have not had a problem with it at all.

Maybe it was just a bad run, but it seems from other reviews that Sony quality control was sleeping when these went out the door.

Definitely spend the extra $ and find the upgraded Sony ICF-CD553RM - it's slightly bigger, but it works and the sound is better, too.

great product
well designed, sleek, user friendly. I don't know about how easy to install--not mechanical and had someone else do it. But a joy to use.

Sony Clock Radio Working Well
This item was just what I was looking for. It has a small profile and fits well under the kitchen cabinet and frees up in my case some precious counter space. I'm not an audiophile, but the sound is good. I use the player to listen to FM radio and to play CDs while working in the kitchen. I have occasional minor static depending on where I'm standing in the kitchen, but most of the time the FM reception is fine. (I was very limited in where I could install this, so that could explain the occasional static.) I could not tell that that this was a refurbished item.