3 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Any RCA CD Player

I’ve owned a handfull of RCA CD players. Needless to say, none of them are currently functional, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this article. In fact, I’ve had generic brand CD players that lasted longer and worked better than RCA CD players.

The first Cd player I’ve ever owned was an RCA boombox that I received as a christmas present way back in 1993. This was by far the pickiest CD player I’ve ever seen. It only played CDs when it wanted to, and even then it required some coaxing to make it play. Even when did play a disc, you could forget about skipping tracks quickly, otherwise the blasted contraption would require you to start playing the CD all over again! Getting this thing to play a disc was like doing a raindance! While I hated this machine, I must admit that it was durable. The tape deck in the boombox broke after about a year of use, but the CD player kept on kicking right up to the year 2000, and I felt like kicking it every time I tried to make it play a disc.

The second RCA CD player I owned was also a gift, this time a birthday present given to me in 2001. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful here, but I had specifically mentioned that I did not want an RCA brand CD player. This time the culprit was a 5 disc carousel style CD player. Surprisingly, the CD player worked just fine at first. It wasn’t until the unit had six months of gentle use that it showed it’s true colors. One day, the machine had suddenly decided that it simply would not play any CD. The carousel would spin around and around, stopping on occasion to try to read a disc. This cycle would continue indefinitely until either the tray was ejected or the unit was powered off.

At this point, I decided that I would pack the CD player up and ship it to be repaired, as it was still under warranty. Considering the luck I’ve had with these products, it’s a wonder that they offer any sort of warranty at all. Some time had passed since I shipped the unit, and I hadn’t heard anything from RCA. When I contacted their customer service department, their reply was that the package must have been lost in shipping. Other complaints I’ve sent them about their products have gone unanswered.

So , in summary, here are the 3 reasons that you should avoid RCA CD players like the plague:

1) Product quality: products either do not work well , or fail to last a reasonable amount of time.
2) Quality control department seems to be asleep behind the wheel
3) Customer service: Only responds when they want to.