Sony ICF-CD855L CD Clock Radio

The design of this product is great, however, it fell short of many functionality expected of a radio alarm clock. (1) The clock digits are hard to see (you'd need to strain your eyes to see what time it is in the morning). (2) The clock backlight doesn't seem to help make the clock display clearer, instead it makes the bedroom much brighter when you want complete darkness to sleep! (3) Apart from the big snooze button, every other buttons are too small.Summary: if you want a decent CD/Radio/Buzzer radio alarm clock, look elsewhere.

Nice product. First came across in a 5* Hotel room and bought several for our guest house. All are now broken. One stopped playing , the others ALL suffered from broken power lead - just at the entry to the transformer - which cannot be replaced.If you want one - make sure it cannot be knocked over - or the cable pulled

Before I got the Dream Machine I had an old hi-fi on which the radio didn't work, a borrowed DEVO radio and a mobile phone as an alarm clock. I decided it was time to consolidate and picked this Sony machine. I haven't been disappointed.The Dream Machine is compact and elegant, freeing up space on the bedside table. I found the controls intuitive and quickly learnt how to set the alarms (you can programme two alarms and set one or both to go off - useful if you have real trouble waking up!). The CD player and radio both work well. As you would expect with a machine this size, the tonal range of the speakers isn't all it could be. The sound quality and clarity is very good though - as you'd expect from Sony - and the machine looks and feels well-made.Features I particularly like are:-The nap and sleep settings. You can programme the machine to let you nap for a short period and then wake you up, or to play more and more quietly as you go to sleep, eventually turning itself off. As I tend to fall asleep to talk radio only to jolt awake when the news comes on, this has been a blessing!-The CD playback options - my last CD player didn't give me the option to be able to chose between shuffle play, shuffle pereat, repeat one and repeat all.Things that could be better are:-The audio options: the speakers are very good for what they are, but it would be nice to have vocal, pop, rock, classical, etc settings so that the balance can be adjusted according to what you're listening to.-A small niggle, but you don't get to choose whether your clock is 12 or 24 hour - they come pre-programmed with one or other setting depending on the model. Being hopelessly disorganised, I prefer the non-ambiguity of the 24 hour clock to the 12 hour clock that I got.All in all I recommend the Sony Dream Machine as practical, good quality and (shallow thing that I am) rather stylish. I'd definitely consider replacing it with a similar model if and when I need to.

My wife was fed up with the chatter on early morning radio, it completely ruined the soothing experience of waking up to your favourite music.The choice of clock radios with a CD player is wide but mainly of the ugly 'cube' design. This Sony machine makes a design statement combined with all the required functionality and very good stereo sound quality.You can select the required CD starter track and volume with two alarm settings, as well as waking up to radio or simply a buzzer.This one stands out from the crowd and oozes design quality.Highly recommended.

This is far too expensive for what it is. The buttons are very small and fiddly, and the functionality is very limited. Designed for looks not practicality. Rubber feet marked my bedside table.

I've used this product for two years now and despite some flaws it's still the best product I can find - and I have tried others.Pros -1. Dual alarm settings - you can have one alarm for one time and wake up to one track and the other alarm for another track. Alarms can be both active, inactive or combination of the two.2. Everything is easy to set up and use.3. Good sound quality from the stereo speakers (to my ears anyway).Cons -1. Display is way too bright - even at the lowest setting. This is a common fault with Sony alarm products and seems to be specific to Sony (never noticed this with Roberts or Phillips). You could nearly read a book by the light of the highest setting. Do all Sony engineers suffer from night vision problems?2. The power plug is also a power adaptor/transformer which means it is big and heavy and the lead is very thin and flimsey.3. CD startup mechanism is fairly noisy - most mornings I am woken up the the sound of the unit spinning up rather then the CD track.4. There is no power back - like a 9V battery - to save your settings in the event of a power cut.If you where to replace this unit then the obvious choice would be the Sony XDR-CD70DABW - this appears to be the ICF-CD855L heavily redesigned for the DAB era. I suspect that the display brightness issue will still be there and this would be a deal breaker for me.

It has a great sound. Considering the size of the item you would wonder how it delivers this. Good alarm and a small footprint on the bed side table, unlike another reviewer, I find the readout clear and easy to read.

This may seem expensive for a clock radio, but you get what you pay for.This was a present for my wife, she is very happy with it.Quality of sound and build is good. Major plus point is that its silent when off (a previous clock from another manufacturer made an annoying transformer hum).