The Worlds SLIMMEST (And Best) CD Player Ever Made

The iRiver SlimX IMP-350 was the pinnacle of portable CD players and it was the world's slimmest CD player when released. Rechargeable Ni-MH batteries, an OLED backlit remote, dual control locations, MP3/WMA playback, an FM radio, excellent battery life, and a class leading 8 minutes of anti-skip protection... it was a formula for the best portable CD player of all time, and it came at a price. At a time when most potable CD players sold for $30-50 the SlimX was $200, and it was worth it. Here's why...
#iRiver #CDPlayer #TechThrowback

[@mortimergladbreath]

My first cd player was a Hitachi that cost $795 in 1982! That's $2500 in today's money! Insane, but I was a really early adopter of cd's. Oh, and it broke just past the 1 year warranty.

[@TechThrowback]

Of course it did 😬 you could buy a lot of cars for that money in 82!

[@mortimergladbreath]

Come to think of it, it was probably 1983.

[@postersm7141]

You’re definitely good and I did buy cars back then for less than $2500! my first CD player was in 1985 and it was a semi portable that didn’t work and I actually traded in electronic typewriter for this nonworking sea player. I ended up getting it working and my first two CDs were the Rolling Stones “Some Girls” and Led Zeppelin‘s second album, ZoSo

[@postersm7141]

You definitely could and I did buy cars back then for less than $2500! My first CD player was in 1985 and it was a Sony portable (Discman) that didn’t work and I actually traded an electronic typewriter for this nonworking CD player. I ended up getting it working and my first two CDs were the Rolling Stones “Some Girls” and Led Zeppelin‘s second album, ZoSo. I think that was their second? The Led Zeppelin CD was my first brand new cd purchase back then and it was over $20 in 1985. The Rolling Stones CD came with the broken CD player that I fixed. BTW I still have the Led Zeppelin CD that I purchased in 1985. It has a little bit of “disc rot” but it still plays flawlessly!

[@randykitchleburger2780]

It's crazy those even where made back then

[@Kwincy5]

Oh man, I stil have mine! This video brings back so many memories of this awesome player.

[@rbus]

Just remembered the iRiver Story which was a hugely underrated eInk ebook reader. Like the SlimX, you could browse your own PDF files in folders just like a filesystem. Most didn't allow you to that..

[@d2d2505]

iriver cd players were really great back in the day.

[@nickallain]

Oh man, I remember cross shopping this thing. I ended up with a Panasonic SL-CT800. It also used the gumstick batteries and got about 20 hours of battery life. It was super cool that it would preload the mp3 tracks and only spin up when you requested a track.

[@GonkThePowerDroid]

iRiver was such a great brand. I wanted an MP3 player with record function. Many didn't have it. The few that did could only record in 64 or 128 Kbps. Having this as an adjustable setting must be a software/programming issue so why not have it. iRiver did. I could select from 32-320 in reasonable increments. And I could record from the built in radio, microphone and even a mic line in port. This told me it was a brand with people with a good mindset and wanting to make a good product.

[@michaelmahoney8887]

That thing has an amazing amount of features!

[@TheSneaksRock]

I had one of these!

[@zackhillman739]

I really enjoy these videos JR, I actually came over from your automotive channel. I just wish you had more top down or up close shots of the devices. Otherwise I love the content and will always be a subscriber. 😊

[@rickc303]

I had one of these, and the other model as well

[@ordlay23]

I had this. I’m sure I spent all my Christmas money on it back when I was 17. Your first iriver video reminded me of it.

[@jeremyreynolds4]

I had what I think was the 500 version of this same player and there was an open source aftermarket firmware called rockbox that opened up even more features

[@Evansmustard]

this channel always dropping bangers. Do you watch Cathode Ray Dude?

[@postersm7141]

OK when I first clicked on your video I thought boring it’s a CD player. I had no idea it was actually that cool. That’s pretty bad ass that it would store everything in a buffer or memory and actually stop spinning the disc while playing music. I’ve never owned a machine that does that. That’s super cool for anti-skip and battery longevity as you stated. Not to mention possible extended life of the motor and laser itself but maybe not considering that it spun at a higher speed but who knows. The aluminum anodized lid also very cool. I always thought I river was some no-name knock off brand but this seems pretty cool!!

[@NenadTrajkovic]

I still have iRiver cd player one generation older then that

[@adamgh0]

I still have (and occasionally use) my Panasonic SL-S360 CD player from 1999. 9:10 It has a slider switch on the side for resume, normal and random play so "resume" was around before the SlimX. Instead of storing the song to memory, it just froze the laser wherever it was when turned off and resumed the beginning of the track it was currently playing.

[@postersm7141]

14:42 I love the fact that you could hook it up to your home stereo, hide the CD player and just use the remote display to control everything. That’s exactly what I would’ve done back in the day if I had that CD player. BTW, the VU meters on the display, that’s the bomb!!! That’s perfect because they were very expensive back then and that would double as a home system, car system or portable back in the day!!

[@themeantuber]

You ARE good! Thanks for explaining everything in so much detail 👍🏼

[@onametaquest]

Must say JR, I am really liking these throwback tech review videos! So many cool old devices I have not seen in years, makes me feel old, LOL!

[@PadreDProductions]

This is definitely dope but I swear I was rocking a 30 GB Creative Zen MP3 player in late 2002 / early 2003. Back then everybody would ask me what it was because it was one of the first MP3 players they had ever seen. I also remember not using data disks though until about 2005 or later in my vehicles CD player.

[@skorhed287]

1:39 "OLED backlight" ☠️

[@TechThrowback]

It's electroluminescent, or what we now call OLED. 🤷‍♂️

[@hatsunemiku838]

I had this same player in 2007ish and loved it! My favorite feature was the external battery pack if the rechargeable ones died. It was the one I choose for mp3 cd playback. I recall I modified the firmware for some reason but I don't remember why.

[@yazzmatazz86]

I owned the slimX in high school as well. It was ahead of anything else on the market.

[@rp42069]

I had a sony that resumed play. I wish i knew about these back then!

[@avioncamper]

Was it a big seller at that price point? I still have my first cd player, a 1987 Vector Research and it still work except the remote. JR always has the coolest stuff.

[@TechThrowback]

You know there are a lot of them for sale still in the US/Canada and likely overseas, I think the IMP-350 sold well but the earlier and later models fell flat 🍻

[@RC-nq7mg]

My old panasonic SL-CT790 was pretty thin

[@JB-mk4ry]

You should do a follow up and take it apart. I'd like to see how much memory it has.

[@matthewdropco]

I think my first cd player was a portable. Trying to remember when I got it. probably around 1990/91. It was a square kenwood, which I was happy about, but turned out not to be too portable and not much error correction. Myabe portable to move it from one standard stereo systeem in one location to another, or siting on a park bench listening. Not for walking/running/driving, etc took it back and I think got a Philips that had a cool translucent clamshell lid, so you could see the disc spinning better. It seemed to be more "rugged" and had better error correction. Had it for quite a while. No sure what ever happened to it. Maybe gave it to a relative or sold it.

[@justinanderson6287]

I thought the imp-550 was thinner? The 550 is the only iriver product I ever owned but it was cool as hell and ridiculously thin. Much better design too.

[@69Dartman]

Somewhere I have a Sony portable hand held cd player I bought at a garage sale. I really liked it and it played decent but it ran on normal A cells. Probably a lot newer than that one but it won't play mp3 files. My first home CD player was a Denon dcd520 that was a very basic but high quality player that even played the enhanced cds that were very rare, I think they were 18 bit cds. I think I bought it around 90 or so with my first Christmas bonus from work 😊 My first computer cd reader used caddies and was so slow it couldn't play audio cds but it could load data cds slowly.

[@catgirl_eva]

I was honestly expecting the Sony D-EJ2000.

[@Curlee187]

Sony had one that was as thin as that with a remote, and external battery as well I think a a couple years before that.

[@billiam247]

I absolutely loved my old Sony CD Walkman. Unskippable, thin, and the batteries lasted forever.

[@rbus]

iRiver made cool products, had several of them but not the SlimX (once found one at a thrift store but had no pricetag, so wouldn't sell it to me). had 3 Rio Volts which were great - also had upgradeable firmware but ... never released updates with new codecs. Ah well. I believe both these devices used Texas Instruments DSPs running as the main processor but they never did release Ogg Vorbis support. Would still be amazing to have the new Opus format which blows away all other formats -- except for Facebook's new AI encodec which encodes 40 minutes of decent music into the space of about 1/3 of an MP3.

[@kellsarah]

I remember saving $119 for my first Sony Discman D-121 when I was 12 or 13. Back in the day before ESP or Mp3 existed.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

Man, I miss my chunky iRiver iMP250. When I broke its lid after a bunch of years of faithful service, I ended up replacing it with a Sony D-NE720. I don't think it's humanly possible to get any smaller than that D-NE720. But I do wish I could have owned an iMP350 instead.

[@Buy-n-large]

cool

[@oooboo3249]

the days that companies give devices that are for power users today they take everything away and you don't have any customization

[@ostar22]

iRiver iMP-550 surpassed it in a number of ways. It looks better too.

[@justinanderson6287]

The 550 was GOAT

[@danrandom3390]

Sweet, I love old tech that nobody wants or cares about anymore!

[@Cartier_specialist]

That's pretty cool but there's no way I'd trade you my Philips / Marantz model 61 made in Belgium cd player for it. One of my multi-disc cd players reads every disc in the tray before starting. Thankfully it was fast and only had 5 or 6 cds. It might be my Adcom but I'm not sure. My Oppo Blu-ray player plays every format and does that resume trick even if you take the cd out of the player and put it in at a random time in the future. Talk about mind blown.

[@jameslaidler2152]

Shame it didn't have any digital output connectivity, or even a usb interface or something like that.

[@martinlaplante6228]

Not gonna lie. Those batteries look delicious. If on the market today kids would eat them like the soap pod they were eating not long ago.

[@TechThrowback]

Don't they?! *Don't eat them*

[@jmalpica8907]

Just got one of these, the remote doesn't display anything 😭😭😭

[@TimoLahti]

Trivia: What was the first device the Snake was represented at? And, what was the original name of the game? Now don't you Google it..

[@hatsunemiku838]

Nah it was on those Nokias way before.

[@psubuster]

Hey

[@craigadam]

Sony Discman D-J50 end of story.

[@First112]

Good video but stop with all the “cools”!

[@rochester212]

World's slimmest? Good one.