For a teen, this can be a significant expense.

Getting to know your outer child
We began our expedition with a nice long father/daughter lunch. It was the perfect opportunity to talk about features and it let Eva share with me what she was looking for in a player.

The discussion was well worth the time. Although I had been on the right track in my attempt to anticipate what Eva needed, she soon pointed out some things I had overlooked. Sure, bass boost was important, but there were other things she wanted.

Eva's previous disposable players did not operate very efficiently and tended to run through batteries at a good clip. Having to foot the bill for replacement batteries, Eva wanted her new player to either draw less power or have a rechargeable battery pack.

She reminded me that running was a key part of her exercise routine, and she needed something rugged to take on her early morning jogs. As it turned out, all of the players in our price range had good anti-skipping technology, but it was still something I hadn't considered beforehand.

Appearance was another major factor. The old disposable players looked, well, cheap and generic. Eva wanted her new portable to have a little personality. Yes, it was a CD player, but it was also a fashion accessory! As long as she was making the investment, she felt she deserved something that was seriously stylin'.

Into the fray
Although both Eva and I are comfortable buying online, we thought it would be fun to take the opportunity to look at the players close up and handle them. We decided to take a trip to one of the Crutchfield retail outlets. So with well-defined goals (and full tummies), we entered the store and began our search.

Shopping for any kind of home audio device can be overwhelming.

Shopping for any kind of home audio device can be overwhelming. Rows of components, players and accessories lined the shelves from floor to ceiling. Had we not planned our shopping strategy in advance, the large number of choices might have had us seriously reconsidering the whole thing. Keeping our goal firmly in mind, we marched past racks of portable MP3 players, MiniDisc players, cassette players and boom boxes and headed straight for the portable CD player displays.

Having a predetermined price range helped us sort through the array of players. There were some truly outstanding models in the $150 - $200 price range that, had we not established a budget, would have been given some serious consideration (and made our decision even more difficult).

Within a half hour we had narrowed our choices down to a final four. These four units were all priced within $40 of each other, the least expensive starting around $90. As it turned out, they were all from the same manufacturer, which made our comparison-shopping easier than it normally would have been.