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Rating: Summary: Wonderful sound Review: Excellent sound (for all but the audiophile who writes a review below). Most people consider the sound better than the Onkyo CS210. The one problem is with the reliability of the CD changer, whose door sometimes gets stuck and requires service. Thus if you're going to buy this machine, you might want to consider a warranty extension. Despite this problem, no one has suggested to me an equally good machine in this price range for rich sounding music in a small room.
Rating: Summary: Terrific Office System Review: I cannot imagine there is a better sounding component system on the market today in the $400 price range. Excellent sound, quality and looks in a small package. Not powerful enough to compete with my home audio system, but plenty of power for the office. And while I agree with the other reviewers on sound and quality, the main selling point for me was all the extra audio input and output options. This was the one area I found lacking on every other unit I researched. Besides having a very nice FM radio and the extra playing time of a 3 CD changer, I have attached the audio outputs of my notebook (for internet radio streams) and Nomad JB3 MP3 player to 2 of the 5 possible audio inputs and my headphone amplifier to the tape output. That is pretty darn flexible for a micro system!
Rating: Summary: Terrific Office System Review: I cannot imagine there is a better sounding component system on the market today in the $400 price range. Excellent sound, quality and looks in a small package. Not powerful enough to compete with my home audio system, but plenty of power for the office. And while I agree with the other reviewers on sound and quality, the main selling point for me was all the extra audio input and output options. This was the one area I found lacking on every other unit I researched. Besides having a very nice FM radio and the extra playing time of a 3 CD changer, I have attached the audio outputs of my notebook (for internet radio streams) and Nomad JB3 MP3 player to 2 of the 5 possible audio inputs and my headphone amplifier to the tape output. That is pretty darn flexible for a micro system!
Rating: Summary: A Great Choice Review: I purchased this after comparing to the comperably priced Denon and Yamaha systems ($399). The Onkyo had better sound, more inputs and outputs, and a 3 disc changer (as opposed to single), plus it looked sharp. The sound is great across many music types (classical, jazz, electronica) and has the power to fill a good sized living room with rich music. If you are partial to low end bass, get a subwoofer (I did) since the system includes a sub output. For such a small component system, I am very impressed.
Rating: Summary: Very Nice & I am very picky ! Review: The Benefits: 1) Great sounding FM! So many new systems have terrible reception and lots of background noise. 2) Great full sounding speakers! I mad add a sub-woofer as there is an output, but so far I have not mossed it. Wonderful detail sound, never harsh. 3) Quality, nothing flimsy or poor quality here. Wish it hads: 1) Wish it could play MP3 CDs, not a big deal as it holds 3 disk, but if they were MP3 disk it would be nearly 30hrs of music. 2) Wish it could play a DVD, with a S-Video in and out as well as connections for 5.1 speakers. Bottom Line: No better Mini System at any price and while I will not say the names, Much much better than the trendy $400 table top / CD radios being offered by other companies.
Rating: Summary: Excellent receiver & player, weak speakers Review: The receiver and CD player are wonderful. The speakers, unfortunatelly not. They lack bass response and the imaging is just not there. The built quality of the speakers is lame -- it's obvious they just don't match the rest of the system. It used to be different... Before there was PS-509 system (which I have been using for 3 years). It has the same receiver and CD changer units (just black, not silver, however later they introduced PS-510 which was silver). PS-509/PS-510 shipped with Polk RT-105 speakers that were quite good (actually, according to Polk Audio, they were made by Onkyo, Polk just helped them with the design and allowed to use Polk name for marketing). Apparently in order to cut costs they ended the joint-venture and started to bundle the system with their medicore speakers. PS-509 originally cost $500, MC35TECH is one hundred less (or even less than that). That's too bad. My advice -- get the receiver and CD player (you can get refurbished ones cheaply) and get some better speakers. For less money you'll get a better system. That's what I am doing now as I want to get another set. What else? The remote is hard to use. But at least it lets you adjust bass & treble settings (not possible without remove; some other functions are also available only thru the remote). The wake-up timer is very lame. It just turns the unit on without adjusting volume, so if you use the sleep timer to fall asleep with the music, you can't really use the wake-up timer. Also if you use CD for the timer, it will just play the last CD that was played with track 1. The bottom line is the wake-up timer is pretty much useless. Also, there is no balance adjustment, but the acoustic presence makes up for that reasonably well. But, what's most important: the sound quality is unbeliveable. Superior to all those overpriced Denon and Yamaha snobish boxes. I love my Onkyo with Polk/Onkyo speakers...
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