not bad...

i bought this cd player at the beginning of the year from a leading supermarket and had to take it back 4 times each one had a faulty or broken remote, the play button didnt work at all, the one i have now finally worked but goes tempremental, other than that it is a smart little cd player.....

Full of features

When looking for a new mini hi-fi system I couldn't find another product which offered the same range of features for a similar price. Overall, it's a good system to have. Although, the CD player isn't 100% reliable, but nothing that can't easily be cured by stopping and restarting the CD.

The other point to make about this mini hi-fi is that the properties of mp3 files have to be entered in a specific format to display correctly on the system's screen- the files must have a title, artist, album title and genre, but not an album artist. Even then you may find characters like apostrophes and currency symbols display incorrectly, however, I have seen the same problem occurring on other hi-fi systems.

The auxiliary input is great for connecting to a DVD player, especially for viewing films.

I'm buying another one

Superb

My wife bought this to use in the kitchen - the sound quality is absolutely superb

It has RDS radio (locks on channel) and the reception is 1st class

+ It not only plays conventional CD's but it can also play CD-R/W's containing your own mp3s AND wma tunes - means you can sqeeze about 15 cd's of music onto one

+ It also has USB port so you can put your favorite tunes on USB stick and use that (my wife bought 2 GB stick)

+ We have flat screen LCD TV mounted above it in the kitchen, but the TV sound is poor, so we plugged the sound into the MCM275 (aux socket) and now sounds brilliant

+ it has a very low profile so it doesn't take up much worktop space (you can wall mount it but my TV's is on the wall as mentioned)

P.S. Also had same trouble with remote and nearly sent it back until i discovered it must be switched ON and set to the correct source (Radio/CD,etc) - i.e. you cant just press 'play' if it's not in CD mode

P.P.S. we've had it for about a year and my sister-in-law likes it so much she has asked me to get one for her kitchen - thought i'd share my experience whilst i'm buying another one

Full of features

When looking for a new mini hi-fi system I couldn't find another product which offered the same range of features for a similar price. Overall, it's a good system to have. Although, the CD player isn't 100% reliable, but nothing that can't easily be cured by stopping and restarting the CD.

The other point to make about this mini hi-fi is that the properties of mp3 files have to be entered in a specific format to display correctly on the system's screen- the files must have a title, artist, album title and genre, but not an album artist. Even then you may find characters like apostrophes and currency symbols display incorrectly, however, I have seen the same problem occurring on other hi-fi systems.

The auxiliary input is great for connecting to a DVD player, especially for viewing films.

Not the best alarm clock solution

I bought This Micro System with the intention of using it as an alarm clock however several small niggles have combined to make it really unsuitable for that purpose.

First of all the physical design of this unit is rather unusual. The bulk of the amplifier gear and weight of the unit is in the left speaker. This is connected to the control unit by a monitor cable, yes - the sort that connects your screen to your computer. The right speaker is connected to the left speaker with a pair of thin speaker wires and the left speaker also has the mains lead running out of it. The protuding monitor plug, weight and arrangement of the cables means that mounting the left speaker on the wall any reasonable distance from the control unit is going to be problematic. In addition, the speaker wires that connect left to right are not long enough to position the speakers either side of a double bed.

The left speaker also contains a small fan that spins up briefly when the unit starts (and presumably runs continuosly when the temperature increases). It is acceptably quiet though and cannot be heard when the volume is above 2. There are three power modes; on, standby and eco standby. In the on and standby modes there is a slight hum from the circuitry which may disturb people who need absolute silence to get off to sleep. Unfortunately in the eco standby mode the clock is not displayed and there is a bright blue stanby LED on the power switch that may disturb people who require absolute darkness to get off to sleep. In addition the playback settings are not retained when the unit is put in standby mode so you will lose your MP3 or track position and shuffle will be off. No waking up to a different tune every morning unless you select the radio.

Last but not least there is no snooze option.

I bought this unit for a specific purpose and have been slightly disapointed however as far as the unit itself is conceerned I am quite pleased.

The USB socket is in the top at the front right corner and I have managed to play MP3's from a 2GB memory stick. There is a slight gap between tracks which can interrupt continuous soundtracks but I can cope with that, just. Sound reproduction is good and the preset equaliser settings have distinct characteristics. The bass boost is good and certainly gives CD playback plenty of depth. For a micro system there is plenty of wellie and you won't need to crank it up too much to fill a room.

This would be a great unit for the living room, kitchen or dining room and with a decent sized memory stick or a couple of MP3 CD's you have a pretty good jukebox here. It's just a shame it doesn't perform so well in the bedroom.

Don't buy this hifi..

Have had this hifi for a few months. Looks pretty good, great for CD and my sony mp3 player via usb connection but if you plan on using the radio forget it. As with a number of the other reviewers my hifi continually attempts to retune the DAB stations EVERY time i turn it on. This takes about a minute and is very frustrating as it invariably ends up on some foreign langauge channel! Anyway i have contacted sony support and they have given me a couple of local shops to take a look at it whilst under warrenty (12 months). I don't hold out much hope as they confirmed there are no firmware upgrades etc available. Will keep you posted!