4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Looks fantastic, works not so great, sounds awful
Date of Review: Dec 31, 2007
The Bottom Line: Would not buy this unit, would not recommend it. CDs don't work, bad AC hum, unit freezes up
Features
* 4-disc CD changer with motorized door
* 40 Watts of power (according to the specifications on Amazon.com, which matches the unit I received. There seems to be some confusion about the real specifications on the Philips webpage.)
* Plays CD-R/RW formats with MP3 encoded content
* Allows iPod and Philips Go Gear dock to charge MP3 players and play music [not included]
* Flat vertical design
My Experience
This unit looks fantastic, and has a 4 disk changer. On paper (or phosphor!) it looks like exactly what I was looking for!
As I was unpacking the unit, I found the first flaw: The power cable connects to the subwoofer, not to the receiver, and a heavy proprietary cable connects the subwoofer to the receiver. This means that if you wall mount the unit, the subwoofer will have to be right below it, and you'll have a huge, thick cable running down your wall! What was Philips thinking??
Setting the FM presets on the unit was more difficult than it should have been, since using the automatic function to set them skipped a number of stations that I can receive perfectly clearly, and new presets can only be added at the end. This meant that I either had to have some stations out of order, or else I had to set the stations all manually.
Next I tried out the CD player, and found the next annoying quirk: even when playing tracks sequentially on a CD, the unit "seeks" between tracks, creating a few seconds of silence between tracks. This is REALLY annoying when you're listening to music where the tracks aren't supposed to have silence between them (like Frank Zappa.)
After playing a few CDs, the unit locked up with the message "READING" on the display, but none of the disks were spinning. The unit wouldn't respond to any of the controls, and continued to be unresponsive (even to the power button!) until we unplugged it for a minute.
The final nail in the coffin is that the sound quality is completely ruined because the unit has a very noticeable A/C hum. At low volumes, it is louder than the music! I'm guessing that this is the result of power for the unit running through the same cable as signal for the subwoofer.
Needless to say, this unit is going to be returned.
