10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Unique Wall Mount, Looks Great, Sounds Good
Date of Review: Jul 4, 2008
The Bottom Line: Excellent quality and sound for a system this small. Unique wall mount capability, loads/plays 4 MP3 CD's or audio CD's. Some odd quirks though.
I wanted to get a CD changer that would play MP3's. I wanted a minimum of 4 CD's, though I really preferred 5, like my carousel changer (which will only play CD's).
Those requirements alone narrow the field substantially.
I played with a Sharp unit in the store, and the disk access was so cumbersome (select, wait, open, wait) that I was immediately turned off. This review isn't about the Sharp units, so I'll leave it at that.
Bose makes 3-CD and 5-CD changer-capable versions of the Wave radio, and the sound quality is awesome, but at literally 10X the price (5-CD version), those are pretty tough on the budget.
This unit is very similar to the jWIN JX-CD8700 Shelf System (see my review on that unit).
The sound quality of this unit is quite good; and met my expectations. I don't believe the average listener would find fault with it, and even a discerning ear would probably need a side-by-side comparison (with a top-notch stereo) to find fault with the sound quality. The sound is not quite up to the quality of my full size components; but the difference is not substantial.
The main panel on the unit that I bought is a mirror chrome, not black like in the illustration. Right and left side doors slide open gracefully. CD's on one side can be changed while CD's on the other side are playing. Opening the door on the side with the active CD stops play. The unit appears to be reasonably sturdy. The cabinet is plastic -but aren't they all?- but for example, the doors, which could be flimsy if not well done, are very solid and inspire confidence in their durability. The front panel is backlit indigo blue. There is a small pilot light on the top edge of the subwoofer, and the LCD display is also backlit in blue.
The remote looks as if it is backlit, but it is not. The remote has "REC" and "DEL" buttons which the instructions say are non-functional on this unit. The remote allows full control, even opening and closing the CD doors, which seems kind of pointless because you have to be within reach of the unit to change CD's anyway. Even if you forget to close the door and walk away, it will close automatically when you go to play the CD anyway. CD's are easy to get out; as there is a large well for a fingertip at the outer edge of each CD well.
Irksome glitch: modes are cancelled when you power down (pushing the power button puts it in what they call 'standby' mode, which is basically "off"). So if you were in 'Shuffle' play mode, and you turn the unit off, when you turn it on again, it will still be on the same CD, but it won't play until you press play, and you have to put it in 'Shuffle' mode again. And it will start at the beginning of the CD.
Features which make this unit unique:
1) it loads and plays 4 CD's, and can play MP3 files.
2) it can be mounted on the wall.
3) it has a front-panel USB port, and can play music files from a jump drive.
4) all four CD's are visible when loaded.
Note that the marketing pictures of this unit make it look as though the subwoofer is very small. Depending on your perspective, you may find it good, or bad to learn that the subwoofer is quite large; 13 1/2" deep (but allow another 2" for the protruding connector plug) 14" tall, and almost 9" wide.
The driver is rear-firing, with a substantial grille over it. Sound is from the front-firing port. The power supply is in the bottom of the subwoofer cabinet, and it has a small fan.
There is no separate subwoofer level control.
The wall mount capability of this unit makes it very unique; though that may be negated by the very large subwoofer. Note that Philips sells a very similar unit that does not have the subwoofer or the MP3 player connection, but is otherwise the same. If you need an entirely wall-mounted unit, that one may be a better choice.
The marketing pictures show the main unit and speakers on stands. It looks good on the stands, but the stands are removable, and the units are clearly designed for wall mounting. So it will look at home either on a horizontal or (mounted on a) vertical surface.
As the other reviewer has noted, the cable connecting the head unit to the subwoofer carries both power and signal; making it impractical to substitute your own subwoofer.
It uses a standard 15-pin D-Sub connector, and thus should be interchangeable with any computer VGA cable; or VGA computer video extension cable. The hum the other reviewer noticed was no doubt because either he did not have the cable plugged in all the way, or the cable was defective. I noticed that my cable came loose once, and it hummed pretty bad. Once properly plugged in, there was no discernable background noise.
Changing between tracks on an audio CD doesn't cause any seek problems. Specifically testing for this, I used Pink Floyd's 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' and listened carefully (with headphones) to track transitions. There is a momentary muting of the music; but this a transient of a fraction of a second. It is only going to be noticeable on CD's where the music continues straight through the track change. There is no pause, nor any 'hunting' between tracks -at least not with my unit. But there is a slight "pop" at the track transition, and I am beginning to wonder if it might get annoying. The pop is the same on MP3 and CD's.
More on this: When a track ends, there is a slight click. When the next track starts, there is a slight pop. It sounds like when you disconnect/connect or are playing with the speaker wires. When playing an MP3 CD in Shuffle mode, the delay between the click and the pop is less than a second. When playing CDA's, the two noises blend together (no discernable pause in between).
It's really kind of annoying. When just listening to music you can probably get over it (it's pretty quiet and might not be noticed if you aren't listening for it), but I don't know why it should do this as I've never heard this kind of noise on any MP3 or CD player I've ever heard before.
There are two audio outputs: a mini stereo headphone jack on the right side, and two RCA plugs for each of the satellite speakers. The subwoofer connection cable carries both signal out to the subwoofer, and power in to the unit.
The RCA jacks for the right and left speakers on the rear side of the unit are full range (they are not bass-limited front channel outputs) so they can be used for external speakers, with appropriate adapters.
When a headphone is plugged in, the subwoofer and satellite speaker outputs are silenced, so if you want to connect any additional speakers, you have to use these RCA jacks.
The input cable for the iPod or other compatible MP3 player plugs into a jack on the subwoofer. As others have noted, the actual interface hardware is not included.
A loop antenna for AM reception is included, and clips to the back of the unit where it will be hidden behind the unit. An FM dipole antenna is also included, and can be tucked away somewhere. Both antennas connect to terminals on the back of the unit, so substituting your own antenna would be simple (though the AM antenna seems about as tidy and convenient as it could get).
The unit also has a USB port on the front. When USB input is selected, the USB icon above the port lights up to show that it is active. The USB port has a small spring loaded sliding cover that both protects the USB port and makes the front panel look tidier when the port is not in use.
One nice feature of the jWin that I miss on this unit, is that the jWin would light up the active CD. The Philips has an obvious enough icon in the corners of the display that indicate which CD is selected, but a light in the CD well would have been better.
Equalization settings include Rock, Pop, Jazz, and Classical. Differences are not dramatic. There is also a feature called DBB (Dynamic Bass Boost) which is quite noticeable, and effective; but for my personal taste it became too bassy.
There is also a feature called 'Incredible Surround'. Like DBB, it has a dedicated button. It is also a noticeable effect, but I'm not sure I like it either; it can tend to make vocals fade out.
MP3 file name and folder name information can be displayed by pressing a button on the remote to call it up; one press for file name, two for folder name. It scrolls by once, then the display reverts to the track number and play time display.
The instructions indicate that WMA v9 or earlier format is supported, but specifically says WAV, AAC, PCM, DRM protected or lossless WMA are not supported.
It can play a program of tracks in order, and has shuffle and repeat playback modes.
It has a real-time clock and both Sleep and Wake functions, so it can be used as a clock-radio alarm.
I have not (and probably won't) use(d) the tuner.
I am -at this point- planning to keep this unit, but that is mostly because there is little else to choose from in a compact multi-CD (minimum of 4) changer with MP3 playback capability.
