Sony CMT-CPX22 CD Shelf System

When I saw the CMT-CPX22 at the store between all the other "MicroSystems"; I noticed it not only looked the best of the bunch, but at 200 watts it had the best sound quality and loudness. After giving up $299 and driving it home, I was still impressed with how it looked and sounded in my bedroom.

Now a year later of daily use, and I find that the CMT is the most unsatisfying, non-user friendly system I have ever owned.

BIG GRIPES:
1. The Remote: It is severely limited in what you can do from it. You can't open the CD tray, You can't manipulate the sound-it only turns up and down the volume, The buttons are way too small, unevenly spaced, inconsistently sized and crowded making it very difficult to use without looking at it.
The are tons of extra useless buttons that serve no function whatsoever. Also you can ONLY do some functions with the remote-such as sleep mode, alarm and clock set. Not good at all.

2. The CD playback: It is incredibly slow and noisy when switching between CDs or from Tuner/Tape or AUX mode to CD mode. You can't fast forward or reverse MP3 tracks, and it only plays 1 type of MP3 format...so no WMA files played here. MP3 playback was also very slow to read the CD initially and sometimes entire tracks would not play at all for no apparant reasons. It also DOES NOT list TRACK NAMES (big annoyance). However, some store bought CDs newer than 2004(i think) displays album and track names on the CMT's screen. This is odd because this feature is not even listed in the manuals. It is also an inconsistent feature that slows playback as well-so its not even a good thing.

3. The Tuner: AM is virtually non-existent...even with the AM antenna plugged in. The station presets are plenty (20 in all) but impossible to use because the remote control has no number keypad to jump right to that station. It only scans the range that you preset...so to go from preset 2 to preset 19, you have to scan thru all 17 preset stations in between which is the same as if you didn't preset anything in the first place. Like most other features on the CMT such as the display dimmer (for an already dim and small display screen) the preset feature is utterly useless.

Apart from these gripes: I did find the sound richness and quality to be good, somewhat loud, with a nice bass. Overall build quality is good. I did however had problems with the CMT powering off 2 seconds after it was turned on and SONY's warranty cover repairs...however..SONY shipped me a new refurbished unit (minus my CDs that got stuck inside the original unit)and SONY didn't fail to leave huge silver "REFURBISHED" stickers all over the top, sides and rear of the replacement unit.
Anyway, I'm selling mine on EBay this week and shopping for a Sony MHC-GX9900 unit.
Even for all its looks and sound quality I cannot recommend this unit for the price that it is listed for.