Jan 18, 2010 12:46 PM
17918 Views
(Updated Jan 22, 2011 06:09 PM)
My main intention of buying a sound system was to rip my'old' cassettes to digital form, and write them to a CD later. I knew that there was a set by Philips known as Rip-All that did this job.
I searched for this Rip-All in a few stores but drew a blank. Most shop owners dissuaded me from buying Philips. Even I was not very keen on them, going by my previous experience with their products. Most shops had a very small range of music systems, most were offering home theatres, but home theatres do not have cassette decks! So that was out.
Finally I came to a shop where the assistant showed me the Sony mini component model, and while explaining the features, he casually mentioned that you can rip songs from the cassette, radio or CD player direct into MP3 into the USB port. That was exactly what I was looking for! Although it was a bit over my budget, I still went for it because it fulfilled my original need.
I have been using it for the last one month now and am quite pleased with its sound quality and performance. Let me write about its features in detail:
Looks: The central unit has a huge round volume control knob which dominates the front view. There is a blue ring around the knob, and some buttons around it set in a circular fashion. These huge volume knobs don't entice me much, but I guess this is the flavour of the season! The cassette deck is on the top. The CD tray is in bottom front, and the small orange backlit display is on the upper part.
Function: The CD tray opens smoothly enough; it has 3 plastic shelves inside for the 3 CDs or DVDs. Once the tray goes in, it takes some time to read all the 3 shelves. It can read many types of discs, see the Sony website for details. I tried playing my used raste-ka-maal cheap MP3 CDs - they play without any problem.
The radio has two antennae supplied, one for FM which is basically a wire with a socket, and an AM one, which is a square plastic frame with wire wound around it. I have fixed the FM antenna, not the AM. FM reception is good, though during auto tuning it failed to pick up one or two stations.
The cassette deck is on the top surface, so are its control buttons(it's a mechanical deck). I feel this is a bit clumsy. I would have preferred if they had put the deck in front and reduced the size of the volume knob! Cassettes play OK, although the head gets dirty very soon(must be the quality of the cassettes that's bad). Ripping to the USB(you have to insert a memory stick) is adequate. You get a 128 kbit 44 kHz mp3 recording, but you get the hissing sound that's typical of tapes. Also the head has to be clean to get a good recording. You can also play back from USB. The max memory stick permissible may be 16GB, judging from the permissible Sony devices mentioned in the manual had 16GB max.
The remote control has very small buttons and takes some getting used to. For example, while playing a mp3 CD, pressing 3 won't take you to the 3rd song, you need to press >> thrice. Similarly, shuffle play(random play) is not possible through the remote or the main unit - you need to hook it up to the TV, go to the menu options and set it there. This setting will last till that CD is being played! I think this an oversight by the manufacturers - shuffle play is a much-needed feature while playing song CDs.
Equaliser settings: There are 5 or 6 preset settings, and a virtual surround setting, which sounds quite nice. There is no separate graphic equaliser.
Speakers: Wooden enclosure, two-way speakers. I am no audiophile, but these sound quite OK to me.
DVD: I have not hooked it up to the TV, so cannot comment on its DVD capabilities. Karaoke: no comments.
Service: The demo visit was quite OK. I have heard Sony's service is terrible, so keeping my fingers crossed!
Update, 1 year later: My CD player started malfunctioning just around 1 year later! The CD would go in, the display would show "READING" and that was it! Another day, the tray stopped opening altogether. I phoned up cust support. The girl told me that I would not get any warranty support as 1 year had passed since the buying date. I took it to an auth srv centre(near Milan Subway). They checked up my warranty papers and said that there were still 4 days left of the warranty period and that I would get w. cover!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I got my set repaired after a week, free of charge.
