Good System sans MP3 . Review on Sony MHC V501

I purchased this system in the April of 2002. I purchased it after a significant amount of review and testing of similar systems from Philips and Aiwa. I found the sound output of this system to be terrific compared to Philips and the general review of Aiwa at that point from friends was that it fizzles out quite early.

The RMS of Sony was also high compared to RMS delivery of Philips and Aiwa. those knowledgeable of music systems know that RMS is a far better indicator of sound output than PMPO.

Later on I also found out the following advantages of the system:

Operates on both 110 V (American standard) and 220 V inputs.

Can take video gaming inputs for better sound quality (only valid for those using PS1 or PS2 or MS Xbox or Nintendo gaming systems)

Can take other playes sound input.

Can output the sound output to another player .

The warranty can be extended for another year by paying an extra amount.

The system has sound equalizer options both with presets and personal. However equalizer is only available for three bands whereas some car audio systems also support 9 band equalizers. The presets available for Music are:

pop

jazz

rock

oriental

soul

dance

for video play:

drama

musical

action

for gaming:

arcade

adventure

racing

You can also store three of your own EQ curves. However I personally prefer the pop equalizer curve and use it for most of the music. It also allows you to have surround effect which is a 2 speaker mimicary of 5.1 channel music (home theatre system). It does amplifies the sound output and creates a surround effect when set to surround or cinema effect but at that time equalizer setting goes in for hibernation.

The V-groove (for video play) and groove (for music play) settings enable one to get higher bass effects and is good for parties or watching action movies. This version lacked MP3 play which I substituted by purchasing a DVD player. Also it did not plays CD-R and CD-RW nicely. The later versions of the player christened MHC-RV5 overcame these advantages and matched or bettered the other offerings in the market.

My system fell down from quite a height about 2 weeks from purchase and I must attribute it to the ruggedness of the sony that it survived. I escaped with a broken A-side cassette player, front panels and transformer. The replacements under warranty cost only Rs 1000, which without warranty would have cost something like Rs 3000 or more. However it took a considerable amount of effort to get the system repaired as Sony had still not supplied some spares to the agency. It seems the delay were because the system was quite new in the market and they did not anticipate such requirements from the market.

I would readily recommend this music system to any anyone wanting to purchase a music system within Rs 20000 budget.

However if his budget is upward of Rs 30000/- I would recommend he goes in for a home theatre system from sony's stable.