I bought one of these from Kromer Radio in Toronto when they first came out. Fantastic sound from the standard speakers. Anyway... 5 stars+++. Cheers Andrew Walduck

Great system. About time to replace it. Does JVC make anything as good as the FS5000 was?

Ultracompact design.

no tape deck

I bought this system because of the cool looks and neon volume display. I bought a display unit and brought it home one day never to look back. This unit is beautiful, small and elegant and the sound is better than a bose Wave radio for 1/2 the price. Recommended for anyone.

Similar Products Used:

Bose wave radio/cd player

No more waking up to obnoxious buzzing alarms! Set it to your favorite radio station or CD. Sleep function is nice when you want to doze off at night without having to turn it off. Very nice, crisp sound and for the size the bass is not bad at all. Options! Has 2 auxillary inputs, optical digital out and subwoofer out. 30 Digital FM presets. I ran out of radio stations to preset to! "phones" jack in the front, if u need it. The Eject function on the remote is fun to play with when your friends are trying to load a cd! And the remote works from anywhere in the room, you don't even have to point at the system, tight.

I've noticed that the volume goes up a little bit before you're lowering it if you're using the remote. This slowly occurred over time and wasn't a problem right away. It doesn't jump so high that it really makes a difference though. There's no snooze or mute button on the remote but that's a good thing for me, If I had those on a remote I would always be late for school and work. The AC cord is separate from the system instead of built-in. Since you can use batteries with it to make it portable, that would explain why, but the speakers aren't attached to the unit either so you can't just lift a handle and walk out.

This mini-stereo rules! We got it in at work one day and as soon as we had one out on demo, I had one in my room. It's the perfect size/sound for what I was looking for and in my price range. The design and style are very nice, modern, and matches with everything in your house. I've had it for about 3 years now and everyone always comments on how nice of a system it is. It's very quiet and the flourescent display makes it unique. If you're looking for an elegant shelf system for the price, get it.

excellent style, small size, great sound for the square inches.

Was looking at an upscale replacement for the bedroom
alarm clock. Wanted to wake up to cd's and not the
radio station DJ. This was the first mini that had a
20 minute backup on the clock, as I have short power
interuptons in my area. This unit has performed very well
over the last year. JVC set the initial standard on this
type of mini and everyone else is still playing catch-up.

Sound, look, quality, price.

illumination

This mini-system is great for just about anywhere. It has great sound so you can use it and any party and for about $200, (the msrp is $330 but many places will sell it for just $200) it won't be too hard on your wallet.

I personally liked the blue light that surrounds the volume control on the unit but if you but it in your bedroom, as i did, you might have trouble sleeping at night because the light is relatively bright.

Other than the light around the volume control there really is no down side to this mini-system. I've read previous reviews about this product saying that the cd mechanism was too loud but I found that it was perfectly quiet. So if you want to buy an inexpensive mini-system i would recommend this one because it has a great price and it will not disappoint you. I wouldn't say that this is the best in it's class but it is definitely one of the competitors for the spot.

Similar Products Used:

Sony CMT-EX1, and Sony CMT-ED2U

Excellent sound, easy to use, great alarm system, nice external inputs and outputs.

CD player is noisy - squeaking and ticking sounds when playing CD's.

This was a factory refurbished unit that I purchased through SpiderGear, based upon a review on this website. It was a very good deal, $189.00 plus $10.00 membership. This is my third CD player, and the only one that I can hear the CD transport mechanism when playing CD's - not good for trying to go to sleep at night with soothing sound of CD. I have tried a little bit of WD-40 right at the shaft, and it helped a little. I don't know if a brand new FS-5000 would have a noisy CD player. Perhaps this is a lesson learned on buying factory refurbished equipment - don't expect perfection.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer CD deck.

great looking, compact, great sound for little system, elegant

noisy cd mechanism

i must admit first off that this was actually the "best" system of what was left at the time. i had originally purchased a sharp shelfsystem that went defective and was also canceled at the same time. thus, out of the systems left, the jvc seemed to be the best.

My biggest gripe, and it is quite a HUGE one, is the noise the cd spinning mechanism makes. this unit is 10 feet away from my bed and i can still hear the cd spinning--and that's above and beyond the noise my fish tank makes! i have the unit oiled, replaced, and oilded again, but nothing seems to work. and since the place i bought it at doesn't see this as defective, they will not replace it.

i would say that the sound is quite amazing for such a little system; it just a shame it is not built with quality in mind.

please take into effect that this is just one person's opinion and i was not too jazzed on the system in the first place. but with my experience, i will not buy another jvc audio system again.

Similar Products Used:

sharp, sony

Nice styling, seems to be well built, good midrange and highs, 2 inputs, remote.

Lacking in bass, could use less plastic and more real glass and metal

JVC FS-5000 Review

I bought this item a few days ago. Thus far I have been impressed by it. Overall it was a good buy, using a $30 buy.com coupon, I managed to get this for only $169. Considering that price, this is certainly a good deal. As others have mentioned in the past, I would agree with them that the original price of 300 or so was too high.

The sound is very good for the size of this unit. Though by no means on par with a full size system, it performs adequately. The bass can be lacking a bit. The stereo's 'AHB Super Pro' bass enhancement compensates along with the bass and treble controls. But this still doesn't give you that great of bass. My impression of the midrange was that it was pretty smooth. The highs sometimes seem to bother me. Maybe it's just me in general with highs, but I thought at times it was perhaps a little tinny.

The tuner works pretty nicely. I don't have that much of a problem with most stations, except for the ones that are usually hard to pull in. So the tuner also works fine.

The CD player seems to work fine. I haven't noticed anything in particular that is worthy of mentioning. I would just like to mention that I'm not a big fan of top loading CD players... I suppose this bothers me a bit. But I think JVC could have designed the top loading part a tad better. I don't know how, but it bugs me a little. I like the moving stage on the Panasonic SC-PM 03. I would like to see something like that on the JVC. That is another thing to mention. It was a tough choice between the JVC and Panasonic. This brings me to another point.

THe JVC has really nice sleek styling. Although the thing is made out of plastic and stuff, it has an elegant, stylish and expensive look. I think this will surely impress the guests. And I like the dual layer fluorescent dislay. I'm a fan of fluorescent displays too. They are much brighter and more readable than those backlit LCD displays. Also, I like that blue light aroudn the volume knob. Gives it that extra elegant feel.

One thing that bothers me is the volume knob. I would have appreciated a more smooth and solid feel to the volume knob. Just one of those little things that perhaps an audiophile would appreciate. And esp for the suggested retail price, I would have expected something like that. Oh well. But that would certainly added another element to the sleek, elegant feel to this stereo.

I'm glad that there is no panel to hide any 'unnecessary' controls as most stereos of this kind do. It is also nice to see all the controls on the remote nearly present on the unit. The remote is also good. Would like a mute button, but then again, you could just turn down the volume. One thing that I thought useless was the CD lid open button. I mean, if you're going to be changing the CD, what's the point of opening it from far away, if you need to come to the stereo and change the CD? Well, maybe I don't get it.

Another big plus is that this unit had 2 inputs. This is very nice, esp since it only has just the CD player.

And one last thing. THe speaker wires are too short. But you can just buy longer ones.

C.T.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic SC-PM03, Denon DM-3, Teac Ref 100

Adjustability, configuration, surprisingly good sound
quality at moderate volumes, stylishness, perceived build
quality, expandability.

Don't expect the sound quality to hold up if you try to play
it loud.

I was looking for a small system for the kitchen, to provide music when I'm cooking, or (as often happens) the party ends
up congregating there. One of the things I found out quickly when I started looking, is that most manufacturers of units in this class have done away with tone controls. This was, to me, a serious drawback, as speaker placement options were going to be limited, probably to the upper corners of the room. This will reinforce the bass response of the system, and I was not convinced I could compensate for it using the preset equalization curves provided by Sony, Aiwa, et al.

This left 2 candidates - Panasonic and JVC. I have had good luck in the past with Panasonic equipment, and actually mail-ordered an SC-PM20, which UPS managed to lose for me. By the time the claim was filed, the unit was back-ordered, so I cancelled the order.

In the interim, I rethought my choice, which was based on the Panasonic having 2-way speakers. We're not talking about high end tweeters here - the speakers are 2-way in large part so the marketing people can say they're 2-way. Then the JVC showed up at CompUSA for $200 (new, not refurbished - I think they're replacing it in their product line).

The unit has worked out quite well. It has decent sound - not hifi, but certainly good enough for its current application. It has bass and treble controls, so I can compensate for speaker placement. It has a couple of extra inputs, and a line-level subwoofer output. If I feel the need for better speakers, I believe the unit has enough power to drive a pair of efficient bookshelfs, and the speaker wire connections are accessible, so I can run longer/better leads if I need to, without having to do any splicing. It doesn't take up a lot of room, looks very sleek, and is not discernably plastic, like boomboxes are. The action of the motorized glass-like lid to the CD compartment gives it a nice, quality feel.

In my opinion, the price is a little high - very high, if you pay anything close to MSRP ($330). The $200 I paid is a lot more reasonable. That said, I'm very happy with it. It's a slick little unit that just happens to cover my list of requirements.