Too many to list... Excellent sound, Flawless MD recording, nice EQ effects, Ya can't go wrong.

No digital out for MD player

Anyone who says sony makes crappy products has not heard this little wonder. I bought it for $600 at the Wiz in Manhattan it was worth every cent. The MD changer works well, as you can see the discs that are not playing, so you know what is what when you go to change discs (works nicely with multi-colored MD's). MD recording can be tweaked to irresponsibly precise levels. I like to take various lines and scenes from movies on my dvd and cut them into my mix tapes. This process can be done very exactly providing for proffessional sounding mixes. This also works well to get rid of those annoying intros that so many artists like to put in their music. Sound: phenomonal for a unit this size. The volume goes up to 30 and starts to distort in the 25-30 range. Unless you plan on filling a very large room with very loud sound, you don't need to crank it that high. Any volume past 18 works just as nicely as calling 911 if I need the cops to come to my apartment. EQ's are excellent, not audiophile grade to play through $1000 speakers, but the
presets work very effectively on this system. Five stars, without a doubt.

I recently bought the Sony component system and I have go to say, it is the best investment yet! I bought it for about $500 which is really a steal considering the retail is $850. It has 50 watts of total power.. boy, you can crank this baby up and wake the neighbors across the street! About the sound? it is great, above average for Sony. I might be a little biased since I simply love Sony products. They make quality products and this one is no exception! there is some distortion when the volume gets too high but that doesn't matter... it has a triple CD changer as well as a tripe MD changer... quite a potent device. the MD quality is superb.. slightly less than that of CD's but definitely a whole lot better than the best analogue tapes out there (except DAT, of course). it has an intuitive interface and it takes some learning to procure all of the cool features, but if you have patience, this system is for you! The best thing about this system is the "remote commander" remote control. You can detach the 'brains' of the system and control it from quite a distance away. Or if you don't like people touching your system, you can just hide it and the system becomes inept. It is quite a feature. I love it.. If you are looking for a system with above average sound, this is it.. and especially if you can get it for less than 600, that would be sweet. the only complaint is that it does not have the bass alot of people are looking for. But I am satisfied. It is a great system with features that would turn heads. I was going to purchase the JVC EX-MD9000 over this one but I am glad I bought this. it may be twice as large, but it has more than twice the features with a powerful amplifier to boot.

I've been looking for a compact system for the bedroom for a long time and I'm very impressed with the features on this one. As I write this, it's on sale at Crutchfield for $599. I got a dealer to match that, but he didn't have any in stock, so I ended up buying his display unit for $550. The obvious great features are the minidisc and compact disc changers, which can be set up to play in any order (or randomly) and to record CD's or radio onto minidisc (digitally - no need to set levels) automatically, in a variety of configurations, and using the most recent ATRAC technology. That alone makes the system very useful (there is a cassette deck add-on, but I've never seen it). But I'm even more impressed with some other features, such as the remote, which is a particular pleasure to use, having dials instead of buttons for the volume and search functions. Also a pleasure to use is the tuner, which has 20 FM and 10 AM presets, which can be dialed in in an instant instead of having to find the right button. Perhaps best of all is the clock/timer feature, which allows you to go to sleep and wake up to music, all programmable from the remote, making this a particularly great system for the bedroom. There are probably other nice features that I haven't mentioned - it's a remarkably complex system. That it is so compact, and the head unit is so attractive, is a great bonus. As for sound, it may not satisfy purist audiophiles, but I find that it sounds excellent for its size and purpose. Some minor quibbles: the speakers aren't as attractive as the head unit. Also, while I haven't had a chance to compare directly, I suspect that better compact speakers are available. So, if only for looks, I'll probably replace the speakers with something a little less space-age. Having said that, the speakers are at least presentable looking and sound reasonably good for the price, and would probably serve most people perfectly well. The remote could use a mute button, although the volume dial works very quickly. A few features could be simplified. For example, it would be nice if the remote had the usual one-step "sleep" button (as it is, you have to hit 3 or 4 buttons to program the sleep feature). It would be nice to have digital input and output to hook up to my main system. Finally, I would prefer simple bass/treble controls instead of the phony sound effects and bass boost, which just give me a headache. Fortunately, these effects can be turned off, and the system sounds quite nice without them.
Congratulations once again to Sony for being way ahead of everyone else. I've been waiting years for a compact system like this. The aforementioned quibbles aside, if you're looking for a compact system, I can't recommend this one highly enough.

A follow-up on my previous review. I remain very happy with this unit and continue to recommend it highly as a full-featured compact system. One thing I have done is replace the speakers with a pair of Paradigm Atoms ($179/pair). The Sony speakers are reasonably good for the price and should satisfy most consumers, but I think the Paradigms are more attractive and have noticeably more detailed and balanced sound. It's worth the extra $ to me. Anyone interested in the Paradigms may want to check the reviews in that section.
I had some concern as to whether the amp was powerful enough to drive the Paradigms cleanly, but the combination seems to work fine in a bedroom-sized space. Having paid $730 total for the system and the substitute speakers, I'm very pleased.