I bought this system based on how it sounded at the store and am really happy with the sound. I not only wanted it for a home stereo system but also to play my Yamaha and Kurzweil keyboards through at home. It handles it very well. I think a subwoofer would be an added benefit for handling the real low bass sounds, but it has a jack for it in the back. The Karoake feature isn't something I was looking for, but have been having fun with it. Be prepared to read the manual to figure it all out. It was a little hard to understand, but not impossible.

CD player is the best thing on this

The most horrible loudspeaker ever designed

Hi !
Just finished with the Sony Rx66 boombox review and I have to admit that it hardly deserves its 1 star.
However, things improve A LOT if you change the weak link of all those systems : the speakers. My wife was complainig that she couldn’t listen to any classical music so I’ve bought a pair of Kef Coda 7 and plugged them on the Sony Boombox.
HOLY COW !!!! This thing sounds much much better !
Of course you have to turn all the useless sound effects off, and you get some decent kitchen music !
I was afraid that the Kef would reveal the ugly nature of the amplifier (they are pretty good at that) but no, it’s not that bad at all. It’s even pretty nice with acoustic jazz / rock (Michel Petrucciani & Stephane Grappelli : Flamingo, or Rod Stewart Unplugged), they image very well, with that typical KEF killer midrange.
Don’t expect any miracle from the cd-player either although it has to be said that it shares its electronic with much more expensive units, and it does a fairly good job.
I use the optical output for my DAT recorder and it works very nicely.
For the speaker cables, I had a piece of Monster cable hanging around, no audible improvement, so back the low impedance Sony cables went.
That’s it ! From a very unhappy Sony RX66 owner I’m now a happy RX 66 owner !

Oh, no doubt it booms...no doubt it sounds...but the
CD of the unit I had purchased skipped whilst playing
and returned to the beginning of the track. Then, it
skipped again and returned. The cassette doors were
rather flimsy. The display lights were not as
ridiculous as I've seen but still... There were
no adjustable bass and treble controls or equalizer.
Also, there were several features noted in the manual
yet practically all of them were for models other than
the MHC-RX66. What a crock!

I took the unit back the very next day and wisely ex-
changed it for an Onkyo TX-8511 receiver. Price-wise
it was an even exchange. Quality-wise...heh...need I
write more?

I'm feeling generous today...I'll give the Sony
MHC-RX66 a rating of two stars...for those of you
who are stuck with it...my sympathies.

Bass, sound, reliability, design(matter of taste)

lack of custom EQ settings, no balance control

I bought this sytem after hearing it in the store. When the salesman put this thing on, the first question out of my mouth was "where's the subwoofer". I could've sworn he had a couple subs hidden somewhere.. this thing has incredible bass. I have it set up in a basement thats' roughly 22'x21' with maybe 7' celings and this thing can still shake the walls. I thew a couple parties down there and the thing was incredible. u could hear the bass outside. on the first floor, the floor would vibrate. aside from bass, the rest of the sound seems very clear and well defined.
I really couldn't complain about anything sound-wise with this system. What I dont like is the fact that there is no balance control and that there is no way to set an EQ aside from the preset ones, a "surround" mode and BBE (or whatever sony calls their bass enhancement thing).
another little thing i have to pick at is that the numbers in the 3cd-changer are just inset into the plastic which is black so it's hard to read them. but i solved this by filling them with white-out. Now i have very well defined white numbers on black background..
Another neusance is that I use this system as an alarm clock and the first thing you hear when this thing goes on is the sound of the cd mechanism loading/setting. it's not too loud but this sytem is next to my bed so this is the sound i end up waking up to instead of the music..
overall i think this is an excellent system.. if you just want a lot of sound in a small system, this is it! absolutely incredible bass response!

Similar Products Used:

heard others but never used others at home so no extensive detail

Sounds great, cool special effects and nice dial control.

Kinda expensive compared to what you can get today for the same price.

This system was a replacement for my Aiwa system, a terrible piece of junk that broke down every two months. Luckily the Sony works great and I haven't had any problems so far. The system sounds really good and has some special effects features when playing CDs. It also has a nice dial control for changing stations and CD track selection. My only grip is that I now see systems priced in a similar price range that offer a great deal more. Oh well, I'm still happy with the system.

Similar Products Used:

Awia Minisystem