CD mechanism: It has a 3 CD slide system (or whatever they call it). You can change two CD's while listening the third one, which is a great feature. The mechanism is a little noisy, but durable (not a problem in two years).

CD reproduction: It played every CD I tossed at it without a hitch. Being CD-R/RW and even scratched CD's. It really amazed me. If you put an unfinished CDR it will even scroll "Unfinished CD-ROM".

Durability: I use it daily, and as I said I have it for two years now. Not a single problem. I'm a smoker, and I have the computer next to it so I smoke a lot near the system. I know that cigarette smoke is evil to laser lens.. but this baby has not complained yet. I know of many Aiwa (not the new ones) and other Sony's (my brothers GR-88 for example) which died in the first two years. Lenses are getting worst because they are built with plastic (acrilic) instead of glass (crystal), which is cheaper but less durable. So I think is a critical issue with a system. IMO there are two key points with branded systems, lenses and CD mechanism, and this baby probed to be good.

Sound quality: Is a little difficult to talk about this issue with plain facts. Everyone has a preferred "sound decoration". Some people like highs more than bass, some love boomier bass and some other like vocals which are mid frequencies. So when talking about this I usually consider how it respond in a flat unequalized manner, with every tweak (loudness, surround) turned off, and then play with the equalization to see if it can be adjusted to meet several styles. As I suspected, and like MANY low end systems, this baby lack mid frequencies. This is so difficult to evaluate because the majority of low end system (specially 2 way systems) do the same. The mid-bass driver handles bass really well, the tweeters do crisp and clear highs. But the mid frequencies (in which vocals usually play) are somehow "lost" in comparison. And to make things worst, the equalizer can only adjust treble and bass. Let me be clear here, I'm comparing this system against a hi-end system, many of you would tell me "Man, you're crazy, it sounds great!", and I can only answer "Yes, for the price". Sony CMT-CP11 does a better job, sacrificing a little low-end bass and using mid-bass drivers that handle better the upper frequencies. If you look the speaker you can tell, it has a "subwoofer like" construction, aluminium alloy with big rubber rings to allow a great cone excursion.. tipical of a bass speaker. Now.. if you like bass... you can't go wrong with this. Bass is amazing, and the WOOX speakers do their job here. I thought WOOX was a sound enhancement like bass boost... God I was wrong. They are subwoofers (about 5 1/4") mounted on top of the speaker boxes. If you activate WOOX you cannot adjust treble and bass (shame), you can only control 3 'Woox' levels. They "punch"... very techno and electronic friendly. The sound changes dramatically, but I guess they are not well suited for every music style. I found out that the equalization automatically changes when activating this feature to compensate for the new speaker that has just kicked in. If you deactivate Woox, equalization reverse to the previous selection. Last but not least, this baby is LOUD. If you see it's size you can't ever imagine it can reach this kind of volumes without distorting. If I had to be brief I would say the sound quality is above average at this price range, untouchable if you like bass and/or high volumes.

Features: All the standard here plus 3 CD charger, WOOX, very good display with the ability to dim the illumination in 3 steps. Accessibility to every function is quite simple in my opinion. The remote does it job, you can do everything from it, nothing fancy (old school remote) but effective. It has two selectable AUX inputs (AUX and CDR) which is great, you can plug two extra devices like a computer and a DVD/MD-player simultaneously.

Design: This is very personal but I think it has a nice design. It has a blue glow that illuminates all the display panel plus the cassette deck. You can turn it off and even dim the display intensity if you like it more quiet(like me). The finishing of the system is quite good and sober, specially the speakers. It has a glass protection for the upper woox woofers which is stylish.

Tip: Once the system stopped responding to the CD commands. It wouldn't open the CD door or change the CD, not from the console or remote. I said.. well.. thats it. I luckily decided to read the manual and went directly to the troubleshooting section. Guess what I found: "If you have trouble opening the CD door unplug the system for a few seconds and then plug it back". I thought "no way", they are joking me. It worked!!. Apparently there is a bug in the software. This is not an annoyance, it only happened twice in two years, but I guess many people end up carrying it to the service because of this. I like to think "it gets confused".

Recommended:
Yes