just as good as the rest

this item may discourage buyers as it seems the cheap option, but the sony quality of sound is just as good, no matter the environment and it has more than enough power to handle any size room.

Great system

As a first time buyer of Dolby Digital Surround sound, I spent a good time pouring over magazine artilces, and with a budget of £300-400 found very little information in the usual mags, as they seem to favour products with another zero on my budget. So with no real review or a chance to try out the system up front, I thought that Sony would not let me down, so went for it. Glad I did, the amp is a well built unit, with 2 optical connections (enough for me), coax cable was included, so plugged it all together and all working. Plenty of analogue inputs also, Video In/Out, Video 2, etc. Also FM/AM tuner built in.

So after some key speaker placement then it's time to test it with The Matrix DVD, superb sound quality, bass unit (though a little large compared to some slimmer units) does provide bass aplenty, so much so 1/4 bass level is enough for most films, room size would have a bearing on the setting though. Bass sounded controlled and not boomy. Dolby digital much better than Dolby Pro Logic II, watching TV on the latter just makes me want to watch a DVD instead.

Remote control is not the best, but considering the number of buttons on it is a good design. Was able to program it to use my Pioneer 360S DVD player. TV is Sony so can control that by default.

Standard Speaker cable was bundled, 2 longer lengths for rears.

For less than £260 this is a bargain, RRP is £350 which is what Argos currently sell it for. The package makes sense for the future also, unlike DVD/Speaker packages I can upgrade the Amp/Speakers/SubW/DVD at any time, if one gets a fault I can replace the one item.

Rotten Design

It is difficult to believe that any thought at all went into the design of this item . It is even hard to find the button to switch the thing on .The controls on the facia are all over the place and those on the remote no better. I missed hearing a program because the tuner went into stand-by mode which could not be overidden by turning it on and off .Recording and playback are hard to control . I last bought a hi-fi 30 years ago ( I still have it) but the technical advances do not make up for the irritation in using this basically simple piece of equipment .

AWFUL quality of sound

The sound of this unit is so unbalanced - the bass is muffled and just smoothers everything else, and there is no great frequency range. As well as totally lacking in subtlety, nuance, and depth of sound, this unit also lacks in power - full volume is not enough, and the speakers distort the sound horribly before the volume gets anywhere being turned up to full.

This is just a huge disappointment in every way imaginable. Not what I expect from a leading brand like Sony. Especially at this price. They are trading on their name only here as there is absolutely no quality to this product whatsoever.

I gave away my high end hi-fi separates and ripped all 10000 of my CDs in order to digitise my music, save space, and have more flexibility with it, but I should never have bought this. In future I will listen before buying!

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

sony speakers srs-a5ss

i have found that the speakers are of good quality and can go louder than the portable speakers i had before. they also look stylish which is another factor and you can change the colour with the clip-on's. i think this is a good buy at a good price.

Superb

Looks - 5/5
Sound - 5/5
Build Quality - 5/5
Useability - 5/5

I would highly reccomend this micro system because I can't fault it. It is very easy to setup and use, it is loud and I have had no problems with it. MP3 CDs can be played on the system but you have to buy additional software to make these on your computer but they are extremley good once they are made. You can hook up additional appliances such as an mp3 player or Tv using RCA or phono leads available almost everywhere quite cheap. Personally I think it's the best micro system available at this moment in time.

Sony Boom Box

More details required for this product, unfortunately I was pretty disappointed when I received it as the sound quality was not up to much at all. Ok for your childs first player but no good if you like nice sound quality. No individual bass/treble controls and despite being described as a 'Boom Box' had no depth of sound.