Just Very Compact! (JVC FS SD770R)

Member Name: numberthree

Product:	JVC FS SD770R
Date:	15/12/04 (382 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smart, Good name brand, great sound

Disadvantages: No cassette

So we have purchased yet another micro system for our youngest daughter and we very much hope this one lasts longer than 11 and a half months! The man in the shop assured us it would as I parted with £99.00!!! We don't have a very good track record with micro systems - the last 2 of my daughters have died at around 12 months old - and we aren't a very heavy handed family either!

I must admit that this system goes against what has become the traditional shape of a micro system. The unit its-self is flat and long rather than tall and thin. It is 30cm wide, 7.5cm high and 21.5cm deep. The speakers are tall and thin and sort of oval shaped with a flat front and back, 12cm x 24.6cm x 16.2cm. The unit and speakers are primarily silver in colour with the actual CD/amp unit having a clear glass lid. The front of the amp unit has an LCD display in the middle so you can see which track you are listening to or which radio station – it also has RDS so that you can pick up messages from the radio stations. This micro system comes with a remote control – which I think is a little bulky in comparison to the main unit, although its buttons are a decent size and very positive (it is supposed to work from 23feet away! – my daughter has the smallest bedroom in our house, so that isn’t a problem for us!). Its pickup sensor is also on the front of the unit along with a long oval on/off switch on the left hand side with a red standby LED next to it and a similar button on the other side to open and close the lid. There is a headphone jack on this front plate also. All the buttons on the system have a very nice feel to them and you know when you have pressed one.

Now the lid doesn’t just open and close - it also slides back slightly to reveal more control buttons on top of the unit – it then opens vertically from here to near 90 degrees so that you can actually get your hand in to put on or take out a CD without having to fiddle about. The buttons to control the CD, radio, clock et cetera are hidden away under the first part of the cover and are revealed when the cover slides back. This is a nice touch as the unit looks very compact and uncomplicated when it is switched off – not that it is complex when it is turned on though!

On the rear of the unit are sockets for an auxiliary input and a subwoofer speaker, along with the usual sockets for aerials and connectors for the speakers. I must say that the speaker leads I found to be a lot more substantial than ones for previous units we have had.

The LCD display is lit with an electric blue light that is duplicated inside the CD bay and shines through the top of the glass lid – very pleasant I must say. Now this unit also has a clock – in 24hour mode -, timer (to wake you up in the morning) and sleep facility and a nice touch is that this back light can be dimmed manually or when sleep is selected it dims automatically! You can choose how long the sleep timer is set for – from 10 mins to 60 I think.

Sound wise I have been very impressed and I must say that it sounds a lot nicer than the other micro systems we have had in the past. You are able to alter the bass and treble settings to suit your own preferences too. The speakers are rated at 4 ohms.

This is a very polite system and even says ‘Hello’ when you switch on and ‘Goodbye’ when you switch off. This is displayed on the LCD screen by the way – the system doesn’t actually speak!!! My that would be annoying wouldn’t it!

There is a stand available for the centre unit, which raises it up off the surface it is on a couple of inches. It is rather nice - made of glass with gold feet – we didn’t opt to buy this as at £20 it made the whole item more than we wanted to pay. It did look nice in the shop though. I must say however that my daughter has had no problems using the system without this stand.

This unit plays CD read only (CD-R) and re-writes (CD-RW) so that you can record your own CD’s and play them – it does not support MP3 format though – it was only £99!!!

It has an FM and AM radio (with aerials) which is really easy to tune and you have 30 FM stations to preset and 15AM far too many for me – I only listen to Radio 5Live on my DAB radio though!

I am very impressed with not only the look of this system but its sound and ease of use. The steps to program things such as the clock or radio station presets are very simple and easy to understand and use. It certainly gets my recommendation at the moment.

Summary: