Perfect in every way but minus a star only because it takes a very long time to load, read and play CDs. Longer than I expected, even after being aware from the reviews before I bought it. The rich sound and other options make up for it though. I wish it came with a turntable but can't have everything!

As an audiophile and a purist who is always trying to get the best possible sound from music and tunes, this is a damn good stereo.

Strengths are simplicity and good sound quality. Easy to set up, easy to operate. CD's from the Clash to Tony Bennett sound good, as does FM radio. AM radio, if you are lucky enough to get clear reception, also has a strong, pleasing sound quality.

Great little remote control and super easy interface. Playback even from folders in thumb-drive is straightforward.

At full volume with the CD player or thumb-drive, I hear no significant distortion or speaker issues.

Weaknesses: Should be able to go about 20% louder. Sometimes you want to cut loose a little in the office. This barely fits the bill for that, but for casual listening while working, solidly A-ok.

The "EQualizer" is only bass and treble. A full star off for no mid-tone. BASS BOOST doesn't do much, but probably that keeps the mediocre particle-board speakers from rattling.

As others have noted, no balance control (left - right volume). Even casual listeners appreciate being able to compensate for speaker position, and a "micro-system" with speakers that can be placed quite far apart certainly should include the feature.

Sony still has a long way to go to get back to its glory days. This item, with the described shortcomings, is an example of short-sighted stinginess. Sony doesn't even offer a more advanced micro system for more money, one that a customer could upgrade to, so what was the point of leaving out something as standard as a balance control or midtone option in the EQ?

In this price range, there are few options. Sony included as little as it could, but did make a system that looks nice, sounds good, and is super-simple to set up and operate. A little more generosity with features would go a long, long way with customers.

Got this for my Mom since she had some CDs and MP3 CDs that she wanted to listen to. It is extremely easy to use and the features are endless. I also think it looks really sleek in their house. My only other option was to buy one of those boom boxes teenagers have in their bedrooms but I did not want to get her that. This looks and sounds great!

Very happy with this purchased. Sound quality is excellent. I was looking to have a stereo in my living room that I could just plug a UBD drive in and have thousands of songs available and that is a great feature. I thought the bluetooth was unnecessary but I am actually using it more than anything else. I have an old tablet with bluetooth that I have set up with tunein, mix cloud, etc. and I can play any music from the internet that I want. Basically commercial free radio. The only con I have is that you can play your usb or cd music in random order, but you have to grind through menu options to find that each time you turn on the stereo and it's hard to find the option, not very intuitive. I would highly recommend.