Customer Reviews

Boston Acoustics Microsystem AM FM CD White

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As I see it there are three choices in good CD table radios: Bose, Cambridge Soundworks and Boston Acoustics. If there's another one out there, no one is writing about it.

Based on extensive reading of what consumers and audio reviewers are saying, and hearing the Boston Acoustics in the store, we bought the Boston Acoustics yesterday. Not disappointed.

If you want good sound and a low price, you can probably get a mini shelf system for $400, or get better components for $500. If you want good sound that you can carry from room to room, with no connections to make, these table radios are the right thing.

Everyone talks about the sound quality, with reason. The BA sounds good! It is clear, natural, full, and has adequate bass. What stands out though is the tuner. I'm not a radio lover, because of the lack of good stations, but if the tuner is your thing, I'd recommend buying this above any tuner I've had in car, boombox or components. Across the dial it pulls in dozens of stations strong.

So far what I miss is a volume knob. Like so many new products, on the BA you press the volume control lots of times to advance or decrease volume. Otherwise it's well designed. We took it out of the box and plugged it in, without reading the instructions, just like a $20 clock radio. My wife loves the fact that there's nothing new to learn.

We have various CDs and CDRs that will play in one device and not the next. So far they all play in the BA table radio.

Thirty years ago when you bought a stereo it generally lasted until you wanted something better. I had my second system for 27 years. With CD players I don't know if you can find that kind of longevity. Reliability is a big deal now, when comparing brands. What leaned us hard toward Boston Acoustics was that we've heard of a lot of people who had problems with their Cambridge Soundworks' radios, and a repair guy told me he saw more Bose than anything else. Ask me in 20 years, but we're hoping that Boston Acoustics is the most reliable of the trio.

To us $499 is a big deal. (Good luck finding a lower price, unless you buy one on eBay, which could void the warranty.) This is our main sound system now. (And it has jacks in the back so you can play a cassette deck or other equipment through it.) We carefully asked Tweeters if they had a thirty day satisfaction policy. They do. But this unit is not going back. It's also available in more stores than Bose or Cambridge Soundworks, so check it out.

My wife and I are in our 40s, and we bought this to replace our 1980s big component stereo system. Overall, we are very satisfied with this. We have it in our family room and it nicely fills the room with sound. Note that you can not get that wall shaking volume that you could with a big set of speakers, but you get great sound at the levels that you probably listen to most often. There are several nice features too. We plug our MP3 player into the line in connection which is on the front. The reception is great. If you want some more punch to the sound, you can add a subwoofer, but I doubt that you'll want to do so. It also has a nice remote that is stored in the front panel. It is set up with an alarm, snooze control, etc to work as a clock radio, but I would consider it a waste to use it as such since the sound is so good. Before buying this, we also listened to the Bose Wave which costs the same. We thought that the sound from each unit was very similar and chose this because we liked the features better.

In summary, it's a lot of money, but it was worthwhile to downsize from our old stereo system.

This was to be a christmas present to my wife. She had been bugging me for years to get a new clock radio. $500 is an awful lot for a clock radio. I looked at the Bose, Cambridge and the Boston Acoustics. I actually purchased the Cambridge system and brought it back after reading about problems with it. It came down to Bose or Boston. I went with the Boston system. We now take you to christmas morning. My wife unraps the gift, opens the box and immediatly plugs it in. She turns on the radio and we are both floored. The sound eminating from this unit is unbelievable. Deep, full and clear. The smile on my wifes face made this purchase worth it. However, in a matter of seconds that smile changed to a frown. She wants to play one of her new cd's. She loads it in the player and low and behold it spits it back out. Problems with the cd player. The next day I brought it back to Tweeter. They gave me another one. I felt I had better try it there to see if it worked ok. Guess what, that cd player also did not work on that unit. Is it my imagination or do you suppose we have a quality control problem? The manager insisted they bring yet another one out of stock and try it. Third time is the charm. It all worked this time and the cd sounded awsome. At least for the moment, we are both very happy. I guess only time will tell. I give this 5 stars for the sound, and 3 stars for quality control. I'd say that equals out to about 4 stars overall.

I own a BA Recepter radio, love it for clean sound and superior tuner sensitivity (pulls in FM from 50 miles away), wanted to play CDs from a table unit, so went to BA CD Microsystem despite Reviews that warned of CD unreliability. First unit from J&R would not play CDs, ejected them with Error E-4. Called BA, who confirmed unit as defective. J&R replaced quickly at no cost. Second unit took in CD, gave out Error E-4 and would not eject the CD. No more for me; I just bought a Tivoli/Kloss instead...

The unit's radio sounded fabulous, but Boston Acoustics clearly has a quality control problem. Imagine my disappointment on Christmas morning when after shelling out $500 for a system for my girlfriend, it wouldn't play CD's. They would look like they were playing but no sound came out of the unit.

When you buy the best and pay top dollar, you expect to receive something that works out of the box.

I got a used unit at Amazon. At first it spit out cd's and displayed e-4 [disc jam]. Then I loaded a cd and smacked it on the top left side. It worked then and is working now. I've had a Bose for about 10 years and it still has an amazing sound for a small unit, this Boston Acoustics sounds better. EZ to hookup and use.

Boston Acoustics equals Boise electronics for sound quality and is easy to use. In fact it is much easier to use than Boise because of the simplicity of the buttons that are on top of the radio. The remote can be stowed away in the door making it less likley to lose and less clutter. The automatic dimmer is very cool as well.

This product's sound system for CDs produces much better sound than its Bose counterpart. However, I did not purchase it for that purpose but rather for what I thought was its "HD Radio" feature. Unfortunately, it does not have an HD radio, and the model I received did not even contain a long FM antenna - therefore no FM radio is available to play. I will never buy this type of product again via the internet.

enough said. keep looking and save the trouble of returning this piece of wood. you'll get more entertainment out of flushing your money down the drain.