Philips FWM55 Compact Stereo System

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [2.47mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 40 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B00004U54Q
• Item model number: FWM55
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,132 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From Digital Living Today

Philips is known for innovation. So it should come as no surprise that the Philips FWM-55 Shelf System does a superb job of combining long-awaited features into a budget priced mini-system. In addition to the standard FM/AM tuner, the double cassette deck, the CD changer, and the powerful amp, the FWM-55 has the capacity to play MP3-CDs in any one of its three CD-bays. Although this may seem irrelevant to many buyers, that ever-growing group of listeners who download MP3s from the Internet and burn them onto CD-Rs will immediately recognize the usefulness of this feature. Finally, they can play those discs away from their computers! Not to mention that three 700MB MP3 CD-Rs can provide you with tens of hours of non-stop music loaded and ready to go. The FWM-55 also boasts a simulated surround sound system that can reproduce music in a wide range of listening modes, making it a serious mini-system indeed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MP3-CDS AND VERY GOOD SOUND FOR A GOOD PRICE, November 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Philips FWM55 Compact Stereo System (Electronics)

Here is a semi-thorough review of Philips FWM55 Mini Hi-Fi System w/ 3 CD Changer + Mp3-CD support.

I was able to buy the unit for $250 dollars, and I ran it through various tests. I am a musician, and semi-audiophile, so I was demanding in my tests.

MAIN FEATURES: -------------- -MP3-CD Support ;-) -3 CD Changer (30 Hours of continuous mp3 music) -Incredible Surround -Dynamic Bass Boost (3 modes) -Digital Sound Control EQ (Rock, techno, etc.) -Digital Radio Tuner -Dual Cassette Deck

SOUND QUALITY: -------------- Overall, the sound quality is quite good for a mini hi-fi system.

The bass sound is excellent, especially considering it lacks a sub-woofer, though there is an output jack for one. There are 3 bass modes (Beat, Punch, Blast) in order of increasing magnitude, and they are nice. The Mid and High frequencies are also well represented.

Volume: ------- The unit does not distort at loud volumes, for example I was able to enjoy some Heavy Metal at volume setting 24 (In Flames, "Bullet Ride"). I was afraid to push it too much though, and probably it will distort if you push it enough.

Radio: ------ The FM antenna works well, and I was really impressed with how good the FM radio sounded. The AM radio was ok, but who really listens to AM radio?

Cassette Tape: -------------- I didn't test this, but after MP3 who listens to tape anymore? :-)

OFFICIAL (MANUAL) SPECIFICATIONS -------------------------------- Frequency Response: 40 - 20000 Hertz Signal-to-noise ratio: > 75 dBA (IEC) Output Power: 2 x 45 Watts FTC* *(The box reads: 100 watts power) MP3-CD Bitrate: 128 - 320 kbps* *(In my tests some lower bitrates worked, for example 96 kbps 32 Khz mp3s, but 20 kbps 22 Khz mp3s did not. 320 kbps worked, and 256 kbps 48 Khz worked too).

Positives: ---------- 1. 700 MB CD-R support (tested and verified) Burned at 8x speed Sony CRX140E cd-writer 2. VBR support w/correct time display (tested and verified) (Use Lame encoder 3.87mmx -V1 -mj -h -b128 -q1 3. Album names/Track names display* (tested and verified) *(Not read from ID3 tag, but instead album is read from the directory name on cd-r, and title is read from the filename, for example: 01 - jump.mp3

The player reads directories/files alphabetically-- NOT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE BURNED ON THE DISC

Recommended cd-r burning structure:

01 Album one \_01 track one \_02 track two 02 Album two \_01 track one \_02 track two

Negatives: ---------- No Shuffle feature No CD-RW support No Dolby Digital 5.1 *Occasionally skips (not often) *I think the brand of cd-r you use is somewhat important. Comp USA cd-rs at 8x speed seem to work fine so far. But PNY (700 Mb) have skipped at times. Then again it may be the recording speed (8x 10x, etc.) that is critical. I don't know yet.

Here is what the manual says about skipping: "Downloading MP3 files from the Internet or ripping songs from your own CD's is a delicate process that may sometimes cause the music to "skip" subsequent recording onto a cd-r is not entirely perfect either. Make sure to use a recording speed no faster than indicated on the cd-r disc and avoid running other programs simultaneously on your PC during the recording process. As a result of the above imperfections, you may experience an occasional "skip" wile listening to your mp3-cd's. This is considered to be normal"

CONCLUSION: ----------- Overall I have no problem recommending this unit. The sound is very good for the price and the features are right on! To see the track names displayed while you listen is awesome. It is perfect to listen in your room or at a party. Finally, I am really enjoying listening to mp3s . . . and don't need a computer to do so!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Philips FWM55 Shelf System, May 31, 2001

By 

CJ Smith (Pueblo, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips FWM55 Compact Stereo System (Electronics)

With the versatility of this machine I have been extremely impressed thus far with its performance. It's hard to find a reliable shelf system that is MP3 compatible out there; having searched 10 different stores, I finally found this at Circuit City for (dollar amount). Packed with features, it delivers outstanding sound quality with plenty of volume if your goal isn't to shatter the windows in your front room. Simulated surround sound with multiple levels of simulation, dynamic bass boost also with numerous options gives you all the versatility in configuring sound to your liking.

However, there are a couple of drawbacks. Slow time in reading MP3 CDs mean between 20 and 40 seconds from the time you load the CD until you can listen to it. It doesn't support CD-RW discs, and incredibly, there's no shuffle function meaning you have to listen to your discs in the alphabetical order they were recorded in. Programming up to 99 tracks is possible and relatively easy, but time consuming when a shuffle button could make things so much easier. It also occasionally "misses" a track, skipping over a file you know to be there. Reversing backwards in track numbers and allowing it to re-scan forwards again often remedies this problem.

Overall, I have to say the machine beats anything else out there in terms of shelf systems, though that's not saying much since there are few shelf systems that are MP3 compatible on the market to date. But even if there were more competitors, I'd still reccommend this as a worthwhile and inexpensive method of playing CD and MP3 CD discs. If MP3 compatibility is your goal in a shelf system, you could do FAR WORSE than with this one.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Philips for another Home Run, February 28, 2002

By 

Julio Ramirez (Lakewood, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips FWM55 Compact Stereo System (Electronics)

First, let me say I am an audiophile who is very picky about his sound quality, I am also a musician and an engineer, so I did not just fall off the turnip truck when rating this unit.

I was looking for a unit for my boat/motorhome, that was lightweight and would give me lots of hours of CD playback with reasonable sound quality. I opened the box, plugged it in and was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality emanating from this small system. I added a subwoofer and the listening experience improved dramatically. I experienced flawless playback with no skips. Using a subwoofer, this unit sounded better than units costing 4 times the price. I use Taiyo Yuden CD blanks, on a Plextor SCSI CD burner with Burnproof and Roxio Toast 5 Platinum on a Mac G3. The CD burner and software you use definitely makes a difference in the sound quality of your burned CD's. My friend brought over his CD which he burned using el cheapo swap meet CD blanks, on a PC with an IDE HP Burner and his CD skipped some and generally did not sound as clean as mine. It irks me when someone using shoddy source materials rates this unit with a 1 star rating when the unit itself had nothing to do with the sound quality/skipping. (I guess we are still in a learning curve with burning mp.3's) There are definite do's and don'ts when it comes to burning MP.3's and unfortunately most people are not aware of this yet. All I can say is buy TOP quality media, use a good burnproof CD Burner, (Plextor is by far the BEST) and use good software; Adaptec, now Roxio and Nero are both excellent. Don't use the computer for anything else while burning CD's. I have found that Surfing the net, and doing other things while burning CD's will introduce skips and clicks that were not on the original MP3. This is especially bad if you do not have adequate amounts of RAM on your system. I hope this helps.