Customer Reviews

Sony CMT-A70 CD Player AM/FM Cassette Microsystem

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

 

 

This stereo system presented a few surprises when I opened the box. The surprises are due in some measure to the misinformation on Sony's and Amazon's web sites. (I hope that this has been corrected by the time you see this review.)

Pleasant surprises: YES, there is a remote in the box. YES, there is a stereo ANALOG audio input.

Unpleasant surprises: (1) When I received this unit, it was NOT encased in a shipping carton, just the standard factory box. As a likely result of this, the grille fell off the right speaker when I lifted it out of the box. The plastic prongs that hold the grille to the speaker were broken. Sony customer service was not helpful at all here. It seems that Sony can't supply these parts to the buyer. I wonder why they could not supply an adequate shipping carton in the first place.
(2) The reason that the main unit (CD/cassette/tuner) is so small and light is that the amplifier is in one of the speakers! That's why that speaker is soooo heavy! This is a bit unorthodox. Not your traditional plug-and-play. It's also why you can't upgrade speakers or add a sub-woofer. If you have to take this unit in for service, you have to take in the whole magillah -- not just the component that went bad.
(3) The instructions for wiring up the system in the manual did not match the wires supplied with the unit. The manual refers to red and white wires but the wires are gray and gray/black stripe. If you encounter this, be sure that you connect the striped wire to the black terminal and solid gray wire to the red terminal. If you have done any car stereo installation then you will recognize this.
(4) The mechanics of the CD player and the cassette deck want to be heard! Both are noisy: you can hear the sound of the drive motor as it is moving the medium (tape or CD)and the other mechanics (opening, closing, pausing, changing direction, etc.) let you know what pain they must be going through as they pop, creak and grind through their movements.
3 stars for the surprises, the misinformation (or lack of information in the case of this system's design)and the notch-above-mediocre sound (10% harmonic distortion).

This is a really great stereo for it's size - a very small box (smaller than the speakers) with small speakers which sound almost as good as their larger predecessors! Living in the hills and having to endure poor radio reception, the radio reception on this unit is extremely good. This is a great replacement for our previous Sony portable microstereo, and it too has a CD player (wish it had a multiple CD changer), a cassette player/recorder, an alarm clock to wake to music (which one can set to shut off after a specific time interval), and a variable sleep button (to shut off the stereo after 10, 20, 30, 60, 90, or 120 mins.). Very limited component connections: a single Line In jack for connecting a VCR or TV with a stereo mini-plug cable to output the sound through the stereo, and a single Optical Digital Out (CD) square-shaped jack for connecting a MiniDisc or DAT recorder with a POC-15AB or POC-15A cable. Haven't tried connecting the pc audio to it yet. The speakers are hardwired and there's no place to plug in a subwoofer.

We purchased these speakers from a local retailer. Like the first customer reviewer, we found when we got the unit home that one of the speaker covers had not only fallen off of its speaker, but the little posts holding it in had broken due to poor packaging; the posts had to be retrieved from the speaker with a pair of needlenose pliers. We called Sony customer service, and they were EXCEPTIONALLY unhelpful, insisting that the problem should be taken care of by the retailer. (Sony has just lost a customer after this purchase, and one star was taken off due to the customer service issue.)

The sound out of the speakers is entirely acceptable, and a big improvement over the small boom box we had used previously. Sound was improved by use of the mid-booster equalizer preset.

A small-footprint CD/cassette player is nice, but rather passe in this day and age, particularly for $200+. This model would've been so much better (given the same form factor) with a DVD player instead a CD player. (I know there are other DVD micro systems, but none nearly as micro as this one.)

And who listens to cassettes anymore? Certainly not me. Dump the tape player and save me some money. Use the space for something useful, such as the aforementioned DVD video subsystem or some nice durr-brown DACs to improve sound.

In short, give me something worth replacing my old radio. Are you listening Sony?