Customer Reviews

Sony CMT-CPX22 Compact Stereo Micro Audio System

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

 

 

I recently auditioned this shelf system at a local electronics store. Of all the systems they had that would playback MP3 discs, this had by far the best sound quality, and also was the least goofy looking. The others were made up of large, curved pieces of plastic that looked really cheesy, especially combined with the flashy lights and redundant silkscreened text ("AM/FM 5-disc super stereo system blah blah") on the front panel. Perhaps the marketing whizbangs at the large electronics corporations fell their target market likes this sort of crap but for people like me who value substance and quality over "style", this really limits my choices to usually one or 2 aesthetically pleasing systems in any store i go to.

Now on to the unit itself. In this price range i was dissapointed to see a crappy multi-disc transport mechanism and lack of proper speaker jacks. At (...) street price, I'd rather have a one-disc player with a quality transport. This thing should come with standard jacks so users can use better speaker cable. Instead they use the crap spaghetti wire and proprietary speaker connections on the back of the amp. The wire connector on the speakers is a standard spring clip style. The speakers sound ok with this system, but are nothing special. They have a really cheap feel to them, and employ a particularly thin lamininate to give them a high quality finish look when examining from a few feet away. The cabinet joints don't line up properly and after minor use expect the finish to scratch and mar revealing the MDF underneath. nothing against MDF - its an acoustically dead material great for hi-fi speaker cabinets where you don't want the speaker cabinet to color the sound.

My Mp3 disc that i inserted to test played well. It takes longer than expected for the system to read the disc and generate what i assume was a table of contents. Playback however is pretty fast, usually less than 5 seconds from when you press play. Even so, this thing pales in comparison to my truck MP3 player (alpine) which is amazingly fast when playing tracks. Remote control is better than average, and controls almost every function. Why do they even make shelf stereos that play tapes? jeepers, this system would be so much nicer if they offered a version without a tape deck. One nice 'feature' was the tone controls. I was amazed by how many shelf systems no longer have these. They offer variable eq modes (jazz, rock, pop, country, vocal, etc) but dont have a way to tweak it to personal taste. They tend to all sound too 'boomy' to over-emphasis the amount of bass the speakers put out. without a way of adjusting the tone, its hard to get a pleasing sound that doesnt cause listening fatigue after a few minutes of use. Fortunately, this unit has a bass and a treble control but they don't have a large enough sweep and the incremental adjustments from -8 to +8 on each do not offer fine enough resolution for people looking to dial in a perfect sound.

Another thing - the salesperson didn't want to haggle at all on this price. He said "its brand new, just came out" as if thats justification to ream customers wanting a decent system without paying full MSRP. WTF? What a turd. I would have purchased this on the spot had he given me a fair price around (...). This system would be a value if it were priced more reasonable around (...). At (...) it is a flat-out ripoff unless you're one of those type of people that have no clue about the true costs of electronics. For (...) i could build a small shuttle PC and at least play solitaire or minesweeper, surf the internet while simultaneously playing mp3s.

bottom line - this is a good system for non-audiophiles who have no firm understanding of the quality / price ratio. If this was priced (...) lower (remove the tape player!) SONY would have a real winner on their hands. 3 out of 5 stars given because at this price point you should expect higher quality connections and construction. The user interface is not bad and the system has a decent amount of power output without typical distortion present at higher volumes in crappier systems. Speakers are more tonally balanced, tighter bass response, and don't sound overly boomy; more suitable for use as a balanced stereo system as opposed to a bowel-quaking, ghetto-blasting noise box.

When I saw the CMT-CPX22 at the store between all the other "MicroSystems"; I noticed it not only looked the best of the bunch, but at 200 watts it had the best sound quality and loudness. After giving up $299 and driving it home, I was still impressed with how it looked and sounded in my bedroom.

Now a year later of daily use, and I find that the CMT is the most unsatisfying, non-user friendly system I have ever owned.

BIG GRIPES:
1. The Remote: It is severely limited in what you can do from it. You can't open the CD tray, You can't manipulate the sound-it only turns up and down the volume, The buttons are way too small, unevenly spaced, inconsistently sized and crowded making it very difficult to use without looking at it.
The are tons of extra useless buttons that serve no function whatsoever. Also you can ONLY do some functions with the remote-such as sleep mode, alarm and clock set. Not good at all.

2. The CD playback: It is incredibly slow and noisy when switching between CDs or from Tuner/Tape or AUX mode to CD mode. You can't fast forward or reverse MP3 tracks, and it only plays 1 type of MP3 format...so no WMA files played here. MP3 playback was also very slow to read the CD initially and sometimes entire tracks would not play at all for no apparant reasons. It also DOES NOT list TRACK NAMES (big annoyance). However, some store bought CDs newer than 2004(i think) displays album and track names on the CMT's screen. This is odd because this feature is not even listed in the manuals. It is also an inconsistent feature that slows playback as well-so its not even a good thing.

3. The Tuner: AM is virtually non-existent...even with the AM antenna plugged in. The station presets are plenty (20 in all) but impossible to use because the remote control has no number keypad to jump right to that station. It only scans the range that you preset...so to go from preset 2 to preset 19, you have to scan thru all 17 preset stations in between which is the same as if you didn't preset anything in the first place. Like most other features on the CMT such as the display dimmer (for an already dim and small display screen) the preset feature is utterly useless.

Apart from these gripes: I did find the sound richness and quality to be good, somewhat loud, with a nice bass. Overall build quality is good. I did however had problems with the CMT powering off 2 seconds after it was turned on and SONY's warranty cover repairs...however..SONY shipped me a new refurbished unit (minus my CDs that got stuck inside the original unit)and SONY didn't fail to leave huge silver "REFURBISHED" stickers all over the top, sides and rear of the replacement unit.
Anyway, I'm selling mine on EBay this week and shopping for a Sony MHC-GX9900 unit.
Even for all its looks and sound quality I cannot recommend this unit for the price that it is listed for.

I have owned this stereo system for exactly 2yrs now. I bought this for 350 direct from a Sony shop simply because I did not have time to shop around and it was my wifes birthday. Exactly 1 yr and 2 days after its purchse the stereo died. Its CD changer started making a horrible clunking sound and within 7 days it was dead. Next to die was its power supply - atleast it doesnt make that clunking sound anymore.

I gave it in for repairs and was quoted a cost of 195 (US dollars) for the repairs. Go figure.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the sound quality of this equipment and its 5 CD changer was the smoothest of the systems I had compared with in Best Buy and Circuit City. It was a perfect fit for our bedroom. But its hard to make a case for it when you know its going to fail spectacularly within a year of purchase.

The only thing I want to know now is how to get my CDs out of the CD changer. They are the only items of value in the system now.

Parting thoughts: stay away and get something more reliable. No more Sony for me atleast.

I liked this player fine -- until about the third hour of use when it completely died. Finito. Morte. DOA. Belly Up. The repair people said it was irreparable. Never again.

I bought this Sony radio for use in my garage. It worked about 9 months and the CD changer locked up and would trip it's internal breaker. I sent it back to Sony (at my expense) and they "fixed" it.

It stayed "fixed" for about 6 months and then broke again exactly the same way as the first time.

I sent Sony a letter (snail mail) describing my problem. Sony did not even reply.

I was a very loyal Sony consumer. Practically every electronic device in my home is Sony (TV's, VCR's, Saletlite Dish, Cameras......you name it). I got such lousy service from Sony with this product, that I doubt I will ever buy another thing from Sony.

Pass it up, it's junk.

After one year of owning this product, the stereo suddenly had a power malfucntion and refuses to turn on for more the 2 seconds. Now I can't even get the CDs that were in the system when the power shut off out of the player. Customer service was absolutely no help and refused to give me a service location unless I gave them my credit card. Stay away from this piece of junk system.

I think this is a wonderful system, but the CFD-Z125 Is a bit better.

I bought this system because it looked nice compared to spaceship looking other systems in the store that I did not want. And thinking it was from SONY it must be good quality. But just like I see other reviewers say, my system stopped working after 2 years. The power just goes down and the front light flashes, which according to the manual means you have to send it in for repairs.

Never buy any SONY shelf systems. This was the 3rd one that failed in less than 3 years of use

I've had this thing for 4.5 years. After the first few months it died, trapping all the CD's, which Sony "lost". It made the clunking sound and would power off by itself. Sent it to SONY who "repaired" it and sent it back. When it came back it had another problem (which I can't remember now.) So I sent it back and repeated the process. 4 years later, the clunking sound/power down problem started again. Of course, no more warranty.

Our last Sony system lasted at least 10 years; we gave it away when we got this one.

If you're looking to buy a used one of these, don't.

Liked the styling. It did everything that I expected. Sound is good for a shelf system.