Customer Reviews

Yamaha CRX-330BL Micro Component Receiver CD Player Unit

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This unit is compact, though deep, so make sure you have the shelf space for it. The ipod dock and USB ports on top make it technologically up to date. However, it has no additional RCA inputs on the back, so you can't hook up any other source (e.g. a non-ipod MP3 player or your computer) to it. As long as you want to play CDs, listen to the radio or your ipod, it's fine. Remote control allows limited ipod navigation. Sound quality good, will fill a small to medium-sized room with clean sound at moderately loud but not head-banging levels. You can adjust bass and treble, and it has a subwoofer output that I didn't try. UPDATE: The USB port may allow you to plug in some non-Ipod MP3 players. I don't have one so I haven't tried this, and the instruction manual is not explicit about this.

Lovely piece of gear. Superior for a secondary system in the study, dorm, etc.. The milled aluminum front and rich feel of the volume control makes it feel more like a fine audio system component than an all-in-one cheapie.

Audio quality is excellent. You can go to full volume with very little distortion. Check the specs on the comparable Onkyo and you'll see why the extra money. FM is competent, but CDs are stronger. Ipod dock not tested. Couple this with Polk Atrium 45s as I did and you have a great patio system for $300. Or, a bookshelf system with Axiom M3s for $500 would give you better sound than any one-piece ipod dock--Axiom M2s or Polk TSi100s if your budget requires. Note that speakers must be 6 ohm or better. Some, like one of the small klipsh speakers is 4 ohm, so check first. Trust speaker-only companies to make better speakers. Leave the electronics people to make the electronics and you come out ahead. The front controls are minimal. You really run this by the supplied remote.

Drawbacks: yes it is deep. The small facia disguises its size. It has TIM in the slightly pronounced high treble that reminds you it is a transistor device, and Japanese at that, but no one outside of a live acoustic musician like me is ever going to notice. It doesn't have HD FM or the ability to read high def DVD-Audio, SACD or even just HDCD, unfortunately. But, all that would add to cost and complexity. The sub-woofer out is a nice touch if you want to upgrade. The design goal of this unit was good sound and basic features, and for that it succeeds.

In short, a micro component that won't make an audiophile cringe, when carefully combined with the right bookshelf speakers.

Simply put this micro receiver is well engineered, easy to use and sounds amazing.

The build quality is "all Yamaha" and the ergonomics, from the front panel to the provided remote control, are well thought out and cleanly organized. It's modern enough that you can play MP3 constructed (burned) CD's & memory sticks or simply pop in your iPod and hit play. Responsiveness is way above average for this type of small system and I rate it at the top of the heap, having demo'd a vast array of other "all-in-one" systems and micro separates.

I recommend not buying the complete system with speakers (for a number of reasons) but rather purchasing this stand-alone unit and buyinng speakers separately based upon your needs and size (shelf space?) constraints. The yamaha speakers that come in the complete package are rather long and ackward to work with and they just don't sound all that good compared to other well ported bookshelf speakers. Boston Acoustics bookshelf speakers are very efficient and coupled with this receiver head, produce sound fidelity that surpasses even the best Bose setups. The CS 23's and 26's from Boston are well matched for this receiver and I highly recommend that you check those out first. You won't be disappointed.

Some might ding this receiver for not having an AM tuner, but quitely frankly, I relegate that duty to my alarm clock/radio. The FM reception is above average on this unit and I am able to lock into stations other units couldn't even find. There's plenty of memory presets for our needs as well.

Functions like a sleep timer, display dimmer, non-bubble button remote control, treble and bass controls make this a stand out product in it's price point. And contrary to another review, this unit can operate a connected iPod in what's called simple mode or verbose. In simple mode you need to view the iPod display to navigate your library of music or playlists, in verbose, you can view the iPod directories (menu structure) via the front panel display - all controlled from the comfort of the included and fully capable remote control. This was smart thinking in my book.

Units I've tried prior to buying this beast:

Polks I-Sonic ES2
Various Denon micros; all overly prices and complicated (which means: over engineered) yet buggy
Denon S-42
Denon S-52
Acoustic Research iPod capable clock radio with the OLED display
iHome iP1 Studio Series
Bose Sound Dock (non-portable)
Bose Wave System II

One other important point worth noting, this unit doesn't employ any fancy (or funky) DSP technology to "try" and improve the sound, because quite frankly, paired with the right speakers this unit doesn't need it in order to get the job done. Bottom line, it achieves better than decent audio reproduction as designed.

Great product that does exactly what it claims to do; interact well with IPods, deliver sound from a compact easy to use unit. Its bare minimum approach is just what I wanted, but I would understand why someone may want some improvement: an extra 10 watts per channel would be nice for larger spaces. A brighter display for viewing menus from a distance. Coming with its own black colored universal IPod mounts to match the color of the unit. But these are minor in comparison to the things about it that are great; it occupies a unique niche in the mini-receiver market -- namely, a unit that is designed to work with speakers of your choice located where you choose, one that fully interacts with the IPod, and that is low low cost.

I love this CD player! It works exactly as described, and to me--it sounds great! It is very compact, which I love. It is simple to operate. The remote works with the CD, IPOD, and Radio. The manual was easy to understand. The only thing to know ahead of time is that in the back, where you plug in the speaker wires, the "port" is not a hole, it is a clip. So, you cannot use a speaker wire that has a banana plug on it, you have to use either a pin plug or just bare wire. Not a huge big deal, but a pain and kind of annoying. I bought some speaker wire with pin plugs on both ends, cut one end of the pins off and installed banana plugs and that end goes into my speakers, the pin plug end goes into the back of the CD player. I am sure there is some kind of adapter out there that will hook onto the end of my other speaker wires with bananas (the really nice wires I spent good money on, and that I use with my turntable and reel-to-reel player) to the pin plugs or whatever, but anyway I got around it, I just unhook the better wires and use the pin plug wires when I use this device. It takes 30 seconds if that, and I don't mind. I started to give it 4 stars for having to use pin plugs as opposed to bananas...but really, maybe the speakers would sound better with just bare wire clipped in anyway, and yamaha is trying to protect fools like me from themselves, so I decided to stay with 5 stars. I am sure some people think using bananas erodes sound quality, and I bet it does...but they sure are easy! And it sure would be nice to just use one set of wires, not two, and not have to change them out, but really it takes a tiny amount of time. And there is probably an adapter anyhow that I just got tired of looking for. So I use one set of wires for this device, because of the pin plug/or bare wire thing, and the other set for everything else I own.

The unit itself works great, sounds great, and was crazy easy to set up and figure out. I love it. The Ipod sounds AWESOME coming from my floor speakers--wooo! And of course, the CD's do, and the Radio does, too. It works perfectly.

This unit is exactly what you would expect for a bedroom, den, or office system. Sound is fine if you couple it with competent pair of speakers and if more bass is needed it has a line level bass output which is nice. Audio quality is what you would expect from a Yamaha product, which presents a detailed, tonally balanced sound with a little bit of a sound stage. The unit worked fine with both my old Gen 5 + Video and 2nd gen Touch iPods. The remote is OK but misses the mark without direct numeric access buttons or a set of page jump keys to help navigating long lists on iPod or USB stored music. The CD player does a very nice job and will challenge you to have a good set of speakers to take advantage of the high fidelity this unit delivers.

Real weakness are a somewhat clunky menu system to make adjustments (treble, bass, balance and such), no AM radio and the USB decoding only recognizes MP3 and WMA file formats which is plain weird because Yamaha fussed to make this unit very iPod compatible. Duh, who on the design team didn't realize that if you are a iPod owner most of your files will be coded in MP4. So be prepared to have file format conversion software if you want to make use of a USB flash drive and are using the MP4 (iPod) format to store your music.

Buy it on sale and you have a nice unit that will always have a place in your audio devise playback portfolio.

I bought this to use in my bedroom. I like to listen to Podcasts and CD's and my old "Boom Box" had gotten a bit long in the tooth. I purchased a pair of Boston Acoustic CS26 speakers to go with this and they sound GREAT ($66.00 apiece NOT through Amazon, shop around). The amp does what it is advertised to do but my 4 star review is due to the very poor menu driven controls. They are pretty tedious. A couple of extra knobs would have been nice to control balance and tone.

None the less, the system sounds great and it fulfills my needs.

Edit 1/29/10. I have added a Mirage 8 inch woofer to this system and WOW, it really completes it. I really recommend putting your mini stereo together from different components that you research. I am VERY pleased with the system I have now

No AM. what? I knew that when I bought it. I just miss AM stations..Also, the usb will not work with your Apple IPHONE. I have a case on mine so I wanted it to work on the i phone.. The usb works well with thumb drives though. I wired up in series 8, 8ohm, 200 watt speakers...perfect..so far...

It's neat & tidy for the minimalist. The CD player works well, as does the iPod dock. But the low wattage doesn't drive Boston Acoustics speakers CS26 well. They can take 10-150 watts. So this is on the low end of power, with 25 watts. Also no AM radio.

I was looking for a micro-CD player/receiver to use with some existing vintage speakers. The Yamaha works well and sounds fine for the price. The remote is typically smallish, but functional. It has USB and iPOD docking ports, but I wish it had analog inputs as well. If you need something for the office or bedroom, this should do the job.