Review: Philips MCM760 Micro Hi-Fi System
Manufacturer: Philips
Model: MCM760/05 Micro Hi-Fi System
Price: £135-£180 (Purchased for £140 from HomeCinemaTV)
Rating:
Demo
Purchase Motivations?
Here’s my predicament. I don’t have enough space in my bedroom for a PC (and I can’t do with the temptation!) so what do I do for music en mi dormitorio? Ok lets look at what I do have:
1. PDA (HP iPaq rx3715 wireless enabled, 2GB SD)
2. iPod (4th Gen 40GB)
3. W810i Walkman phone (built in radio, 2x512MB Memory Stick Duo)
So I’d be listening to music mainly on my HP Bluetooth headphones with my iPaq, or with earphones on my iPod, or even with my headset on my phone (2x512MB).
What’s missing? Yep, speakers. I always recommend that one does enough research before investing in anything, and everything you buy is an investment in the short and the long term. So what do I need to be able to do? What are my requirements?
“Connect all of my devices through a central system in order to output the sound at a higher quality and volume using speakers. Need a good wattage with facilities for heavy bass and treble.”
Where to look?
A few years ago, it would’ve been a trip down to the nearest shopping centre or town centre. Now its a trip down to the PC. I usually look at a wide variety of sources before making any decisions. Start with functionality, expandability and likely long term usage (i.e. won’t have to be replaced in a year). Then look at aesthetics, sizes and ergonomics. Usually you don’t get much choice once you’ve gotten the exact specification you’re after.
I start with mainstream places like Amazon, eBay, Froogle and other sites which will give you a basic idea of what you’re looking for and the price range you’ll need to be targeting. When you see something you like, make sure you look for the criteria you have specified.
My criteria were around – Relatively heavy bass, less then £200, Auxillary input. It’s a good idea not to make them too specific, you don’t want to limit yourself too quickly.
Why Auxillary (AUX) Input? This was my solution to inputting all the different devices. Things like this are very important when purchasing a Hi-Fi.
Found a product you like?
Once I find my product I’ll check out the detailed specifications on the products website. In this case, I checked the brochure of the Hi-Fi on the Philips website. Try not to become too attached to the product, this happens a lot.
Analyse critically, if your satisfied, its time to price hunt. Kelkoo is a useful resource for this, although in this case there wasn’t really much selection. Once your certain you’ve got the best deal (and that the company looks reliable etc), make your purchase and be satisfied – if you did you’re research you have nothing to worry about.
So, the product!
As you can see, I’ve given it a very high rating. Why? Because it satisfied all of my criteria, wasn’t too expensive and it has more then I was after.
Features
Auxillary – Of course I checked for this before I bought it, so I was sure I’d be able to connect my essential devices. I bought 2x3M AUX wires from a website for a couple of quid thanks to the online manual.
USB connectivity – One of the first Hi-Fis to have a built in USB port which enables you to play music off a memory stick. This enables me to a) connect my iPod directly using the cable b) connect my memory stick from my PDA using my card reader. Furthermore, you have the ability to record from your CD to your USB drive! How cool is that?
Standard Spec:
- Single CD
- USB Hosting With CD Ripping
- 75 Watts RMS Per Channel
- Single Auto Reverse Cassette Deck
- FM / AM Tuner With Digital Presets
- CDR/RW, MP3 & WMA CD Playback
- 2 Way Loudspeakers With Neodymium Ribbon Tweeter
- Clock / Timer
How do I use it?
Wireless streaming. Excellente. I always say that my best technological purchase was my PDA – why? I bought it in 2004 and to this day I’ve used it probably every single day since I bought it! See that is a worthy investment. So how does it work? Time to do some poor Photoshop work:
So I have lots of music and audio etc on my PC downstairs. To get it to my Hi-Fi I don’t need a cop out ‘wireless media player’, or a ‘streaming station’, nope all I need is an my trusty PDA and an AUX cable and I can potentially listen to 500GB worth of music (if both my hard drives were full of music!).
As you can see in the second picture above, I can also plug in my iPod directly to the Hi-Fi. The only problem there is it can only handle 999 tracks (strange limitation…). I really like the way that when you do plug something in via USB it shows all the tracks names as it would do with an MP3 CD.
Pro’s
- USB handling
- AUX input
- Tape Deck (still useful!)
- Excellent sound quality, bass and treble
- Very attractive, especially the blue lighting
Cons
- Perhaps a little on the large size (like a mini PC)
- 999 songs limitation from USB
Evaluation & Conclusion
So, overall I’m very happy with my purchase. It does exactly what I needed and a little more on top of that. It seems that the future really is in the computing world, with Hi-Fis having USB and what next? Built in WiFi, hard drives and much more. So the futures bright (and full of radiation).
I’ll leave you with a neat picture of one of my speakers 
18 Responses to “ Review: Philips MCM760 Micro Hi-Fi System ”
Leave a Reply
u coulda just sed ‘it’s really good’
wheres the fun in that?!
Wow you really check the stuff out before you buy! I look at price range,brands that i’ve had before and have served their purpose well and then what it looks like. If it falls in tp place i buy…to do it your way you would have to know what all the specs actually mean!
dope review
Ok, your gonna hate me for sayin this now…but I’m sure I bought one of them for £60 (weddin pressie for a mate)!
Specs are similar enough anyway, USB input, 75w, MP3 playback etc. There’s a bruvah at Bowlers who does stuff super cheap, examples I’ve bought from him, Phillips DVD £20 (£65 in Asda), that system £60, portable Phillips CD/Mp3 £10, DVD/VCR Combi £50 (with free 1gb MP3 player which I ebayed a few months later for £35, so effectively £15!!).
Anyway, the people I gave it to love it, so yeah it’s all good:cool:
You and your deals! I doubt it was the same, this hasn’t been out for very long in fact when I was buying it half the places didn’t even have it in stock yet.
Maybe a comment about the flimsy speaker grills?
You know…do a Google search for this model and UNN comes up as the eighth result. Slowly we conquer the world
nice site
I really like this hi-fi system. Saw it at a local target store here in the us, but i was not able to get it to work with my ipod (30gb). I used the usb cable that came with ipod to connect to it. It just said “Do not disconnect” or something like that forever, unable to read the device it appeared. Can this system work with ipod (for both playing and recharging)? There are other Philips systems that come with a docking cradle made for ipod but they don’t have the tape and the wattage I want. Maybe this one is not intended to work with ipod – the doc doesn’t have any mention of it. Thanks.
Hi
It does indeed work with the iPod, I have a 4th Generation 40GB iPod and it works pretty well. Someone hasn’t read my article!!!
So yeah, other than the 999 track limitation, it works. It also charges the iPod, but only when you’ve selected USB.
Thanks for the reply. I wonder if it’s because my ipod is 5th generation (the one with video) – sorry i only jumped on the ipod bandwagon recently and not quite aware of the diff generations. I can live with the 999 track limitation, but at the moment, it can’t even recognize my ipod. Pardon my ignorance, but do the music files on the ipod needs to be MP3 format for this to work (I don’t know what format the files on my ipod is – just ripped them from CD with itunes) May be that’s why it didn’t work?
I’m pretty sure that it will work with the 5th Generation iPods. How many times have you actually tried it? Sometimes it doesn’t work the first time you connect it, if this is the case just switch to a different format on the HiFi and then switch back to USB.
I verified that it *does* work with the 5th generation ipod. The issue I had was with the file format – itunes by default uses .m4a format which is not supported by this system. If I rip to .mp3 then the system recognizes it. The FAQ for this system says which file formats are supported: http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/faqlist?ctn=MCM760/37&dct=FAQ&slg=AEN&scy=US#
Thanks Usayd for your help and the review.
Does this allow you to record cassette tapes to your memory stick? Or does it just rip CDs.
No – Unfortunately it does not. I was actually quite excited at the prospect of tape->memory stick but the option simply exists for ripping CDs.
Can anyone help. I have this system but have a problem when i try to play a Samsung T10 Mp3 player thru it, it simply dispays USB device not supported! All trax on player are Mp3 and do not exceed 99. I have plugged the Samsung into my laptop and it plays the trax so HELP…….:cry:
It looks like your device isn’t supported. Have you tried formatting the device and starting over? It should work if the device is just drag and drop.