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~~ Purchase ~~ I bought my SP122 at Argos over two years ago along with a compatible and matching Acoustic Solutions SP101 Amplifier, Acoustic Solution SP111 DAB/FM Tuner and a pair of Acoustic Solution AVCS Column Stereo Speakers. I took advantage of a deal that was on offer at the time whereby if you bought the amp, tuner and CD player you would receive the speakers for free.
~~ Set up and Appearance ~~ This is an easy to use and uncomplicated CD unit. It's easy and straight forward to set up and attach to other units. I must admit though, it looked much better in the Argos catalogue than it does now that I have it set up in the living room. It's kind of plain in appearance, there are no fancy glowing lights. There is just one LCD panel that has a back light. The dimensions of the unit are 8cm(H), 43cm(W), 28.5cm(D) excluding the feet. The colour was described in the catalogue as silver/grey, I would say more grey than silver. The unit does appear a bit boring.
~~ Sound
~~ I felt that the sound was adequate for the price I paid but I suppose this depends on the amp and speakers you're going to use with the player. I was spoilt recently when I was living at a friends house. He had his hi-fi linked up to a £2000 Bose speaker system and the sound quality was outstanding, so my separate hi-fi units costing less than £100 each were bound to produce a sound that would seem mediocre at best. So if you've never had a quality sound system then you might not notice anything negative here.
~~ Functions ~~ It is not a multi player - you can only play one CD at a time which I prefer because multi CD players in my experience tend to break down. With this CD unit there is CD-RW/MP3 playback. You can play MP3s that have been recorded on CD but this facility is becoming old fashioned with the growing popularity of recording onto hard drives. There are search, memory, pause, skip, random functions that can be accessed via a remote control that requires 2 x AA batteries (supplied). There are also RCA outputs for connection to an amplifier/speakers.
~~ Faults ~~ After having the SP122 for less that 6 months and although in that time it was hardly ever used, it began to go faulty. Upon inserting a CD and pressing the play button there was what can be describes as white noise interference over the sound of the tracks being played. By pressing the skip button and going to another track this interference was eliminated on occasion only to be present again on a later track. There was also skipping within a track. I tested another CD to make sure that it was the player and not a faulty CD but the same problem occurred. This fault however only occurred during two or three playing sessions on separate days. For the last six months or so the problem seems to have gone away. A more chronic problem though has been the smell. When you switch this unit on and start playing cds, it isn't long before you get an odourl that I can only describe as burning plastic. It's similar to the the kind of smell that you often get when using new electronic goods for the first time. This usually disappears after regular use. With my cd player however, the smell is still there and I would even say that it is so noxious that it sticks to the back of my throat and causes me to have a headache unless the room is thoroughly ventilated. I now regret not taking it back to Argos within the twelve months of my guarantee.
~~ Conclusion ~~ I had originally recommended this unit, but I would now discourage people from buying it on account of the incessant obnoxious smell that it gives off. It is no doubt a shoddy piece of electronic equipment. My experience with this unit and the mediocrity of the other Accoustic Solutions hi-fi items that I purchased at the same time has considerably reduced my estimation of this company. Along with Philips, Accoustic Solutions are now equal bottom of my personal league table of electronic equipment manufacturers. I will not be making any further purchases from this brand. I paid an inflated price of £70 at Argos, but more recently you can buy it at Richer Sounds for £40.
Also published on dooyoo.co.uk
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Jul 13th, 2009
(Jul 30th, 2009)
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