Quality of build, Easy to use, Miniscule, Sound, Style
Disadvantages:
Price, Price, Price
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
It’s an odd place to look for this system, its marketed towards and under this category of Home Cinema systems. I hardly think of the Sound Space 1 as a home cinema system, but Home Cinema it’s not.
I stumbled on this little beauty complete by an off chance, the item that I wanted was an alarm clock that would wake you with your music, i.e. CD or radio or other if you really wanted it. You’re probably thinking “an alarm clock, music system?” Its only when I was walking around John Lewis just looking at the “goodies” section that this little unit was displayed as a wall mounted unit, when my eyes lit up, it had a clock on it. I’m sure that there are plenty of other uses for it, all probably prohibitively expensive for there function, but you will be surprised by the quality of this little beast for its size.
On first glance, the SS1 (sound space 1) looks like a little CD player that your kids would use in their bedroom and not give it a second glance, but my perspective of this unit is less is more.
You have the main unit being the size of just slightly larger than that of a CD case and the depth of around 2 inches and then the 2 speakers, again 2 inches deep. All the items can be wall mounted or mounted on their stands for a desktop unit.
The main unit The main unit has FM, AM, CD or AUX, I wont talk about AM as I don’t use it and I doubt very much if anybody that would purchase this unit would use AM, as the quality of the transmission medium is so far below of that of which the SS1 is capable of reproducing, it’s just not worth the bother. It’s like talking about putting a Robin reliant engine in a Ferrari, what’s the point.
The FM radio has 10 presets over the normal FM range with RDS so you know what station you are tuning into displayed on the LCD display that you can swap to display the time or radio frequency it can be illuminated or unlit.
The CD is a built in single CD capacity, its cleverly designed so that the tray is tilted at 45 degrees when you load the thing, nice touch. The CD can be illuminated either blue or green or not lit at all. The lighting I think should be able to be controlled so that when comes on in the morning, its not so bright, but this is a minor point seeing as though you can turn off the lighting altogether.
Aux uses the line in input, which is located on the top of the unit for those odd moments that you put in you portable devices into the machine. I think they should have duplicated the input at the base of the machine so more permanent solutions can be attached, but that’s because of my personal preference, as I don’t like wires showing.
There are 2 alarm settings, initiating the mode CD or radio as you choose to wake up to.
All the cables FM aerial, power, speakers have the cables routed to the underneath of the unit with exception to the line in, headphones and analogue / digital line out which are all on the top rear of the unit.
The unit is operated either by the remote or using the logical layout (mostly logical with the exception of the memory functions of the CD Player which could have been easier) on the top of the machine. Both of which are a positive and quality feel, but due to the number and variables on the unit it takes a little time to get used to, mainly because it’s first thing in the morning when I use the machine.
There is no amplifier in the unit itself, just controls to control the amplifiers that are in each of the speakers.
The speakers are attached by RJ45 connections and as I said have the amplifiers built in, hence the 8 wires required to connect them, and not the usual 2, they sound amazing, slightly more beefy on the lower volumes when you wake up, but you have the choice of turning off the loudness button at these volumes, unlike their recommendations, the higher volumes (on a scale of 1 to 10- 1 and above) there is no need for the loudness which increase the bass of the audio. I initially thought the speaker covers look very 60’s, but they seem to grown on me and are very well manufactured, as is the entire unit. The SS1 sounds not only fantastic for its size, but solely fantastic, there’s huge bass (for its size and not worth the bother of a sub, and you haven’t got the availability to attached one anyway), but not heart thumping, the mid and treble are all there, I believe that the wall is being used as a bass enhancer, but I could be wrong. There’s no evidence of reverberation of the lower frequencies that I can notice at any level. In all the quality of this unit is excelled in its class. I do not know of a mini-mini unit that can pump out the quality of sound that this can.
What I believe is that this unit is a small / very high quality CD / Radio that has bedroom functionality, i.e. the alarm clock and snooze, so I am using this device what its intended for, however, I also believe that there is a limited market that would look at the SS1 seriously due the price £450 for a single CD / radio alarm clock unless they have either 1 of 3 things: Read a review, listened to it by mistake or rate the name of Nakamichi to at least give it a try. I was the later, and I am not disappointed, and would continue to believe in the name of Nakimichi.
Nakimichi are for the niche market and are styled and priced accordingly, I have just a small bedroom with no space or desire for a large system within it and have a passion for quality sounds, and wont like to compromise on either, not that I’ll wouldn’t like a larger bedroom, we all have other comprises to make.
Oh by the way I have mine mounted on the wall above the bed and all the cables including the roof aerial cable (which is a must for any quality radios) have been buried in the wall (I was decorating the bedroom before I purchased it).
Totaly made for the minimalist with functionality.
Would I buy it again? Only if I had the spare cash, I wouldn’t any other until I did.
