Sony CMT-GPX 9 DAB

...she purchased from Amazon a Sony CMT-GPX9, costing £156.

The GX9 consists of a radio, CD and cassette player in a main unit, accompanied by two speakers.

Upon opening the box what struck me first was the comparative smallness of this system. The main unit is 181.5mm wide, 261.5mm in height and has a depth of 357.5mm including controls and other projecting parts. The weight is around 5.8 kilograms. The dimensions of the ...
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Back to the Sony CMT-GX9. The main unit's frontage is, in my opinion, a simple yet stylish feature, coloured silver with small unobtrusive control buttons to match. The Visual Display is functional but personally I don't think this is a detraction. What I do like is that volume is controlled by a large knob at the centre of the unit, situated between two smaller knobs controlling bass and treble respectively, old fashioned maybe but far easier ... more

I was always quite happy with my old stereo. It played CDs, had good sound quality and had a turntable for me to play my old vinyl collection. However, it was large, rather plasticky, and had been on the receiving end of some rough treatment meted out by my two youngest children. It had unnecessarily complicated sound and playing options controls, and I never played my vinyl collection, half of which has been replaced by CD. In short, it was time for me to get a new sound system. Whatever I got would have to be smaller, more robust, simpler to use and not have any fancy gadgets while still giving out a good quality of sound.

Cue my missus, who decided to buy me a new music system, ostensibly for my birthday but with the ulterior motive of wanting to free up space in the living room that was being taken up by my old stereo. After much research she purchased from Amazon a Sony CMT-GPX9, costing £156.

The GX9 consists of a radio, CD and cassette player in a main unit, accompanied by two speakers.

Upon opening the box what struck me first was the comparative smallness of this system. The main unit is 181.5mm wide, 261.5mm in height and has a depth of 357.5mm including controls and other projecting parts. The weight is around 5.8 kilograms. The dimensions of the speakers are 160 x 261.5 x 233mm, with a weight of 2.6 kilograms each.

The operating instructions state that these speakers are 2-way, bass-reflex type; woofer 12cm diameter, cone type; tweeter 4cm diameter, cone type. Nominal impedance is stated as being 6 ohms.

All perfectly true, no doubt, but for a novice like me all these factors listed are gobbledygook. Size is important in my book and, after looking at this tiddly looking system with it's similarly small sized speakers, quite frankly I was somewhat dubious that the sound would be a patch on my old system with it's monster speakers that supported the equally large main unit without any assistance. I need not have worried. Once I had assembled the system, plugged it in and inserted a CD this tiddler proceeded to emit a mammoth sound. Clarity is good and the bass well defined though not too powerful to start causing the walls and floors to vibrate. I find that the volume can be turned to maximum without any sound distortion creeping in and that both music and speech is clearly audible from the other end of the house.

The CD player is situated at the bottom of the unit. It plays audio CDs as well as those that are rewritable and recordable. To insert a CD you simply slide it in to the disc slot label side up and to retrieve it simply press the eject button. It does not play CD-ROMs, discs with non-standard shapes such as hearts, stars, etc. It has the usual features such as Repeat, Shuffle and Programme play.

The cassette deck is tucked away on the very top of the unit with its controls nestling round the unit's display window at the top of the unit's face. This too has standard features including CD-Tape Synchro Recording or plain Manual Recording.

For me though the star of the show is the radio. Yes, it plays AM and FM, has RDS (Radio Data System) and can be tuned manually, automatically or by preset. The main feature, however, is the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), which to me is like entering a whole new radio world.
I'd heard it touted often enough on radio and BBC TV but had always been somewhat sceptical of its supposed benefits. Not any more. The sound quality of Digital Radio is, to my ears anyway, awesome. No whine, whistles, squeaks or signals dropping out. It's brilliant. The biggest difference for me is listening to Radio 5. Having previously being consigned to AM with it's poor quality, I now hear presenters' voices "for real". It's such a revelation for me. Indeed when I'm watching live football on TV I have the sound off and have the Radio 5 commentary accompanying the picture instead.

Another benefit of Digital Radio has been the introduction of new radio stations such as BBC6, BBC7, Virgin, Talksport and Five Live Sports Extra. For those of you living in urban conurbations such as London, Birmingham or Manchester this may not mean much as you have a wide choice of radio stations to listen to. However, round my neck of the woods on the East Sussex coast it's a different story, where we have a dearth of decent radio stations. But I digress.

Back to the Sony CMT-GX9. The main unit's frontage is, in my opinion, a simple yet stylish feature, coloured silver with small unobtrusive control buttons to match. The Visual Display is functional but personally I don't think this is a detraction. What I do like is that volume is controlled by a large knob at the centre of the unit, situated between two smaller knobs controlling bass and treble respectively, old fashioned maybe but far easier to use when making subtle adjustments than the trendier button.

What is also handy is the cassette deck being tucked away on top of the unit. I seldom have need to use this and therefore appreciate it being hidden away from view. I also like the remote control that accompanies the system. It is not festooned with buttons and what buttons there are have their purpose clearly labelled.

I do have a couple of niggles though. Firstly, the bass and treble controls. I do like the fact that I can adjust these features myself without having to use some preset system called "Rock", "Pop" or "Cinema", as was the case on my old system. However, what I don't like is the limited range which, starting at -2 goes no further than +2. Secondly, that some of the other adjustments such as time and preset numbers can only be made using the remote control. The operating manual does not help by sometimes forgetting to mention this which I only found out after a frustrating ten minutes.

All in all I'm more than happy with this system. It now sits on top of my CD shelves, out of the way and thereby freeing up more space in the rest of the room. It's also out of reach of the prying young hands belonging to my younger children though I'm confident that it is robust enough to take such heavy punishment.

As someone with scant knowledge of quality sound systems I could not give an accurate assessment as to how well this product stands up to it's rivals. However, as someone who likes having music or the radio on around the house while doing the household chores it serves my needs perfectly. I would hesitate to recommend the Sony CMT-GX9 to someone with exacting listening standards that likes to sit on their own in a room listening to their favourite music. For someone living in a noisy messy family home, though, this could be right up your street.

I certainly won't be getting rid of mine in a hurry.
 

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