Yamaha CDX 596

Advantages: Plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Remote control
Disadvantages: As Henry Ford said - any colour you like as long as it's black.

...THIS IS A COMPLETE REWRITE OF SOMETHING, WHICH WITH HINDSIGHT, WOULD HAVE GOT ME LABELLED A CHURNER OF "120-WORD WONDERS" IF I'D KNOWN WHAT ONE WAS AT THE TIME! I bought the Yamaha CDX-496 as a replacement for my trusty Technics machine, which was about 10 years old, and bristling with features. My main reason for upgrading was the fact that the Technics was starting to get choosy as to which make of CD-Recordable disk it was going to play. Older CD players were built before recordable CDs were even thought of, and since a CD-R does not comply fully with the original specification for an audio CD, play-back could not be guaranteed, until recently that is..... Having a CD-Writer in my PC means that I make a considerable number of compilation albums, and having to choose a particular make of CD-R was limiting me to the expensive... Read review

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Advantages: Value for money. Sound quality
Disadvantages: Fiddly to set up. Spaghetti! No dedicated digital input for a CD player.

...I have recently taken delivery of a Yamaha RX-V596RDS Home Cinema receiver through Letsbuyit.com for £259 (list approx £400) – but that’s another story, see my opinion on Letsbuyit.com! The receiver is almost the same as the Yamaha DSP-A5 amplifier, with the addition of an AM/FM RDS tuner capable of remembering 40 pre-set stations. Hi-fi purists may frown upon receivers, preferring to buy separate tuners and amps but they haven’t seen the state of my hi-fi rack! What else do you get for your money? 5 channels of 75 watts power each, plus a pre-amp output for a sub-woofer. Twin Dolby Digital/DTS decoders built in, capable of handling both optical and co-axial digital input from a DVD player. It will also handle digital stereo from a set-top box like my ONDigital Nokia through the co-axial input. The rear... Read review

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Advantages: Great Design, Easy to use, good sound quality
Disadvantages: usb socket flap looks a bit flimbsy

...Good All-round head unit, Quick Install and Good Sound Quality My Lust for all things Sony continued when I had to replace my old Sony CDX-MP40 head unit. The old unit was exceptional and had lasted me 4-5 years so my expectations were high and so far I haven't beed dissappointed but I guess only another 5 years will show whether sonys have improved. But what I can say is as follows: Sound Quality - very good, stereo output is very crisp and the choice of equaliser options is better. Bass sounds better too and doesn't distort even at louder volumes. I found the chemical brothers best hits were a good test for this. Features are excellent and include MP3, CD, Radio, USB and Aux input for your ipod, flash drive or a good tip is to get one of those mini usb hard drives which you can copy hundreds of tracks onto. One other... Read review

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