Advantages: Great Sound, Great Looks, Great Price
Disadvantages: Remotes a bit cheap, no USB port,

...Having been in the market to downsize my old hi fi for something more compact, I've settled on the Teac reference 300 mkIII with DAB tuner. Its a 3 box system as opposed to the other smaller one box systems manufactured by Teac and others such as Denon, Arcam and Onkyo. As such, although being larger, it is more user friendly to use and has more power at 45 wpc RMS. At around £500 rrp it stands up favourably in price to the Arcam Solo Mini and comes in silver or black finish with machined aluminium fronts and a classy blue display on each unit. It actually appears slightly retro in appearance although the remotes are a bit cheap looking. The silver units can be found for as little as £349 without speakers so its quite a bargain. Sound quality for such a small unit is really clear and well defined with a warm bass typical of Teac... Read review

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Advantages: Compact, yet Powerful
Disadvantages: None

...After re-aranging our lounge a decision was made that the black clunky stacking hi-fi had to go, so a search on the internet and a visit to the Richer Sounds website led me initially to the Denon DM31. I visited my local Richer sounds shop in Norwich the following day with the intention of purchasing a Denon, but a very helpful assistant informed me if I was to run powerful speakers such as mine (Bose Acoustimass 5) I would be better off with the Teac CRL600 with a higher wattage. I hesitated as I had no info on this model, but decided to go with it when he assured me if I wasnt happy I could return it within 14days. I plugged it all in at home and WOW I was very impressed. Far superior than my stacking ugly system. This unit sits beneath my tv ontop of the DVD player and looks well at home. The audio quality from the CD and radio... Read review

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Advantages: Nice looking, nice sounding, reasonable value for money.
Disadvantages: Upgrades are not that enticing and the remote control does not send out a strong signal.

...but have not received a response. One solution is to buy a "learning remote" and teach it all the Teac functions. Maybe the remote problem has been fixed since I bought the system, but worth checking before buying. My second gripe is that, yes you can upgrade the system with new units but they don't seem that competitive. For example the Teac MD500 is £349 whilst I know I can spend £250 on the Sony MDS JB940 and get a minidisc deck that is superior in every department. The only thing that the Sony cannot do is to blend in with the mini size or gold styling of the Teac system. As such if you buy a new remote control then I can heartily recommend this system for a second room or bedroom (particularly with the alarm function) however, if you're hoping to upgrade it later with the minidisc or cinema amp then don't expect to have a state... Read review

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Advantages: light, portable, good reception, accutate
Disadvantages: none

...A slim GPS Receiver that connect to your device using 'Bluetooth' a handy product that will enable your smartphone or windows mobile phone to connect to the GPS satalite network for trip guidence and other similar sat-nav tasks. I have used this with my O2 XDA mini phone and found it to be very reliable. I loaded the Destinator sat-nav software onto my phone, launched the application and swithched on the Holux receiver and once i had set up the pairing in my phone it was good to go! Reception was excellent and accuracy very good. In fact because it is so portable i was able to compare it with my friends Pergout car's factory fitted sat-nav and it beat it for accuracy hands down. I also use it with some Geocaching software for paperless caching - look up Geocaching on google if you want to know what it is? Some phones now have... Read review

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Advantages: Looks great, sounds awesome, feels awesome
Disadvantages: Detailed set up can be tricky - just as well it comes idiot proof!

...Ok then, so I'm a lucky boy.... On my last birthday my wife decided that she wanted to treat me to a home cinema system so off we went to our local Richer Sounds store (they are VERY cheap and VERY helpful - recommended everyone pays them a visit!) with cash in hand an wangled a deal. I got this Marantz A/V Receiver , A Yamaha surround sound speaker package and a Panasonic DVD recorder for the princly sum of £350 - a bit of a discount from the £900 RRP! I'll be reviewing each product in turn so check out my other reviews if you want a full system checkup! So into the review of the A/V Receiver: 1) The Theory I wanted a reciever that not only looked good, but that also provided the output and poer to match. I've long been a fan of the Marantz range as they not only look and feel good to use, they also have the reputation... Read review

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Advantages: Good looking (!), excellent sound, excellent value for money
Disadvantages: Wires, wires, wires!!!!

...! Teac are actually German and well known for their high quality hi-fi separates – this was a major selling point to me – no cheap and tacky make here! They don’t actually stock many pc speakers – there are only 10 in the entire range. The Powermax 500/B ones I have are mid-range, priced at £43.46 (Jungle.com). Spec ---- You will have to forgive my lack of technical knowledge here but I had to copy off the box! Although you will be pleased to know I have condensed it!!! For £43 you get an amplifier, subwoofer and 2 satellites. Amps: *Magnetic shielded *Volume, bass & treble control *Headphone jack Subwoofer: *10.5cm woofer *PMPO 350 Watt – RMS 12.5 Watt Satellites: *5.1cm woofer / 1.8cm tweeter *PMPO 2 x 75 Watt – RMS 2 x 5 Watt Design ------ These babes are sexy! Totally... Read review

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Advantages: Good Sound and Value
Disadvantages: Won't match anything else in your hifi rack!

...I have owned my Teac for some time. It has been a faithful performer, with a typical high-quality Japanese sound - very smooth, powerful, with fair 'air' and depth to the stereo image if a little bass light. It's a big, heavy old thing (big transformer) and has fan cooling (although I have never heard the fan cut in, even when pushed hard). Construction quality is fine, but the black/gold edge controls are a matter of taste. The remote is hopeless - you need to be directly in front of the sensor - but it drives other Teac components via their 'UR' (Universal Remote) system. By connecting the amp via a single phono cable to the matching Teac TR460 tuner you can use the amps remote to switch stations and the tuners power on/off is slaved to the amps. Neat! It handles two recording devices, including A-B and B-A dubbing. Only... Read review

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Advantages: Straightforward no frills tape deck
Disadvantages: Few

...Teac have been in operating the electronics industry for over 50 years, and whilst they don't often feature in most people's list top five manufacturers, their reputation for building no-nonsense tape drives is well established. Compact Cassette was first launched in the UK 1964 by electronics giant Philips. The first Walkman was introduced by Sony in 1979 By 1982 sales of pre-recorded tapes overtook standard vinyl albums, however by 1993 this was eclipsed by sales of Compact Disks. Ten years on, and we have DVD, Minidisk, MP3 and the likes, so how come people still hang on to their cassette decks, and how come it still serves as the most popular audio format for people on the move? The simple answer is cost. Cassette based Walkmans and car audio systems are still significantly cheaper than the CD based rivals. Sound... Read review

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Advantages: Qualty sound, attractive, relatively easy to use.
Disadvantages: Price? Not truly portable (no battery option).

...... Read review

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Advantages: Quality and reliability of drive
Disadvantages: Outdated and discontinued model

...The Teac 532 cd rom drive is an cd-rom reader that is designed to be fitted internally into a PC. I had this unit in my PC for about 2 years before I decided to upgrade the whole system. I paid about £120 for this drive and at the time 32x read speed was about the industry standard. How times change as now we are looking up to 72x read speeds on cd-rom drives, which make this unit look positively tortoise-like! Specs This cd-rom drive is compatible with operating systems up to Windows 98. It has a 32x read speed and needs to be fitted into a IDE interface inside the computer. The drive measures, (W) 5.75” (H) 1.65” (D) 7.56”. It weighs 2.65lbs. Overall these are the standard measurements for a cd-rom drive, otherwise it wouldn’t fit into your computer! On the front panel of the unit, from left to right there are... Read review

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