Philips FWC250: Boombox or Mini-System?
Written: Dec 16 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sounds good for price range, looks good, not too bulky/masculine-looking
Cons: I'll let you know when I discover them!
The Bottom Line: In its price range, has good sound, easy figure-outability for the non-experienced user, and looks pretty snazzy. 3 CD-changer and remote control are among best features.
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| cathyb53's Full Review: Philips FW-C250 Shelf System |
I'm going out on a limb here, writing about a product outside my usual scope of expertise. I usually leave the high-tech stuff (i.e. anything that plugs in or takes batteries) to those many younger folks who are up on such things, mainly for fear of sounding like a dummy by mixing up my megabits with my tweeters. So I'll just get this little disclaimer with out of the way up front: I'm just a mom whose daughter needs a boombox, and I just did a little Consumer Reports research and headed out to the new Best Buy to make a choice from what's available.
That said, let me point out that I'm far from a novice when it comes to listening to music - au contraire, as a dedicated and long-time and highly fussy music-lover, I consider myself quite experienced and in fact knowledgeable in that department. It's just the techie stuff I'm a little reticent about.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I went to the Best Buy and I listened to lots of boomboxes/minisystems, concentrating on the under-$150 price range. (After all, as my son helpfully points out, his sister lives in downtown Philadelphia, where (in his opinion) anything is likely to be stolen eventually; Boston, where he lives, apparently has no such problem. According to him.) I was looking for a system that could play CDs, CD-Rs, and had a tape deck; obviously, my main requirement was that it sound decent, without costing way too much money. Since my daughter plays lots of different kinds of music, as opposed to the mainly acoustic stuff that I usually listen to, I wanted it to have one of those gizmos that equalizes for different "sounds" - techno, rock, concert hall, stuff like that (pardon the technical language here...). I didn't want it to be too big, and I didn't want it to be too "ugly" - clunky or manly or like I would expect to see it in the apartments of those boys who drive those big black cars with the sides bulging out from the bass boom; my daughter is, after all, a sophisticated and stylish kind of girl, not a street thug.
The Philips FWC250 ($130) fit the bill just about right. It sounds significantly better than the comparable models in its price range, many of which sounded "tinny" to me in a side-by-side test. For comparison, I used the same track of a test CD I found in one of the players at the store - I'd recommend bringing your own CD of music you actually listen to to check out the relative sound. (I also listened to the radios on all the models, but couldn't tell too much since in the busy, loud, and cavernous store they all sounded pretty bad.) The only one that sounded better than this Philips model was a Sony (don't remember the model #, sorry), which cost about $30. more and had a whole bunch of features I didn't understand and didn't figure she needed: a "movie sound" setting, and a bunch of inputs for games & other stuff, essentially things I'd never heard of so I figured "how important could they be?".
One deciding factor, in addition to sound quality, was that the Philips FWC250 had a 3-CD changer, which seemed like a worthwhile thing to me; I always like to load my CD player up and "shuffle", so I don't get sick of listening to the same songs in the sequence. Kinda like listening to a radio station where you know you're going to like all the music. I also think that this particular system looks pretty good, which was definitely not the case with many of them. I know, the point is not how they look but how they sound, but still...I just really dislike the idea of having one of those chunky, menacing-looking big black things perched in my daughter's sparse but elegant little nest. They look like teenaged boys, and I think what she's going for is more the sleek young-woman-in-the-city look. (I could be wrong, though.)
Other features? Ummm, it has a remote control thingy, and some kind of a timer thing (like you could set it as a sleep timer, I think), and several different equalized "sounds" (I'm hoping you know what I'm talking about with this - I clearly don't!). You can make its bass very thumpy and boomey, if that's desirable. Two tape decks. An AM-FM radio. Seems fairly easy to figure out & use the controls - after all, I managed to navigate it.
I'm hoping that this will prove to have been a good choice, and that my daughter will find it up to her needs. I don't have a lot of experience with this price level of equipment (as a serious music-lover married to a techno-fiend, our stereo equipment at home tends to run to the higher-end), but in my best judgment the Philips FWC250 sounded the best of its kind. Time will tell - and if, after it's been in use for a while, it turns out to be a dud or have major drawbacks, you can count on me to keep you posted. Till then, I'm hoping that this will be a Christmas present that will prove to be worth its cost.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cathyb53
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Member: Cathy B.
Location: beautiful Ithaca NY
Reviews written: 133
Trusted by: 40 members
About Me:
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"...Bob Dylan
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