Awesome Stereo w/ Very Few Quirks
Written: Aug 21 '01 (Updated Aug 21 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: VERY USER-FRIENDLY, sound quality, price, size, design
Cons: tape deck sound a bit loud, CD loading a bit slow and loud
The Bottom Line: Small but powerful - the average consumer (such as myself) wouldn't even use all of it! A fantastic deal considering price and quality. Extremely user-friendly.
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| mattyd5's Full Review: JVC MX-J10 Shelf System |
My Story
2 years ago, I listened to my tunes on a beaten-up, hand-me-down boom box (hand-me-down as in my brother telling me, “you can still use it…”). But I really couldn’t complain because that was the only audio system I had ever owned. Primitive? Yes (it was the good OLD black and oblong design! Perish the thought! Now you really know how old it was! :p), but it served the purpose. I mean, I really had nothing to compare it to…
Until Christmas 1999.
A large square box, quite menacing under our fake Christmas tree, soon became the center of my greedy attention. What could it be? I thought to myself – and out loud. :)
My first hardcore stereo system! It was mine!! All MINE!!! Ahahaha-- *ahem* It was the JVC MX-J10. I was excited at the idea of being able to listen to CD’s, tapes or the radio without the fuzziness and instead with extreme clarity. I knew the MX-J10 would live up to my high expectations because my older brother, being a huge electronics/gadgets connoisseur, was the one who gave this to me.
Set Up
It didn’t take long to set up. The instructions were very straightforward (step-by-step with diagrams) and there weren’t thousands of tiny, mysterious-looking nuts, bolts, and wires at all. Just the 2 speakers, FM wire antenna, AM loop antenna, remote control, and batteries for the remote. It took about 15 minutes to set up.
Functions: CD Player
Ah, where to begin? The MX-J10 has everything you need with a few special extras to suit for fancy even more! :) But before I gush too much, let me review the CD component of the system.
The CD player, quite simply, plays CD’s. It's capable of holding up to 3 CD’s. there are 3 separate trays, each with a small eject/close button, and a button to play the desired CD (buttons 1, 2, and 3…if you were previously set on a different CD). In addition, there are 3 small circular buttons – repeat, random, and continue – placed vertically along the right side of the CD area. The continue button allows you to play all 3 CD’s, one right after the other, without having to press which CD you want to play next (i.e. if you start with CD 1, it will play CD 1 through 3 without stopping). The random button will play the songs of the CD in a random order. Meanwhile, the repeat function allows you to either repeat one song or “repeat all” – repeat all the songs. This can be used in conjunction with the continuous play. Just a simple press of a button (or buttons depending on what you want) will do the trick!
If, for whatever reason, you want to lock your CD’s in their trays, there is the Tray Lock function. By just pressing 2 buttons at the same time, you can lock your CD’s in their trays; unlocking is just as easy. I’ve tried it once, but I’ve never had a need for it. perhaps it will come in handy when I bring it to college and don’t want people taking out my CD’s! :o
Functions: Radio
There isn’t anything all too complicated about the tuner…it’s really easy to use. There is a tune up and tune down button on the stereo (but not on the remote control, though I wish there was) so that you can set your stations. With the tuning, you can either use Manual Tuning (pressing the button frequently) or Auto Tuning (holding down the tune up/down button for a few seconds). Once you preset all your stations, you can go to each one by pressing the designated button on the remote. If, by chance, you can’t use the remote, you can jump from preset (station) to preset by pressing a button on the stereo itself. What’s so great about the radio is that it’s able to hold up to 30 FM and 15 AM stations! All you need to do to get to the 11-20/21-30 presets is press the 10+ button once/twice and then the single digit! Switching from FM to AM or AM to FM mode is a breeze too! Just press ONE button to go back and forth!
As far as reception is concerned, JVC has included an FM Mode button if a station is fuzzy or hard to receive. Pressing the FM Mode button on the remote will improve the reception, but keep in mind that the then stereo effect is then lost.
Functions: Tape Deck
OK, there’s a lot you can do with the tape deck. There are 2 cassette decks (A and B) and you can basically do everything on either one. Some of the more notable basic tape functions include: fastfowarding or fast-rewinding, music scan (finds the beginning of the current or next song by searching for any “blank spots” of 4 seconds or longer), and reverse mode (permits you to “play both sides of a tape, or play both the tapes in the 2 tape decks continuously”). All of these basic functions can be applied by pressing the button designated for the specified function.
Now for the not-so-basic functions…
Standard Recording
This is the least specific type of recording. You can use this to record stuff on the radio, CD or tape, or combine selections all onto one tape. This can be done by using the actual system or remote control. The reason why they have this on top of having the other types of recording is so that it’s like the backup procedure in case the more specific procedures don’t work. Anyway, I’ve never had a problem with it before, and the quality comes out really well.
CD Direct and Tape to Tape Recording
Recording songs from a CD onto a tape is also very easy to do because there is a button (“CD Rec Start”) that runs this specific task. If you happen to reach the end of one side while in the middle of recording a song, don’t worry! The MX-J10 will re-record that song at the beginning of the other side! Looks like JVC thought of everything, huh? :)
Tape to tape recording, or dubbing, is pretty clear-cut as well. All you have to do is make sure the tapes are set on what you want them to be (and what the manual says they should be! :) ) and then press the button “dubbing.” I’ve trued all of these recording functions and they’ve all produced very solid results. Again, I’ve never had any problems.
Other Functions
If you’re like me, you hate setting any sort of time/clock/whatever on any electronic device. However, with the MX-J10, JVC makes it so simple and absolutely frustration free!
You can set the time by using 5 buttons – the manual explains how to do it in very understandable terms. The time will show when the system is on standby, but will not show when the radio or CD is in use. That’s one minor pet peeve with MX-J10, but it’s nothing to get hung over about.
The stereo can also act as an alarm . You can set the time to when you want it to wake you up, how long you want it to stay on, how high you want the volume to be, and whether you want to wake up to the radio, CD, or tape. The only thing where I can find room for improvement on is the fact that the alarm only turns on to whichever CD was played last. It will also only play the last radio station you listened to. I’ve been using the stereo’s alarm for a little over 2 yrs now, and it’s failed me only a few times.
Another facet of the alarm is the “tuner rec,” which will record whatever radio station you last listened to. This function works just like a VCR recording a show/movie when you can’t physically be there to do it.
Finally, there is the Sleep Timer which I’m sure you are all familiar with. This allows you to call asleep while listening to music and know that the unit will automatically turn off. You can set the sleep timer for however many minutes you want it to stay on before it shuts off. The increments, in minutes, are: 10-20-30-60-90-120-cancelled. And there is a sleep button to initiate or end the function, so again, it’s all quite simple.
Some *special extras* I think are pretty neat are the active bass ex. (gives the music extra bass) and the sound mode. The sound mode is really cool because it can alter the sound of the music you’re playing. The MX-J10 gives you a choice of Rock (“boosts low and high frequencies”), Classic (“set for wide and dynamic sound stereo systems”), Pop (“good for vocal music”), Dance Club (“increases resonance and bass” – aka good for dance music), Hall (sounds like you’re in a concert hall), and Stadium (sounds like you’re in an outdoor stadium). Another cool facet of the MX-J10 is that you don't need to turn the entire unit on first before accessing the other parts of the stereo. For example, you can just press the button for CD 3 and it will immediately turn on and start that CD.
Quirks
This is an overall excellent stereo system, especially for the price, which I believe was around $200 (but probably a lot cheaper now since I got this 2 yrs ago). However, like all things, it isn’t perfect. For one, switching from CD to CD is loud. That is to say, if you were listening to CD 1 but then wanted to listen to CD 2, you’d be able to hear all too well the inner mechanisms doing its thing. Plus, it loads the CD a little slow.
Another quirk about the MX-J10 is the sound it makes when its turned on (no, not in “THAT WAY”!!! :p). There’s a 2 second hum followed by a pop. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about something so minor, and it may not be annoying to you, but I wish I could wake up to the music than that hum-pop. Then again, it DOES wake me up… *shrug*
I also found a noise problem with the tape deck. The sound of the tape running while in play is pretty loud and nearly gets in the way of the tape’s content itself. I suppose it’s not that big of a deal since I hardly listen to tapes on the stereo.
Specs
- 265 x 295 x 361 mm (W x H x D)
- 17.7 lbs (8 kg)
- Speakers:
* 2-way, 2-speaker bass-reflex type
* Woofer 12cm cone x 1
* Volume: goes from 0-50 (you can have one hell of
a party w/ this sucker!! :))
* Power handling capacity: 60 watts
* Frequency range: 45 Hz – 20,000 Hz
* 205 x 295 x 225 mm (W x H x D)
* 8.4 lbs (3.8kg)
Conclusion
I would DEFINITELY recommend the JVC MX-J10 to anyone interested in buying a very good and dependable stereo system, but not interested in spending their life savings on one. The price is very reasonable considering its high quality. It’s small but powerful, and also nice-looking (silver chrome-like, black LCD w/ blueish-green digital font, some red and orange color too). There are a few minor quirks, but you can overlook many of them, especially the tape deck discrepancies, since I’ve found that fewer and fewer people are using tapes nowadays. It’s also perfect for college students because of its modest size, but also it’s ability to produce very good sound quality, whether it be from the radio, tape deck, or CD player. What is interesting about the stereo is that the louder it gets, the better the sound quality becomes. I’ve had it for about 2 yrs, and so far nothing has gone wrong with it – it’s still in mint condition. It’s an overall great stereo system – you won’t be let down by it!
Recommended:
Yes
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mattyd5
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"Someone sure as hell is Fruit if you are the Loops." - Tom Paine
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