My youngest had been complaining for the longest time that he could never listen to “his” music the way he wanted to - translation - loud. I am not getting old so it’s not that I mind him blasting “his” music but let’s just say, his musical tastes are rather odd. I listen to Nailbomb, Type O Negative and Tool whereas he listens to [and I can’t believe that someone with my genetic structure and DNA strand listens to this stuff] Celine Dion, Cheetah Girls [damn you Raven Symone] and some little blonde muppet [not Jessica Simpson, I know who she is]. Yes, that is frightening - even more so that I have to endure this on a daily basis. Sure he’ll wear headphones but he wants to really “experience” the music. Shuddering and cringing at the thoughts of this ‘music’ echoing through the house I started to look for a shelf unit for his room - thankfully it’s on the third floor of the house and he keeps his door closed most of the time. His request was that it had a dual tape deck and CD player; he didn’t really care if it had AM / FM on it but that pretty much comes standard with all these types of units. We settled on $150.00 being the most we’d spend; he’d pay half and I’d pay the other half with a clause that I’d pay shipping and handling if I found one online for a good price.

After looking around we both decided that the JVC PC-XC290 Boombox would be the best bet. It had detachable speakers that could be mounted on the walls, AM / FM radio, dual deck cassette and a single CD player. Outside of that it had a backlit display and came with a remote control; I found it online for $89.00 and it qualified for free shipping since it was over $75.00. It was ground shipping so it took about a week to arrive but hey, it didn’t cost me anything so I wasn’t too concerned with it. When it arrived my son was pretty excited about it and had a stack of CD’s already picked out to break it in. As much as I begged him to let me try out some of my music, he shuffled me out of the room, rubbed his hands together and popped in ... a Jessica Simpson CD. Running down the steps with my fingers in my ears I left him to play around with his new toy and after a couple of hours he drifted down to the kitchen and exclaimed, “Mum, you would not believe how awesome Mariah Carry sounds on that”. How could this child, this offspring of mine possibly listen to such music? Is he doing this to torment me? In any event, he’s put this through its paces and so far the thing has performed without error ... but I seriously think it is going to go on strike if he plays the Shakira CD one more time.

JVC PC-XC290 Radio / Cassette / CD Boombox

I did manage to get some time alone with this beast and was impressed with how it handled the different styles of music that I threw at it. This has five presets for rock, classical, pop, jazz and flat [standard default] so no matter what you are listening to you can pick the setting that works the best for you - too bad there isn’t an option for thrash or metal, that would simply rock. When I tried this out with some Tool it sounded good but it bottomed out and didn’t really deliver on the parts where the songs recede [Bottom and Sober] but I do have to give it high marks for being able to handle the older stuff from Type O Negative [Slow, Deep & Hard] without any break up or distortion. For harder things like Carnivore, Nailbomb and Clutch it was average but you really have to take advantage of the hyper bass [a fancy term for extended bass] to get the most from the music. The cassette decks deliver a good sound but not as clean and crisp as the CD player. I tried out some older cassette singles I had laying around and they sounded good but not great - that could be due to the fact that they are older and have been played a lot or that the cassette decks just aren’t all that great. It was pretty hard to tell so I made some copies of CD’s and they did sound better so it’s a gamble - if you are listening to something older then you won’t get the best sound possible.

This is a nice shelf type unit that is great for tweens and teens; they will be able to crank it up to an almost obscene level without the speakers popping or giving out but it won’t be so loud that you are ready to have a go at it with a baseball bat. Some of the nice perks to this one is that there is a headphone jack on the front of it [no headphones are supplied], you can choose from five presets depending on what style of music you are listening to and the remote control. This operates almost every function of the CD player and radio but not the cassette; I guess the decks are too “old” to have remote control access. The front panel of the unit does have LCD and is backlit so you will be able to use it in low light situations without having to turn on the light. This does suck some of the power from batteries so make sure you take them out of the unit when they aren’t needed. The size is 25 wide X 11 high X 12 deep so if you are trying to find something to fit a specific space make sure you have enough room before you buy this beast. Make sure you leave enough room so that you can slide it in and out and have room to plug it into a power source. The speakers are detachable so if you are having trouble finding something that is 25 inches wide you can remove one or both of them to save space.

CD Player

This is a single CD player that will read standard audio discs as well as CD-R and CD-RW discs. The unit has all the features of a normal CD player - play, scan, fast track, reverse scan, stop, pause. One of the coolest features is the one touch record option; you can slide in a cassette and with one touch have it start recording the CD in the player. This is not a CD writer so you will not be able to put in a blank disc and record on it. This was something that was extremely misleading when I started looking for a desk top stereo for my son; when you read the description of this it says that it has, “CD Recording Option: CD Synchro Start Recording”. This means that it will synch up with the cassette that is recording from the CD, not the reverse. The overall sound quality of the CD player depends on the type of disc that you are playing; burned ones of MP3’s will have the usual crackles and hissing sounds but if you are playing a standard audio CD it does deliver above average quality.

Cassette Decks

I am seriously starting to think that cassettes are going to be phased out within the next couple of years but I am glad that this one comes with a dual deck. One of them is for playing cassette tapes only but the second one can be used for playing and recording from the other deck or CD player. Both decks have the play, rewind, fast forward, pause and stop buttons and they are easy to use. The decks eject quietly and slowly but I know that it’s only a matter of time before my son ends up breaking one of the doors; he is a little impatient at times and grabs the door as it is opening to try and speed up the process. I’ve made a couple of copies of cassettes using this and the copies do sound pretty good but you are dealing with a tape to tape transfer so you aren’t going to get a stellar sound from the copy even if you are using a high grade tape..

Power

This comes with a built in power cord that runs from the back of the unit but you can also take this on the road with you if you have the cash to spring for eight D sized batteries. This does add a lot of weight to the unit so you are looking at almost twenty pounds total if you have both speakers attached to the sides of it as well as batteries in it. My son took this with him when he went camping and the batteries lasted through the whole trip [four days]. He said they played it for a few hours a day but it was mostly the CD and radio, not the cassette decks. The cord is about two and a half feet long so you don’t have to have it right next to a power source or worry about having to use an extension cord with this. There is a small power indicator to let you know how much juice the batteries have left in them; this is a complete hog when it comes to the cassette decks but if you are playing CD’s or using the radio you can get a lot more use out of the batteries.

Warranty

This comes with a one year warranty against manufacturer defects but it won’t cover blown out speakers from blasting music or abusing the hyper bass feature. This also covers the remote control that comes with it, if either of them malfunction or are defective then JVC will authorize a repair at one of their local service centers [if there is one in your area] or they will arrange to have you send the unit to them. They will repair or replace the unit at their discretion and if the unit is no longer available they will replace it with something of equal or higher value. Of course the warranty is only valid if you fill out and mail in the card that comes with the system. This is only valid for the original purchaser of the unit so if you are buying it from someone through an auction then the warranty doesn’t cover you.

The Bottom Line

So far this has been a great purchase and I’ve yet to see this selling for less than a hundred bucks so I think I got a pretty good deal on it. My son loves the fact that he can blast his “music” [if it indeed can be called that] but does get a little irked when I leave a disc in it and he powers it up to hear something he calls “garbage”. It’s extremely easy to use and having the two cassette decks means that you can copy tapes or CD’s without having to stand there and cue things up. The unit looks nice and is well made but it is a little on the heavy side, without the batteries it weighted in at about seventeen pounds [this isn’t completely accurate, we had to use the bathroom scale] and when you add the batteries to it, it does go over twenty pounds. This delivers a nice sound and is great for someone who wants something relatively inexpensive but doesn’t want to end up with something that sounds horrible. I’m glad that I went with this model instead of the others that I looked at; it has the remote control so when I start pounding on the ceiling [his floor] with the broom he can grab the remote and turn it down without having to run across the room and trip over something. Now ... my next task is trying to get him out of this bubble gum pop phase and into something a little harder ... any suggestions?


As always, thanks for the read!

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2005 Freak369


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Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $89.00