JVC UX-EP100 Mini System

Good basic personal system

By smoke_on_the_water  Jan 8, 2009

Pros: Well built, no gimmicky features, small size

Cons: Lack of equalizer, lackluster bass, slightly dodgy radio tuning

I had initially wanted to get a radio but i saw this was only slightly more expensive and i did like the look of it so i bought it. I have a computer with a 2.1 channel system which i use for most of my music, this is only for when i can't sleep ...at night. I was a bit surprised at the black gloss finish, sort of reminded me of the surface of a fancy piano or something. It does look nice, the only gripe i have with that is that these surfaces attract a lot of fingerprints and they scratch quite easily. The cd player reads all my proper cd's but some older burned ones are not recognized. The usb is useful as you can quickly save a bunch of random tracks and they will play with no problems although i discovered that when using a usb with other types of media such as word documents or movies do take about an extra 20 or so seconds to read. Not really a problem for me though. There are only two problems i have with this system, the first being the lack of equalizer functions which is a bit of a surprise considering that these days they are able to fit eq settings on smaller radio's and mp3 players. It does have basic treble and bass adjustments (up to +3) and there is this enhanced bass setting they call AHB Pro, which paired with the systems one channel speakers, doesn't really work too well. The second problem i have with this system is the radio tuning. I have it in the same place i had my older system which had no problems finding and tuning into radio channels but this system still hasn't found any even after extending the antenna right by the window, i've had to manually tune the stations to the presets myself. It's a small problem but an annoyance none the less. Overall it's a pretty good basic system, it's well built and the sound quality is decent but it's hard to justify the price when there are others out there which cost slightly more, or slightly less than this system and have better features. I don't regret buying this, but given the choice i would have paid another 20 or 30usd for a more complete system with two channel speakers and a decent equalizer mode. Read more Less