[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I agree what you say about What Hi-Fi reviews.

It was pretty obvious - they often reviewed identical items - just with different badges. One would get rave reviews, the other would get a poor review - guess which one had adverts in the magazine

[jjne]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

The FM tuner sounds like someone next door is using a chainsaw judging by the constant interference and buzzing noises I get from it...and the very low sensitivity makes it even worse...

In fairness, this sounds like a fault -- all of these small bookshelf systems use the same Frontier Silicon or Quantek DAB/FM modules, from the most humble Bush to the top of the range -- and they're well-proven. This module is highly integrated, and if it's duff, half the system won't work properly.

[Gary Brenton]

Originally Posted by jjne

In fairness, this sounds like a fault -- all of these small bookshelf systems use the same Frontier Silicon or Quantek DAB/FM modules, from the most humble Bush to the top of the range -- and they're well-proven. This module is highly integrated, and if it's duff, half the system won't work properly.

Well I have taken the system back to the store and they offered me another replacement, or a different model or a full refund...I opted for the latter as they didn't have the system I wanted brand new boxed...albeit they had it on display.

I was disappointed though to be honest as the audio quality was great and at first I thought it was my aerial which is a 3 element roof-top, but I soon found out it wasn't the aerial when i plugged in other tuners which were fine. FM was adequate for national stations...but localised stations were very poor and the DAB reception was fine, but flicking from station to station the system constantly froze.

I have noticed that all-in-one hi-fi systems have deteriorated over the years and even big named products are not as reliable as what they once were...or as good as what they once were....forinstance, I am still using a Sansui amplifier from 1978 which is in excellent condition and sounds better than anything I have heard over the last 20 years or so and it still works absolutely great for a 34 year old amplifier.

The Teac system looks nice and also has a USB port and an SD card port:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...ac-crh258i-blk

I am not sure as to either buy the Teac or buy a seperate DAB tuner and go for seperates again as I already have a decent JVC amplifier, Marantz CD-50 CD player, Sony ST-S311 tuner and a pair of tannoy floorstanding speakers - of which I would use on the Teac should I decide to purchase it.

The Sony tuner is good and I know what to expect from it, and so is the CD player...but what attracts me to an all in one system is that it is space saving and has a USB port of which my seperates system hasn't....but I know for a fact that the seperates system will sound better....but the CD player on the Teac plays WMA and MP3 discs as well as rewritable. (The Marantz will play rewritable but not wma or mp3 discs) I am in a catch 22 situation...

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have noticed that all-in-one hi-fi systems have deteriorated over the years and even big named products are not as reliable as what they once were...or as good as what they once were.

As they are sold for basically pennies these days what do you expect?.

If you're spending a couple of hundred quid on a system it's obviously nothing like a system from 20/30 years ago that would have cost £600 odd back then.

High priced quality items don't sell, so if you want that you need quality separates - which to be honest, you always did.

[jjne]

I was shocked at how poor a TEAC bookshelf system's build quality was inside when I took a peek. They shoehorn a bunch of clearly off-the-shelf boards, and everything flexes around -- some of the boards were the cheapest quality imaginable. The one bit they obviously did make -- the power amp PCB -- was at the base, and was of far higher quality. Ironically, it seems this is the part that fails on the model I looked at.

They take a nice case and stuff it with parts of fairly marginal quality at this price point.

As Nigel Goodwin says, the one area where quality still counts for something is separates, and I've taken to buying second-hand rather than buying new, cheaper systems. It's amazing how little you pay for a non-premium 1990s Japanese separate these days -- I bought a Technics CD player, Akai tuner and Kenwood amp for £20 all-in. All work perfectly and the sound is excellent.

I'd suggest that your best bet might be to buy a cheap DVD player with all the features you need (£20 for something like a Toshiba or Philips), and around £30-40 on a Chinese-made DAC from ebay which will sure up the sound quality (most of these are made from new old-stock parts). Maybe even buy a player with built-in Freeview and an LCD display, and use that as a digital tuner as well as CD/MP3/WMA/USB/SD which most DVD players now have -- Freeview radio is more or less equivalent to DAB -- fewer channels but higher quality with the DAC.

[2Bdecided]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

has a USB port of which my seperates system hasn't...

As an alternative, you could connect an mp3 player or a logitech squeezebox or similar. My mp3 player spends a lot of its time plugged into my hi-fi.

Cheers,
David.

[Gary Brenton]

Originally Posted by jjne

I was shocked at how poor a TEAC bookshelf system's build quality was inside when I took a peek. They shoehorn a bunch of clearly off-the-shelf boards, and everything flexes around -- some of the boards were the cheapest quality imaginable. The one bit they obviously did make -- the power amp PCB -- was at the base, and was of far higher quality. Ironically, it seems this is the part that fails on the model I looked at.

They take a nice case and stuff it with parts of fairly marginal quality at this price point.

As Nigel Goodwin says, the one area where quality still counts for something is separates, and I've taken to buying second-hand rather than buying new, cheaper systems. It's amazing how little you pay for a non-premium 1990s Japanese separate these days -- I bought a Technics CD player, Akai tuner and Kenwood amp for £20 all-in. All work perfectly and the sound is excellent.

I'd suggest that your best bet might be to buy a cheap DVD player with all the features you need (£20 for something like a Toshiba or Philips), and around £30-40 on a Chinese-made DAC from ebay which will sure up the sound quality (most of these are made from new old-stock parts). Maybe even buy a player with built-in Freeview and an LCD display, and use that as a digital tuner as well as CD/MP3/WMA/USB/SD which most DVD players now have -- Freeview radio is more or less equivalent to DAB -- fewer channels but higher quality with the DAC.

I totally agree with the 90's seperates era, they were built to last....unfortunately after that era, the quality dropped off somewhat.

My bedroom system is a bit of a mixed bunch ranging from a 1978 sansui amp (and it is very heavy and well built) to the latest yamaha CD player with USB and a late 90's Videologic DAB tuner and a 90's Sony ST-SB920 tuner.

I just don't have the room in the lounge for a seperates system so I opted for the Teac - although I did drop lucky as Richer sounds were doing it for £199.95 and super-fi were doing it for £149.95 so Richer Sounds matched the price.

I had the Sansui amp gave to me a while ago and it was caked with dust and I can remember stripping it all down and painstakingly cleaning every part and it now looks and sounds fantastic for a 34 year old amplifier.

Because of all the dust, the input selectors were causing a lot of static-channel crossover (ie...you could still hear the tuner when the input was selected to auxilary input) although since I have cleaned it there is as good as zero channel crossover now even on full volume.

I did exactly the same with a JVC AX-220 amplifier...and the inside of that looks as good as new. This is now in the wardrobe with a couple of DVD boxes over the ventilation holes to stop any dust. The JVC amp was a 90's model and the bass with the loudness switched on is phenominal - that is with the bass & treble controls set to centre position. I paid just £10 for this amp from Cash Converters about a year ago and I was going to put it on Ebay...until I heard it.

Years ago I remember a neighbour owning a 'Hitachi' music centre - the old flat type and way before the days of CD and although I must have only been about 12 years old, but I can still remember the sheer quality of that system from that day to this. Unfortunately we could never afford anything like that and all I really had was a bush record player and a mono radio cassette.

In 1985 (when I was 15) my mother brought me my first music centre of which was a Toshiba SM-200 (yep...I can still remember the model number ) and it cost £89.99 from 'Dixons' and although I liked it's looks....I was disappointed as it wasn't a patch on my neighbours music centre whatsoever. The quality was very 'tinny' if i remember, and the tape deck had no dolby NR and vinyl sounded awful...especially on an Lp towards the end where the grooves were smaller...

Even then though...there were some naff systems around...but they still don't make hi-fi like they used to...

[jjne]

If you're handy with a soldering iron a great way of putting together good hifi these days is to look at the pre-built boards on ebay.

You can get DACs, pre-amplifiers, CD controllers, power amps, the works, and some of it is astonishingly good value for money.

I have a pair of Tripath TK2050 modules (these are 100WPC RMS class-T amplifiers, each the size of a credit card) and the sound quality is a real eye-opener -- if it isn't actually better than my 1990s John Shearne Phase 2 Reference/Phase 3 Power combo (combined value £1500) then it runs it damned close. And they only cost £140 delivered from China. Yes you have to sort out a pre-amp (I use a single valve buffer circuit with a single pot for the volume), but the value for money us unbelievable.

Amps don't need to be heavy any more as a result of this -- these have small aluminium heatsinks on them which work a treat.The efficiency is around 80-90% so they don't dissipate much heat.

Which is why I don't understand why there's so much crap around. My kitchen stereo (yes I have a fair few stereos lol) is a really nasty Bush CD/DAB Micro, with a Netgear MP101 connected to its aux input. The CD and DAB/FM modules, and the pre-amp chip, are all decent enough, but the amplifier is utter crap -- a 20 year old Toshiba IC designed to be put in a portable cassette player. I've tapped the pre-amp outputs off the circuit and run them off to a £7 Tripath TA2024 (the TK2050's little brother -- 15W/channel) and plugged this into a set of decent small speakers. That little stereo probably sounds nearly as good as your TEAC does

Spoilt for 'aporth o'tar is appropriate here I think.

You've mentioned some good old separates there -- the Sansui amps of that period were legendary 'budget' amps, with a sound quality that a lot of new stuff struggles to get close to. And I have to say that I pretty much don't even bother looking at the reviews on 1990s Jap kit -- if it's a separate, and was made by a Japanese manufacturer during that period, it's pretty much a given that it'll be (a) really well made (albeit probably a bit plasticky), and (b) will have a sweet, neutral sound.

I've realised over the years that the stuff WotHiFi used to feed us was all rubbish -- if I'd known this at the time I'd have saved a fortune.

[Gary Brenton]

Originally Posted by jjne

If you're handy with a soldering iron a great way of putting together good hifi these days is to look at the pre-built boards on ebay.

You can get DACs, pre-amplifiers, CD controllers, power amps, the works, and some of it is astonishingly good value for money.

I have a pair of Tripath TK2050 modules (these are 100WPC RMS class-T amplifiers, each the size of a credit card) and the sound quality is a real eye-opener -- if it isn't actually better than my 1990s John Shearne Phase 2 Reference/Phase 3 Power combo (combined value £1500) then it runs it damned close. And they only cost £140 delivered from China. Yes you have to sort out a pre-amp (I use a single valve buffer circuit with a single pot for the volume), but the value for money us unbelievable.

Amps don't need to be heavy any more as a result of this -- these have small aluminium heatsinks on them which work a treat.The efficiency is around 80-90% so they don't dissipate much heat.

Which is why I don't understand why there's so much crap around. My kitchen stereo (yes I have a fair few stereos lol) is a really nasty Bush CD/DAB Micro, with a Netgear MP101 connected to its aux input. The CD and DAB/FM modules, and the pre-amp chip, are all decent enough, but the amplifier is utter crap -- a 20 year old Toshiba IC designed to be put in a portable cassette player. I've tapped the pre-amp outputs off the circuit and run them off to a £7 Tripath TA2024 (the TK2050's little brother -- 15W/channel) and plugged this into a set of decent small speakers. That little stereo probably sounds nearly as good as your TEAC does

Spoilt for 'aporth o'tar is appropriate here I think.

You've mentioned some good old separates there -- the Sansui amps of that period were legendary 'budget' amps, with a sound quality that a lot of new stuff struggles to get close to. And I have to say that I pretty much don't even bother looking at the reviews on 1990s Jap kit -- if it's a separate, and was made by a Japanese manufacturer during that period, it's pretty much a given that it'll be (a) really well made (albeit probably a bit plasticky), and (b) will have a sweet, neutral sound.

I've realised over the years that the stuff WotHiFi used to feed us was all rubbish -- if I'd known this at the time I'd have saved a fortune.

The Sansui vintage amps seem to be worth a few quid on Ebay - and going for a lot more than modern amplifiers.

This Sansui AU-117 amp I have is basic...but built like a tank and the audio quality is fantastic for an amplifier of this age.

The audio quality of this Sansui is quite 'sharp' sounding and certainly brings out the 'treble' where other amps sound 'muddy' in comparison.

The thing with What-HiFi reviews (and I have always said this) - is that what suits one listener may not suit another. I totally agree...and I would have saved a fortune as well to be honest.

I remember in the 90's - What Hi-Fi reviewed a pair of Wharfedale speakers, so naturally I brought them and they were the worst speakers I had ever heard to be honest.

[rjb101]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

Well I have taken the system back to the store and they offered me another replacement, or a different model or a full refund...I opted for the latter as they didn't have the system I wanted brand new boxed...albeit they had it on display.

I was disappointed though to be honest as the audio quality was great and at first I thought it was my aerial which is a 3 element roof-top, but I soon found out it wasn't the aerial when i plugged in other tuners which were fine. FM was adequate for national stations...but localised stations were very poor and the DAB reception was fine, but flicking from station to station the system constantly froze.

I have noticed that all-in-one hi-fi systems have deteriorated over the years and even big named products are not as reliable as what they once were...or as good as what they once were....forinstance, I am still using a Sansui amplifier from 1978 which is in excellent condition and sounds better than anything I have heard over the last 20 years or so and it still works absolutely great for a 34 year old amplifier.

The Teac system looks nice and also has a USB port and an SD card port:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...ac-crh258i-blk

I am not sure as to either buy the Teac or buy a seperate DAB tuner and go for seperates again as I already have a decent JVC amplifier, Marantz CD-50 CD player, Sony ST-S311 tuner and a pair of tannoy floorstanding speakers - of which I would use on the Teac should I decide to purchase it.

The Sony tuner is good and I know what to expect from it, and so is the CD player...but what attracts me to an all in one system is that it is space saving and has a USB port of which my seperates system hasn't....but I know for a fact that the seperates system will sound better....but the CD player on the Teac plays WMA and MP3 discs as well as rewritable. (The Marantz will play rewritable but not wma or mp3 discs) I am in a catch 22 situation...

I have both a Denon and a Teac and to me the sound quality is as good on both of them, slightly different, but that may be down to speakers, acoustics ect. couldn't tell you about FM though, the reception around my way is rubbish and the pirates dominate anyway. I haven't bothered connecting the aerial in on either of them.

You can't plug a ipod into the usb port of the teac - it needs the dock whereas you can on the denon. i know there's other ways of plugging this type of thing in but then you loose the remote functionality and you use the ipods dac and not the systems dac.

The remotes not great on the Teac, slow and sluggish and although you can program DAB stations in you can't recall them using the number keys - you have to scroll through using the left right keys. The Dab info always defaults to what multiplex its on rather than what you last set it to, which is a little anoying

As for turntables, the OP may also have to factor in the cost of a pre amp which start around £25 and go up to "how much"

[rjb101]

Or there's one of these if I've put you off the teac

http://www.superfi.co.uk/p-3431-yama...icro-hifi.aspx

[Gary Brenton]

Originally Posted by rjb101

Or there's one of these if I've put you off the teac

http://www.superfi.co.uk/p-3431-yama...icro-hifi.aspx

I was looking t the Yamaha when I purchased the Denon, but as I don't have an ipod I firstly opted for the denon...albeit the Teac has a sererate facility for an ipod dock. The Yamaha definately looks like it is soley made for ipod's.

Going back to a couple of years ago, I heard that there were problems with the volume control on specific Yamaha units where you would turn the volume up and the sound would decrease and vica~versa of which put me off the Yamaha models. (Aiwa had the same problem many years ago)

To be honest, I havn't even opened the box to try the Teac system yet so I have no idea what to expect....

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I was looking t the Yamaha when I purchased the Denon, but as I don't have an ipod I firstly opted for the denon...albeit the Teac has a sererate facility for an ipod dock. The Yamaha definately looks like it is soley made for ipod's.

Going back to a couple of years ago, I heard that there were problems with the volume control on specific Yamaha units where you would turn the volume up and the sound would decrease and vica~versa of which put me off the Yamaha models. (Aiwa had the same problem many years ago)

As far as I'm aware ALL users of rotary quadrature encoders have had the same problems - regardless of manufacture.

It's a failure of the control, not the unit itself - they wear out.

You can often strip the controls, clean them, relubricate (WD40 does both jobs) and reassemble. Although if you can easily source a replacement control, you may as well replace it while you're taking the old one out.

To be honest, I havn't even opened the box to try the Teac system yet so I have no idea what to expect....

As far as I'm aware Teac hasn't been rated very highly for a good many years, it's probably just another badge these days?.

[rjb101]

Apparently not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEAC_Corporation

But the bits inside all these little boxes may be the same, just tweaked a bit to sound different.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by rjb101

Apparently not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEAC_Corporation

But the bits inside all these little boxes may be the same, just tweaked a bit to sound different.

Notice that same article says "TEAC is known for its audio equipment, and was a primary manufacturer of high-end audio equipment in the 1970s and 1980s"

I don't think Teac has been 'high end' since those days, and I seem to recall it pretty well disappeared for a long time.

[jjne]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Notice that same article says "TEAC is known for its audio equipment, and was a primary manufacturer of high-end audio equipment in the 1970s and 1980s"

I don't think Teac has been 'high end' since those days, and I seem to recall it pretty well disappeared for a long time.

TEAC were very much still selling high-end hifi gear in 2005 when I visited Japan. I saw an SACD player that was retailing for around £2000 at one store.

Indeed a lot of the manufacturers that no longer really deal in the quality end of the market in Europe (Sanyo, Hitachi, Mitsubishi and so on) were still producing expensive high-end goods for the domestic market at that point.

That market still seems to appreciate home-grown, good quality kit (I bought a Canon camera there that was made in Japan when its equivalent in the UK was Chinese). I think, rather than having 'disappeared', these brands have in fact merely retreated.

We've become obsessed with 'cheap' here. Smaller Japanese brands can't really compete. What passes for 'quality' these days is the same cheap, marginal equipment in a pretty box. It's all about the look, the branding and the bling.

Thankfully the Japanese don't seem to have been quite so taken in by this, so with any luck a steady trickle of decent goods will continue to flow from there in amongst the cheap tat.

[Gary Brenton]

I will start from the beginning with my true verdict of this Teac system with a RRP of £250... although I only paid £150 as it is now discontinued.

Opening the 'non-fancy' box, the first thing I saw was the instructions, indoor AM/FM & DAB aerials and the remote control. Having looked at the remote control it looked a bit 'overcrowded' for it's compact size and felt a bit cheap....so I then gave the system the once over and I was impressed with the weight and build quality. The rear has no less than two aux inputs (with record facility) an ipod socket and an optical digital output as well as banana post speaker terminals.

Having plugged it in, the DAB tuner instantly jumped into auto-scan mode and stored every multiplex in my area without missing out any services and the clock automatically used this data to correct itself.

I then tried the CD player on CD-R & CD-RW discs and it played them with ease. The large (but not too over the top) display was easy to read both on DAB and CD. I then tried the USB port of which did take a few seconds longer to read than the CD player.

Now...the final verdict of the FM tuner....

I deliberately did a scan of stations that were weak, but listenable and although these stations were listenable in 'stereo' mode on other tuners, the Teac automatically switches to 'mono' (as it very clearly states on the display) Most weak stations were in stereo apart from a couple. (**note** that this is using a 3 element roof-top folded yagi)

Having scanned every possible station knowing it's signal strength and what type of reception I should be recieving I then tried listening to stronger stations of which one or two again switched to mono for no explainable reason... this is where it becomes strange...if somewhat unbelievable.

I then (out of curiosity) plugged in it's own indoor (supplied) aerial and the reception seemed to improve on the slightly stronger stations with full RDS and even on the very weaker stations of which I would not normally pick up with an indoor aerial. I then tried another aerial of which was the antennae/ rabbit ears type and almost every station came in giving RDS and stereo output which was very strange considering I could not get the same reception with a roof-top 3 element folded yagi which supposed to have a higher gain than an indoor aerial.

The only thing I can think of is that the tuner is overloading - even on the weaker stations. I have decided to add a single exterior dipole for FM reception without any gain to stop the overload. Overall though with the FM tuner I am definately impressed with it's sensitivity and the background noise is as good as zero compared to the Denon.

Overall I am very very impressed with the whole system and it has surprised me really. The audio quality is also excellent on CD/ DAB and FM too. I am using a pair of 'Tannoy Mercury F3' floorstanding speakers and despite it's 25w per channel output, I think this system could really shine even further with a pair of bookshelf speakers on stands with a subwoofer.

My only flaw with this system is the remote control which is a little on the slow side to react at times and is a little mis-detailed...but the 'Teac' brand still lives up to it's former reputation and has brought itself into the 21st century with both performance, build and audio quality!

I personally think an 8 out of 10 rating is acceptable

[rjb101]

One thing about the Teac, it makes a great alarm clock, where as some others only have a sleep function

You can guess where mine is

[Gary Brenton]

Originally Posted by rjb101

One thing about the Teac, it makes a great alarm clock, where as some others only have a sleep function

You can guess where mine is

ahaaaa ...a bit of an expensive alarm clock...but yeah it does have useful 'wake-up' facilities...probably none of which I will ever use

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I will start from the beginning with my true verdict of this Teac system with a RRP of £250... although I only paid £150 as it is now discontinued.

I think the price says it all

[Deacon1972]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

I'm from back in the Garrard 401, SME3009 and V15 era - although I never owned any of them.

A local record shop had them though, along with either a Leak or Quad amplifier (I can't remember which now?), plus a pair of LARGE Goodmans speakers. It used to sound amazing - then when you got the record you bought home it sounded rubbish

I inherited a system from my stepdad in the early 80's, this was a Garrard deck with a SME arm in a SME cabinet, the amp was Linn and had a sued covering, the speakers were Linn sandwich speakers, very nice sounding system, sold the arm a few years back for £100.

On a side note i'm just having my vinyl collection valued, got a few rare releases by The Beatles, some are going for four figures.

[jjne]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

I think the price says it all

If an RRP of 250 quid renders an all-in-one stereo low-end, where does this leave Sony?

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by jjne

If an RRP of 250 quid renders an all-in-one stereo low-end, where does this leave Sony?

£250 is hardly 'high end' is it

Cheap Sony stereos are cheaply made as well - it's really kids bedroom stuff (like the TEAC).

[rjb101]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

£250 is hardly 'high end' is it

Cheap Sony stereos are cheaply made as well - it's really kids bedroom stuff (like the TEAC).

You need to have listen a Nigel, most of these little "shoebox" mini systems are OK. Mostly there 25 - 30 watt rms per channel so there going to struggle in a huge room but the actual sound quality is pretty good in the right sized space.

Your right about the Sony stuff though

[Menoetius]

Originally Posted by rjb101

You need to have listen a Nigel, most of these little "shoebox" mini systems are OK. Mostly there 25 - 30 watt rms per channel so there going to struggle in a huge room but the actual sound quality is pretty good in the right sized space.

Your right about the Sony stuff though

I've sold most of them - Teac, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo etc.
Listened to them with all sorts of speakers, from the likes of Quad, Tannoy, Wharfedale, B&W, Kef and Arcam.
The demo rooms in the store were small, not huge spaces. Listening conditions were ideal for these systems.

Compare them to the next level up, the likes of the Arcam Solo Mini or up again to the discontinued Linn Classik and you'll hear a big difference.

That being said, they're not bad little systems. But as Nigel said, not high end by any means.