Sony CMT-CPX22 Review

Overall Rating

Looks good, and sounds good!

Horrible User interface. Useless features and remote. Slow and awkward controls. MP3 playback limited.

When I saw the Sony CMT-CPX22 at the store between all the other "Micro-Systems"; I noticed that it not only looked the best of the bunch, but at 200 watts, it had the best sound quality and loudness. After giving up $299 and driving it home, I was still impressed with how it looked and sounded in my bedroom.
Now a year later of daily use, and I find that the CMT is the most unsatisfying, non-user friendly system I have ever owned.
BIG GRIPES:
1. The Remote: It is severely limited in what you can do with it. You can't open the CD tray, You can't manipulate the sound, it only turns up and down the volume, The buttons are way too small, unevenly spaced, inconsistently sized and crowded, making it very difficult to use without looking at it. There are tons of extra useless buttons that serve no function whatsoever. Also you can ONLY do some functions with the remote, such as sleep mode, alarm and clock set. Not good at all.
2. The CD playback: It is incredibly slow and noisy when switching between CDs, or from Tuner/Tape or AUX mode to CD mode. You can't fast forward or reverse MP3 tracks, and it only plays 1 type of MP3 format, so no WMA files can be played. MP3 playback was also very slow to read the CD initially, and sometimes entire tracks would not play at all for no apparent reasons. It also DOES NOT list TRACK NAMES (big annoyance). However, with some store bought CDs, newer than 2004 (I think), it can display the album and track names on the CMT's screen. This is odd because this feature is not even listed in the manuals. It is also an inconsistent feature that slows playback as well, so it's not even a good thing.
3. The Tuner: AM is virtually non-existent, even with the AM antenna plugged in. The station presets are plenty (20 in all), but impossible to use because the remote control has no number keypad to jump right to that station. It only scans the range that you preset, so to go from preset 2 to preset 19, you have to scan through all 17 preset stations in between, which is the same as if you didn't preset anything in the first place. Like most other features on the CMT, such as the display dimmer (for an already dim and small display screen), the preset feature is utterly useless.
Apart from these gripes: I did find the sound richness and quality to be good, somewhat loud, with a nice bass. Overall build quality is good. I did however have problems with the CMT powering off 2 seconds after it was turned on, and SONY's warranty covered repairs, however, SONY shipped me a new refurbished unit (minus my Cd's that got stuck inside the original unit), and SONY didn't fail to leave huge silver "REFURBISHED" stickers all over the top, sides, and rear of the replacement unit.
Anyway, I'm selling mine on EBay this week, and shopping for a Sony MHC-GX9900 unit.
Even for all its looks and sound quality I cannot recommend this unit for the price that it is listed for.