Technics SC-EH50 Review

Overall Rating

Excellent sound quality, slamming bass, flexible ins/outs at the back, suprisingly good cassette deck for a mini system, build quality & reliability, good integration between units.

Annoying remote control, annoying graphic equaliser, 3.5mm headphone socket

Slamming, bassy sound that's also refined. The SC-EH50 is a 4 piece seperates-style mini. 2x70watts RMS, via Class H+ amplifier which basically means it conserves power intelligently to allow big power swings far in excess of the rated power - it works too, because dance music in particular comes storming out with no distortion at high volumes... dynamics! Three way speakers with 3D splitted gizmo are a bit unnecessary and I'm thinking about getting a cheap pair of hi-fi speakers (Acoustic Energy or something like that) to improve the sound quality.

It works well as a mini system, with automatic CD-cassette recording, sleep mode, play and record timers, but also offers many attributes of seperates. For example, general quality throughout in terms of sound and build, two auxiliary inputs and a line level output.

However, the remote control is irritating - stupid buttons like equaliser on/off and lack of important ones like a CD pause button (essential when the phone rings!) The sound processor section is unnecessarily complicated, featuring a 36-preset "acoustic image" mode (bass and treble) where I'd rather have several manual equaliser presets. The hall surround mode seems tacked-on and is more remeniscent of a Panasonic mini than a grown-up Technics. Actually I'd rather have bass and treble knobs, with a bypass button for better sound.... but it is a mini system after all.

Overall though the system served me well for 4 years now, and its build quality and reliability have been excellent. Nothing broken, no duff tape recordings, even the speakers still sound the same as when they were new - testimony to Technics build quality.

Members' Comments onAlligator.'s Review

• paul. on 30th Apr 2002

  you commented on the technics system, but do you know of anywhere that does extensions for the leads that connect the system together as i find this very annoying that technics shld be dictating how the system stands as i do not have enough room for it in the place that i want it

• Alligator. on 25th Feb 2003

  You're right - the flat cables are too short to give you complete flexibility. The best option is probably to make your own extensions. This might be easier said than done because you'll need to find out what type of connector they've used then actually find sets of connectors for each extension you want to make. It's now some time since I wrote the review, and the system is still going strong, and sounding great with the Cambridge Audio DAB300 digital tuner that I've just added!