After my bad experiences with another Sony hi-fi (and I use that term cautiously) I was slightly dubious about getting the CMT-NE5. Sony offered it as a replacement to a CMP30 which had packed in after just 18 months of light usage. I haggled to get it for a knock down price of £35 so it would probably be a bit cheeky of me to grumble about it! It normally retails for around £129 in the likes of Currys.

First off, it looks neat and compact and the distinct whiff of wood leads me to believe they've used a real wood veneer on the the speakers. Quality touch. The sound, all round, is reasonably good for a machine of this price but don't expect miracles. There's no equalizer to shape the sound only two buttons for an inadequate choice of bass and treble settings; they only go up to '3'. There is, however, a button for a setting that's grandly called 'Dynamic Sound Generator X-tra'. My advice is to keep this switched on as without it the sound is weak and lacks 'poke'. Why they simply didn't just incorporate this as an integral part of the amp is beyond me; it's probably another selling gimmick. The best thing about the CMT-NE5 is that it plays MP3's and the display is fairly informative as to what artist and track is playing.

Generally speaking, this is a competent and pleasant sounding micro-system that would be happy in the bedroom or office. For serious listening, however, I think it's lacking as at even at a healthy 20W RMS per channel output it's still sounds underpowered.