I opted for testing the Boston Acoustics MicroSystem CD in the designed environment – my bedroom. I could have taken it to the theater room but really, that isn’t what it is meant for. It was designed for a smallish, intimate room. So I plugged it in, stuck in a few CDs (one at a time mind you) and relaxed. And after my nap, I sat up, drank a little coffee, and repeated the whole process.

Rives Test CD 2

I bought this CD long before I ever did a review for Audioholics and I’m certainly glad I did. It has come in handy for testing frequency response, for examining room problems, and for listening tests (with its included high rez recordings at the end). This time, I was just looking to get a handle on how low this MicroSystem “clock radio” could go. Much to my surprise I heard a little output at 50 Hz! It was low, but it was audible. The next two test tones (63 and 80 Hz) had much more volume but were accompanied by the constant whistle of air rushing through the two rear ports. It wasn’t until 100 Hz that I got good clean bass output without any port noise. For a clock radio, that’s pretty darn good!

Blue Man Group – CES Swag

While walking through the Venetian Hotel during CES, we were all handed a demo CD by the Blue Man Group obviously meant to get us interested in going to the show. It contains four tracks:

1. Drum Finale Throwdown (from live shows)

2. Let it Ride (crappy song that should never be listened to twice… or even once)

3. The Complex (from The Complex CD/DVD) read the review

4. Klein Mandelbrot (from Audio CD)

Obviously, I skipped track 2. I’m intimately familiar with track 3 from my review of The Complex and the rest are just really good Blue Man material. Lots of fast percussion, low bass, and great use of the stereo/surround formats best describes their music. It is high energy and very interesting to listen too.

Well, kids, I gotta be honest with you. Yes, it presents a stereo image but unless you have your head in that 6 inch space between the two speakers you aren’t going to hear it. What I ended up doing was lying on my bed perpendicular to the front, facing the unit, staring at the display. From about 4 feet away, I still experienced a stereo image. Anything past that and the imaging just collapsed. Off axis response was pretty good with a bit less volume and zero imaging.

I’d rate sound quality as a 10 on the "vs. other clock radios" scale and pretty good overall. I am not at all disappointed with how the unit sounds in general. Vocals and the bass seemed pretty good though the high end was a bit attenuated. I noticed a muted quality to cymbals that is an obvious sign of a rolled off top end. Dynamics were decent considering the size of the drivers and the amount of information they were being asked to reproduce. What was really nice, though, was the amount of bass. I ended up fiddling with the Bass trim knob as I had the unit fairly close to the wall (there are no hash marks so if you want to remember your setting, you’re going to have to grab a pen or something) which tightened up the bass considerably. After adjustment, I can honestly say that I was more than just “pleased” with the amount of bass – I was impressed. This unit provides a big sound, one that easily fills a bedroom. It owes much of this “wow” factor to this bass response.

Recommendations

For a product at this price point, I’m going to expect a lot. Luckily, the Boston Acoustics MicroSystem CD has a lot to offer. I do have a few suggestions though:

• I would rather that the dimmer sort of gradually adjust to the lighting conditions rather than flicker from one state to the other.

• As I mentioned, the presets should be band independent (AM and FM intermixed)

• Having one or both of the speakers be removable would seriously improve the imaging ability of this unit, though it might break up the elegance of the design

• A backlight for the sleep button could be useful
  

Conclusion

Someone one day decided that there was a market for high-end devices to wake you up in the morning. They figured that people might be interested in higher fidelity than the grating, harsh, compressed, monosyllabic drivel that comes from your “off the self” clock radios. I don’t know how big this market is, but the Boston Acoustics MicroSystem CD is a product that delivers. We all know that the MicroSystem CD is competing against a firmly establish, widely advertised product (they even have the same MSRP). But when you look at the specs and features, almost without exception the Boston Acoustics wins hands down. It will wake you up… no matter how much you don’t want to. It is pricy, but at the very least, you are paying for a quality product without any fancy gimmicks or marketing snake oil. Just don’t let your boss know about it. They may want to get one for everyone in the office! And that will be the end of all those “but my alarm didn’t go off” excuses.