Philips DCM109/37 Cube Micro Music System Dock for iPod/iPhone

• Enjoy your favorite music; iPhone or iPod music playback and recharge; Play MP3 or WMA-CD, CD and CD-RW; USB Direct for easy MP3 music playback; FM digital tuning with presets.
• Superb sound quality, Dynamic Bass Boost for deep and dramatic sound, 2x5W RMS total output power
• iPhone compatibility Compatible with: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS
• Audio Playback; Playback Media: CD, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3-CD, WMA-CD; Disc Playback Modes: Repeat or one or all or program, Shuffle Play, 20-Track Programmable, Fast Forward or Backward, Next or Previous Track Search
• Convenience; Alarms: CD Alarm, Radio Alarm, Sleep timer, USB alarm, iPod Alarm; Clock: On main display; Display Type: LCD; Backlight color: WhiteAccessories; Included accessories: Guarantee booklet, MP3 Line-in cable

I've had this thing for about a year because I needed some kind of stereo system in my room; I like to have music playing when I sleep. One of those things. I've used it mainly to play mp3 CDs and occasionally hooking an mp3 player or my computer through the auxiliary port. Oh, and the radio. All these things have worked well. Maybe the sound isn't spectacular, but if spectacular sound was that important, I would've spent more money on a sound system. I've never used the iPod dock, because I do not own an iPod and have no care to.

Just recently I gave the USB port a go, and I've had some problems with that. First of all, the connection feels really lose, like the flashdrive could just fall right out. It jiggles around in there an awful lot. But the music played just fine, the sound was equal to that when played through any other way... until I realized it was skipping some songs. I came here to see if anyone else was having this problem, and apparently it doesn't recognize songs purchased from Amazon. Now, I get a lot of my songs from Amazon because I don't care much for iTunes either. I don't know why this happens or how I could fix it. It's not like I'm going to take this thing back because generally I like it, but I want it to play all my music too. I just want to let everybody know that it does have a problem with certain kinds of music through the USB. Four stars because really, everything else about it is perfectly fine, I'm just annoyed at this USB thing.

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I bought this unit because it has the functions I wanted, and it's dimensions fit in my constrained space on my kitchen counter better than the Sharp, Teac, and JVC units that have my required features, even though I think all the other brands are probably better in many ways. This Philips unit sounds pretty good even with the included speakers at low volume, but I actually use the headphone out going the several other amplified speakers for really great sound. First the other good points, before I go into several aspects that are seriously stupid! It looks good, has a very nice display readable from across the room (when powered on; in standby it's not so easy to read), it has low standby power which if you know how much money you can waste powering things in standby is very important, it has a quality remote control, and can display lots of information about the MP3 tracks. Now for the stupid: 1) If you switch from USB to Tuner (or anythign else), and then switch back to USB, it doesn't remember where you were on the USB, it doesn't remember that you were in Shuffle mode, and takes a long time to "Read" the USB drive before starting over at the first file on the USB drive!?!?. 2) Same thing if you are in USB, and turn it off and back on!?!? 3) In order to navigate to a desired track (file) you must know either the Folder Number, which it assigns in some order, and the Track Number within the selected Folder, or what it considers to be the Overall Track Number (which is different and never displayed so you don't know what it is) for all files on the entire drive, because when navigating, it doesn't display the File Names of Folder Names, or anything else you would recognize (just the numbers). Once you stop navigating and stop on a track (file) it will display the file name ONCE only then display it's default screen of the track number within the folder, along with the elapsed time of the track, which it has now begun to play. 4) there is no way to navigate to another track while playing the current track, as soon as you start to navigate, it stops playing the current track, and starts playing a new one as soon as you stop navigating, instead of wating for you to press Play, like it should. 5) All the time a track is being played, instead of scrolling all the wonderful information it has on the screen, it only shows you the track number and elapsed time (like who cares?), and in order to see all the track information, you have to press the Display button, 1 or more times, and then it only scrolls the information ONE TIME, then back to track number and elapsed time!?!? 6) Every time you power the unit on, it goes back to having DBB (bass boost) ON, instead of OFF if that's how you left it. 7) Like others have mentioned, it won't play many MP3s from Amazon, but I was successful in getting almost all of them to work by converting them using Easy CD-DA Extractor into 128bps MP3s. That's enough said. I continue to use it, because it basically gets the job done, but some really easy-to-do software improvements from Philips could make this unit way-way better!!!

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I just received the product on Friday after ordering Tuesday evening. I was pretty excited about the prompt delivery. After I removed it from the box and set it up I immediately started playing all different types of music. After only 2hrs. of play the speakers started distorting. I never turned the volume past 16. I will be repackaging the radio and shipping it back. Not to happy.

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I ordered this for our daughter for Christmas. Arrived last night and I had a chance to play with it a little bit to make sure it worked OK. I did not test all functions, as I did not have time... so please consider this a partial review. I just thought I'd post what I know right away in case anyone else is considering this as a Christmas gift this year.

Easy to set up. All you have to do is plug the speakers into the main unit and plug in the power cable. Don't have to be an audiophile to figure that out. When you first turn it on, it asks you to initiate the auto-tuning of the FM presets. This takes a few seconds, during which it finds the strongest FM signals in your area and presets them. FM reception seemed pretty good actually, especially considering that I was doing this in our basement.

CD player seemed to work fine. The thing I was most interested in was USB playback. Here's the thing... if I were to buy a music player that integrates ONLY with the Apple iPod, then my daughter would have to actually own an iPod to use it. Personally, I think iPods are overrated, and I certainly couldn't justify buying one for over $200 for a 9 year old kid. A USB stick is much more economical, and if she loses it, no big deal, as they only cost a couple bucks. We're also buying her a cheap Coby MP3 player, which has a direct USB connection like a USB stick, so she can take her music with her or listen to it on the Philips Cube. So anyway, USB playback was important to me. I tested with my own USB stick, preloaded with a bunch of different songs, some downloaded from Rhapsody, some ripped by me, and some downloaded from Amazon. The Rhapsody songs and those I ripped played back just fine, but for some reason it would not recognize those from Amazon. Not sure what's up with that. After Christmas, I might try transcoding them to WMA files or different bitrate MP3s... I think there are free tools on the web to do this.

I was able to set the clock, but didn't have the time to play around with the alarm function. I'm sure she'll want to wake up to music, so I hope this works well...

Generally, the sound quality was decent. At this price range, you have to have realistic expectations. The speakers are not good if you try to turn the volume up very loud... the volume doesn't seem to go very loud to begin with, and they start to distort at higher volume levels. But at reasonable listening levels, the quality of the sound isn't bad. There's actually more bass than I expected. High frequencies are lacking, but the mid range sounds decent. There's a little bit of hiss at all times, but it's not too bothersome. Again, you have to have realistic expectations for a machine that does so much at this price range.

Anyway, for the price this is a pretty good deal. I don't know why more manufacturers don't make music players that take a USB stick. It's such a convenient and inexpensive media. I'd like to see Philips make an upscale version of the Cube... give it better speakers (make it a little bigger to accommodate those better speakers), a little more power, and wood cabinetry instead of plastic. I'm sure the price would be higher than the $99 they get for the current model, but you'd have a really nice little system.

I'll try to post more information after she opens it and gets it working this Christmas.

I purchased this unit a couple of days ago from a local merchant. The quality of the sound is up there, but the directions in the manual is in the new short hand. It does not disclose that you will have to reset everything you do every time you turn the machine on. And, well, the machine never actually turns off...it goes into standby, I guess. This they also forgot to disclose, unless I am missing a page. Will it last for at least six months, or will all the lights burn out? At $110 what should I expect? It's hard to say.