RCA RS2625 Bookshelf System with SmarTrax

• 150-watt shelf stereo with 5-disc CD changer, dual cassette deck, AM/FM tuner, and 2-way speakers
• Supports CD, CR-R, CD-RW, and MP3 (on CD-R) formats; 32-track CD programming, random play, and repeat play (1 and all)
• Dual cassette deck records from CDs and radio; digital AM/FM tuner offers 32 station presets
• 5 preset equalizer settings (pop, flat, jazz, rock, and classic); SmartTrax MP3 navigation technology
• Measures 12 x 12.2 x 15.4 inches (main unit) and 9.4 x 12.2 x 7.8 inches (speakers); 1-year warranty

The RCA2625 is a great unit for the price. Which is a little like saying that a guy looks pretty good...for his age. The sound quality is great, and the change-while-playing feature of the CD player is a nice addition. The remote control is full featured, EXCEPT for the tape player: the tape player is mechanical (push buttons). This is not a big deal if you primarily listen to CDs.

The two major design flaws relate to the MP3 player.

1. The player will drop the last two to three seconds of an MP3 file and go to the next one. While this is not a big deal for songs that fade out, if a song remains strong to the end, or if you are trying to listen to speech (say, the Bible on MP3, which is my purpose), it is kind of annoying.

2. The other flaw is this: the MP3 player only supports 16 directories. If you have a CD with more than 16 directories, it will only play the first 16. This won't work for my Bible on MP3, which has 39 directories for the Old Testament, and 27 for the New Testament. And putting all 900+ files in one directory won't work either: it just sits there "Reading" forever.

So, keeping those limitations in mind, this unit is certainly worth considering. Especially for the price!

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This really is a SUPER Audio System. The Price is GOOD, the Sound is fabulous, and it is a big plus that it plays both MP3s, and WMAs. The Remote is very well layed out, and offers almost all comon features right in the palm of your hand. I Deffinently recomend this System.

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I bought this stereo for 3 main reasons: alarm clock (I know it's a little big for an alarm clock, but it works PERFECTLY), MP3 CD, and a radio..

As an Alarm Clock: The alarm clock works very well. You can choose the time it turns on (obviously) the source (CD, Tape, Radio) it turns on to, and what time it turns off. It's very efficent because when my stereo turns off, I know I have to get up then. Also, if you need a little bit more sleep, you can turn off the sleep function for 120, 95, 60, 45, 30, 15 or 10 minutes.

Alarm Clock: 5/5

As an MP3 CD Player: I actually have not have much experience with this, but I know that it is very easy to surf through your MP3 collection with such selections as: Artist, Song, Genre, Your Selection and Album. All sorted alphabetically except for Your Selection. The sound quality is great, no complaints.

MP3 rating: 4.5/5

Radio: Great for the main stations, but it might not pick up all the signals for all the stations in your area. However, all the stations that you can get, you can get good quality. I haven't used the AM radio, just FM.

Radio rating: 4/5

Overall: Buy this stereo. At a good price, reasonably good sound, good MP3 CD playback and all the other features I mentioned, it is a very good deal.

Overall rating: 5/5

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This is my second bookshelf system I have purchased. I would have preferred to buy another Sharp ES-600, but they are no longer available so I read up and decided on the RCA RS2625. I had to return it due to the CD player failing to play CD's. It worked for a week and then it wouldn't read any CD's. The drive unit is a pain. In order to get the CD's out of the unit, you have to continually close the door, hit skip disk, open it back up, and repeat this ridiculous operation until your CD is in the proper location to remove it. The tuner reception is awful, I didn't have a chance to use the cassete deck, but I guess if you don't plan on listening to CD's or use the tuner you might be interested in the RCA. I'll be skipping the RCA's when searching for a replacement.

Purchased @ Wal-Mart for $150. After a while, the CD player kept malfunctioning. Turns out my brother put a mini-CD in there (I took the casing off and removed it). Works fine now. Also, I used to use it downstairs for transferring audiocassette music onto the computer. Worked great. But while it was down there the volume knob broke off.

Over time, the tape player started having problems; I suspect that the heads need to be cleaned, but I never use the tape player anymore, so whatever. I am still able to change the volume with the remote, so I am satisfied with this stereo.