Summary:
This system kicks a lot of punch for the price. It's very easy to hook up and is very user friendly compared to most receivers. If you turned the fisher all the way up you'll come pretty close to going deaf but my point is why do you want to spend all the extra money for a receiver or a more powerfull shelf system...so you can go deaf. My point exactly. I think this product has no weaknesses when except if you want to go deaf or if your that lazy to flip the cassete over. It's a great product for the price!!!!!

Strengths:
The 7 band spectrum analyzer and the sound performance are the biggest strengths. Some other strengths which I liked about this product is the full logic cassete deck(where you can operate the tape deck from the remote), the CD player loads the fastest compared to some of the Sharp and Phillips Magnavox systems. This machine has a lot of potential for the price.

Weaknesses:
The biggest weaknesses I see in this system is that it doesn't have auto-reverse cassete deck, but for the price what do you expect. But it doesn't bother me that much because...is it that hard to flip a tape over. I don't think so. This unit doesn't have a 400 watts of power like my receiver did but I'll tell ya one thing this product sounds just as good as a 400 watt receiver with the only difference is how high the volume can go. The shelf system goes load enough...louder than I expected. In my epinion if you wanted any louder than you mine as well classify yourself as deaf.

Similar Products Used:
The products I've used in the past where seperate pieces of equipment. I'll tell you one thing...this product took me less than 20 minutes to get it up and running whereas the rack systems I've bought in the past took hours to hook up and on top of that it was a pain in the rear to plug all of the equipment in. Avoid the hassle and go with a shelf system.

Summary:
I've grown to hate Fisher products. I remember how badly their VCRs were put together. I've also heard how their audio equipment were not up to par with their competitors. And now, with the acquisition of Fisher by Sanyo electronics, I've basically condemned Fisher products. That is, until now. I've just purchased a Fisher DCS-M420AV minisystem after returning my Pioneer VSX-D457. I originally was wanting to set up a component system in my own bedroom but figured that a 100 watt receiver was overkill for this particular purpose. Seeing that I'm a 17 year old on budget, I wouldn't be able to afford decent speakers for the unit anyway. That was when I decided to just go with a mini-system. I've seen units from Aiwa, Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Sharp, Philips/Magnavox, Marantz, Yamaha, Bose, Pioneer, and then I see the Fisher on sale. At first, I never considered the Fisher because of the bad rap they earned. I was thinking about Sharp but also remembered how awful their quality was. I really wanted the Panasonic home theatre set, but I was not able to afford it. The same problem with the Panasonic also existed on the JVC, Sony, etc. I never really considered Philips/Magnavox since they were better known for their video equipment. That left the Fisher, which offered what I needed for what I what I was able to pay. I wasn't sure of their quality, but I reassured myself by thinking that at least Fisher product quality is better than the no-name pieces of crap from GPX, Newtech, Emerson, and all the other lame brands. I went ahead and bought the unit. Upon opening the box, I examined the build quality. It looked pretty sturdy, using mostly metal parts for the mechanisms and housing than the cheap and flimsy plastics which have plagued mini-systems. So far, so good. I try to take a look at the circuitry using a flashlight while peeping through the ventilation, the boards looked like they were constructed very well for a budget mini-system. I set it up and I become pleasantly suprised by its sound quality. The bass was very responsive, the mids and highs were very well defined, and the sound was crisp and clean. Dolby Pro-Logic performance was also very good. Tape deck performance was decent, although it lacked Dolby noise reduction. Compact Disc audio quality was very good, although it is not the best. But the CD quality was more than adequate. My only dislikes: the lowest frequency response is only 40 Hz instead of 20Hz, the universal remote will only operate other Fisher brand equipment, no noise reduction, no manual adjustments for the graphic equalizer so you're stuck with the pre-programmed equalization settings, no Digital Signal Processing so you can't make the audio sound like it's in a church although this is no big loss since mini-system DSP is usually pretty lousy anyway, no Dolby Digital scalability, noisy CD changer although this doesn't bother me since I like machine noises, the bass could be more powerful but is more likely because of the stock speakers but they sound better than most other systems in the same price range, and the typical stock speakers even though they sounded very good to me but I am aware there are better speakers. My likes is the 7 band graphic analyzer, the decent audio performance, decent stock speakers, good CD player quality, solid build construction, decent Pro-Logic performance, the
subwoofer pre-out, and decent tape playback quality. To me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages since the cons are mostly because of the lack of features. In fact, the sound quality seems to rival some component and rack systems I've listened to! I am very satisfied with this machine. The overall quality of this unit has led me to believe that Fisher has most definitely improved in their quality. If you are looking for a good budget home theatre mini-system, look no further. Congratulations Fisher! - Reinhart