Price Paid:  $204.00 from my leisure whilst sh

Summary:
Haven't got it out the wrapping yet but what a cool box! If I was homeless, its the sort of box I'd aspire to live in.

Strengths:
Colours

Weaknesses:
Corners

Similar Products Used:
A box I had from some washing powder

Price Paid:  $165.00 from circuit city

Summary:
Great styling; rich, organic sound; excellent FM sensitivity and selectivity; expensive relative to other executive stereo systems.

Strengths:
Incredible sound: rich bass and clear and sharp treble. Fills medium-sized room easily with no distortion at maximum volume. Liked it so much in our bedroom, that I bought another (from "etronics.com") for our living room.

Weaknesses:
None.

Price Paid:  $180.00 from Circuit city

Summary:
We were very wary of buying another mini-system based on our getting screwed with that POS Sharp. We visited several local "chain" retailers until we came upon the Panasonic. I knew and trusted the brand and we tested it in the store against similarly sized but much more expensive brands. We chose this based on the look of the unit, the sound and the price. We are very satisfied, (so far.)

Strengths:
Size, sound, price.

Weaknesses:
Remote won't work around corners, I know this is nitpicking but I haven't found any other "complaints."

Similar Products Used:
Sharp.

Summary:
First of all: I have a lot of Panasonic products, but that didn't make me an Panasonic fan. After 5 years of using their audios I know some strengths and faults of their equipement.
Actually I do not have PM03 (which is PM01 with facelift). But I heard it and I was impressed by the sound.
I put this here mainly because of the previous review. The 'NO DISK' problem CAN have as cause the wrong set on of CD. The unit cannot spin the CD, so the 'ND' message will apear on display. Solution: check the middle hole diameter on your CD (not all CD's have the same dimensions!!!) and, if you dare (as I do!) enlarge it. I never get wrong with that: all my 'problem' CD's go now smooth and fine after this treatment.
... but if you don't know what you do, give it a rest!
I hope this can help anyone who had the same issues like the previous.
Happy listening.

Strengths:
Small box, open top CD, sound

Weaknesses:
Blue display

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic SC-PM15

Price Paid:  $179.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I went around a few local stores and found that the most diverse selections were between Best Buy and Cicuit City. Best Buy had Sony's, Aiwa's, and the Panasonic...Circuit City had a larger vareity..Sony, Aiwa, Onkyo, Sharp, and the Panasonic...

I listened through all of them..even the ones I knew I wouldn't buy [because i was limiting myself to a $200 price including the tax on these micro-systems] to use the more expensive ones as a reference...but I actually didn't check their prices until I had listened a liked the sound. I just listened to the radio stations on them at first, but was disturbed by the amount of distortion coming through just about every station on just about every unit...I assumed that it was due to their location within the store and such. Based on those "results"...Like the Sony CMT-EX, the Onkyo, a JVC, and the Panasonic....It would seem like an obvious choice because the Panasonic was the only one within the price range I was forcing myself into. But I wanted to be sure. I came back with a few cd's...TooL's Lateralus, TooL's Undertow, and A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms...for various reasons...being that TooL are my fave and that Undertow was mixed quieter than most cd's...A Perfect Circle's cd sounded somewhat "stale" at times through my own cd player, a walkman, and my pc which has pretty bad ass Klipsch 4.1 speakers. The main thing i was lookin for was the sound had to be "organic" i guess and be able to be loud without having to turn it up all the way...if i could pass this in a wide open store, filled with linoleum and metals and plastics, i could easily work well at home. From trying out the cd's in the store they all sounded somewhat similiar...the JVC easily had more bass because of its subwoofer, the onkyo as well had more bass because the woofers within each cabinet were larger than any others [i think they with 5in]....but the onkyo was well over $400, and the JVC was up there as well...It was down to the Sony CMT-EX and the Panasonic SC-PM03...Since the sony wasn't noticably different in the store in sound and since the eject button [for the vertical loading cd player] was obnoxiously sensitive and since i would come out about $150 "richer" I went for the Panasonic.

Since Circuit City's sale was over...i went to Best Buy to get it at the same price and not have to wait for them to get it out of the back and such like at Circuit City...
I got home a couldn't wait to set it up....It was up and on with 5min...I was so anxious i overlooked the manual and did it myself...Luckily nothing went wrong...yet...I was happy to see my assumption was correct about the radio...The radio sounds full and pristine on fm stations...i put other cd's in a was totally pleased...i felt like i truly had spent my money well...I messed around with the bass and treble controls and found perfect settings for different settings...ranging from soft classical, to pounding japanese drums, to incredibly brutal and heavy metal like Slipknot and Mudvayne. I tried everythingi could at the moment...classical, funk, rap, rock, metal, and some ethnic stuff...I also hooked up a 20 year old tape deck my dad has had over the years and it worked just fine...so my parents were especially happy when it played their old Arabic music tapes...
fast foward...about twelve hours...and i press play assuming my tool cd is in there and it says "no disc"...i put my cd a cd in and then pressed play..."no disc"...i tried i my cd's and left it off a couple of hours, unplugged a little while, checked the lens...nothing...it just wouldn't attempt to spin my cds...i called in customer support the next morning and talked to a guy who said that it was obviously a defective unit and offered to hook me up with a local technician...i decided to return and exchange it for a new one...to see if it was the unit itself or the whole line...i got it hooked it up...[this is the 2nd one] and played stuff on it like the first one....twelve hours later..it still works...and now 3 weeks later it still works...hopefully it will stay that way....

now on to the remote...at first it was annoying because i couldn't go through the radio stations manually and make presets from the remote...but once i had a few station presets it wasn't a problem or annoyance anymore really...

I am basing my rating on the 2nd one i got....

Strengths:
Sounds awesome, loud enough, looks beautiful, typical remote...

Weaknesses:
remote cannot function alone only, speaker wires could be longer...first one didn't last 12 hours...

Similar Products Used:
Sony CMT- RB5, Sony CFD-G50, and some Aiwa in the XR series...