Thomson was the pioneer in introducing a 5-in-1 model into the Indian market, which was an instant success. Many other players have joined the fray. The price element, combined with the fact that a full-fledged audio system, and not a player, was in question, caused the customers’ mind to tilt in favour of this model.
The audio frequency response of the set is tremendous, but the same cannot be said of the speaker response. Voice clarity is superb. The speaker response is mainly affected by the shape and size of the enclosure which gives the base frequency response similar to that when a speaker is placed inside a pot. If you take out the audio line out connection, and connect to a good-enough system, you’ll get a tremendous response.
The VCD performance is not bad, as far as scratch disc playability is concerned. The MP3 player requires a recording of 64KBps plus, for proper reproduction. For low voltages, a stabilizer is recommended, specially for VCD usage. The product has now expanded into a range now. The one that I have has a display which is on the top of the product and not on the front. For more user-friendly usage, especially when choosing from 1 of around 150 MP3 songs, it is better to have the display on the front side. In the new models in the same range, I saw some which have this feature.