PHILIPS FX10 Bluetooth Stereo System with CD Player

Great sound, it gets loud, I had to turn it down, got a noise complaint, yeah, that awesome.

I’m blown away by the quality and volume of this small system. At this price point, I thought it would be fine for my office to play some low key background tunes but this little guy brings the heat – it gets LOUD without sacrificing sound quality. Different modes made the sound even better and there is a bass enhancer if that’s your thing. CD player and Bluetooth connection to my iPhone is all I need. Bluetooth took maybe 5 seconds to connect. Speakers easily plug into back of receiver so the only question is where to place the system – or to maybe buy another system for my game room. Remote works perfectly with simple buttons. It’s probably worth double what I paid. Highly recommend!!

Good quality and value

Paid $170 for it, so all information in this review is based on that price point.

To give you an idea of the kind of listener I am, as a lifelong musician/composer/producer I’ve gotten pretty picky over the years about sound quality. I listen to music pretty much all day 40 hours a week and have been using only headphones for it for years, (I cannot recommend VMODA’s Crossfade Wireless 2’s enough!) so when I switched jobs and found myself able to be home for work I thought it would be fun to have the option of listening on actual speakers too. The genres I listen to the most are:

– Metal of all kinds but mostly symphonic metal (Dimmu Borgir, Mechina, Fear Factory, etc – it’s very fast metal with an entire symphony or a load of keyboards playing at the same time, so very sonically rich/complex)
– Drum and bass (Black Sun Empire, Doom Poets, Technical Itch, Upbeats, Misanthrop, Hive, Skynet, KYROS, etc)
– Original movie scores / trailer music (mostly symphonic and some choir elements)
– Rap/hip hop (mainly old gangster stuff like Mr. Doctor, Dre/Cube, etc)

Here’s what I was wanting / expecting when I went looking for a stereo and eventually picked this one, and then how it matches up to my expectations.

Transparent sound / clarity – 4.75 out of 5.

To me a good set of speakers or headphones is better the LESS they change the sound of what I’m listening to. I want to hear the music as clearly and closely to the original mix as possible. To be specific I don’t mean I want a WIMPY sound with no definition – I want a system that STRONGLY pumps out the sound so I can clearly hear every element, but the way the original engineers meant for it to sound. For the most part this system kicks out strong, very clear sound.

But the reason I knocked a quarter point off is that I really don’t understand why there is no way to TURN OFF the EQ function. In case you’re not a raging audiophile nerd :), the way the EQ function works in all stereos is that it routes the original sound through an audio processor that then changes the sound around to match each EQ setting’s target (for example, “ROCK” EQ presets usually crank up the bass and treble and cut the mids, “POP” usually pushes up the mids and emphasizes vocals, etc). However, the reason that can sometimes be really bad is that someone has ALREADY very obsessively tuned every sound and moment of what you’re listening to in order to make it sound as good as possible – the original engineer who mixed the record. So going with our original example, if you’re listening to really heavy metal and the engineer has ALREADY engineered it to have heavy bass and high elements, trying to stack another change to sound on top of that can sometimes make it end up sounding crappy or not clear. It’s just frustrating to have what’s clearly a fantastic amplifier > speaker > box setup, but be unable to pipe sound through it without the unit changing it.

I should make sure to say it still sounds amazing, but I would have really liked a simple option to turn off the EQ (or if they’d just included a “FLAT” setting).

Speaker Response / Accuracy – 5 out of 5

If anyone reading this is wondering what I’m talking about with speaker response, I’m referring to whether or not the system can handle pumping out music with a lot of complex elements at extremely high speeds while maintaining an accurate picture of the overall sound (in other words, it doesn’t get “muddy” or “sludgy” sounding). This system does this excellently and in fact is much better at it than I expected. For reference check out something like Dimmu Borgir’s “Maelstrom Mephisto” or Mechina’s “Praise Hydrus” – both songs with a massive variety of sonic elements, and it blasts those out perfectly (and can get pretty freakin loud doing it). Both of the above songs sounded amazing even when pushed pretty hard.

Build Appearance and Quality – 5 out of 5

The visual styling is definitely making a loud statement (that statement being “I’m futuristic and tech-looking and belong at home in a game like Deus Ex”), and it’s something I personally love since the techwear/futurist aesthetic complements my already futurist-ish office setup. The quality of the build seems quite solid as well – head unit is all framed in metal and is relatively heavy (a good sign…means the internal components aren’t cheap garbage). The speaker boxes are definitely a touch above your average bookshelf speaker and certainly seem durable enough. I don’t think there would have been any harm in putting grilles over the actual speaker cones…but provided you don’t have Gremlins throwing ninja stars around in your office, I think you’re good 😉

Bass Response / Low Frequency Handling – 4.90 out of 5

The bass response is 85-90% perfect and in fact is really quite remarkable for a system that doesn’t have its own dedicated separate larger subwoofer. I’m actually pretty impressed at how low the frequency response goes on this thing – it slams drum and bass way harder than I was expecting, and even symphonic death metal comes through super clear and slamming with a clean but powerful kick drum sound. The only reason I knocked off a tenth of a point was that (only in very specific tracks – “Dark Helmet” by Doom Poets/Technical Itch is one example) the lowest end of the sound very slightly bogs/clenches up because the speakers are trying to push out bass that is probably a little lower (frequency) than what the speakers are actually capable of reproducing. But reminder…I’m being pretty picky about this, probably…and I’d bet 98% of people wouldn’t even notice or care.

Doohickeys / Bells and Whistles Features – 3.0 out of 5

I honestly don’t personally care almost at all about these kinds of features but thought I should be thorough and rate them in case anyone is interested. So what I’m lumping in here is additional options like “Bass Boost”, “MAX Sound”, etc. The features themselves are fine and work just fine, but here’s why I give it only a 3. Both of these features have been bog-standard in stereo gear for as long as I can remember (at least 20-30 years), but stereo companies just keep re-naming it and claiming they’re some kind of innovation LOL. “Bass Boost” (aka MEGA Bass, Thump Bass, Super Donkey Bass, etc) has been around forever. All it is is cranking up a certain couple of low end frequencies. And “MAX SOUND” (aka Loudness, Loud Boost, XTREME!, Planet Crusher, etc) is nothing new either – it’s just effectively cranking the sound so it makes it “sound” louder (which by the way almost inevitably makes it sound worse). Both of these features work just fine on this unit and the Super Donkey Bass does punch clearly. But the reason I gave it 3 stars is that for something branded and sold as a “mini hi fi system” they could have at least included a few “fake surround” modes or something.

Connectivity / Input Options – 5 out of 5

Very impressed with the wide range of ways you can pipe music into this thing. USB, CD, aux in, Bluetooth, (and the CD player handles MP3-only data cd’s too, I believe). Input options this rich should be standard on all stereo gear, honestly.

Overall Score – 5 out of 5

For what I paid for it, what I use it for, and the things I care about it doing, I give it a 5 out of 5. Given the price point the only reason I could possibly think of NOT to buy it if you’re in the market for a system is if you really hate the visual styling (strong black and gold color schema with an inescapable futuristic/techie slant). And then you’d REALLY have to hate it because this is a killer system.

El sistema de Audio Phillips es realmente unico, a pesar de su tamaño compacto suena bastante fuerte, tiene mucha potencia y un estilo agradable, muy recomendable y asequible!!!.

I selected this for an older couple who are my best friends and had wanted a better system to play all of their media. Once I set it up for them, they were enraptured by the sound and feel that all my advocacy over paying the higher price for the system had promised for them. At last report, it still plays well and they love the sound and ability to play the media they have. So, as long as the system has a good life expectancy, I would heartily recommend this system despite the prices we have all come to expect from discount stores; more often than not, we do get what we pay for.