Hitachi AXM71 Shelf System

This is an old model now but picked it up for just £45. For the price and up to any micro unit around £150, this is an excellent product.

The bass is very good (much much better than the Panasonic micro system I had before) and it's a 2-way system so the high frequencies are not bad either.

So the overall sound quality I like. But it also goes loud enough - 50w per channel. I am using it in a 15x13 foot bedroom with hard floors and it fills the room well enough, I don't need to turn it up anywhere near maximum (haven't even tried!).

Another great thing it has is additional inputs for auxiliary sources - so connect it up to your TV and DAB tuner if you have one. This flexibility makes it more than just a lifestyle system, it has the potential to be the amplifier for a number of sources in a room.

What else? Well it looks cool and as it is a proper seperates (amp + cd are physically separate boxes) you can stack it vertically or side-by-side. The speakers are compact but quite deep which probably explains the good bass they produce.

The system is good enough quality that if you really wanted, you could upgrade the speakers and get another increase in sound quality, but I didn't find that necessary.

In conclusion, a great all-round compact system with excellent sound quality and upgrade flexibility.