Ottava All-in-One Music System SC-C65

Great sound!! ***NOT IN THE MANUAL - to obtain input from the auxiliary jack push the right arrow button until the input. Have the device playing so you can hear it when sellected.

Just received unit from Amazon. I have a couple of questions that I need answered before I decide whether to open it or return it. In trying to get the answers by calling Technics support, I have discovered that they have none. Be wary of buying a Technics product. Their support web site says they have live support, but they do not. The have managed to remove all phone numbers. I called Panasonic support and was told they do not handle Technics products. I have never seen a company that has been this good at removing any means of contacting them.

Short of it is that the sound is pretty good and looks very good. Maybe a little too much form over function. Headphone jack is a little anemic. Better options are there unless you want a built in CD player. Additional thoughts: I wanted a desktop all in one system that could stream as well as play CDs and look classy. I considered Cambridge Audio Evo One and the McIntosh RS250. Neither of those has a built in CD player. I debated whether I should get an external player but, in the end, just decided to go with the single unit for simplicity. The wired 3.5mm headphone jack was nice but, sounded thin. I didn't have any issues setting it up, it updated itself with the firmware and I was able to use the Technics app. The remote control is very light, large and feels cheap for such a nice unit. The power plug juts out the back a little too much... until I realized the rotating CD cover needs more space in the back to fully open making the plug issue irrelevant. Wish I could've pushed it back to the wall a little further. Overall, I am happy with it. Update: Well, it's really grown on me and I'd add another 1/2 star if I could. Just really easy to listen to a cd. I will say that the front slats, the side edges are a little sharp. Not like it will cut you, but if you grab the unit near them, it will poke your hand.

This unit is EXCELLENT ! GREAT sound, looks GREAT in our livingroom, FM radio reception is GREAT!

For starters, I’ll say the sound is definitely above average. It has an impressive amount of bass (not wall-shaking but very capable full-sound range) for the size of the unit. I’m not audiophile level but I would say I’m a music enthusiast and have high standards. I wasn’t astounded by the sound, but definitely feel that it’s more than adequate in almost any setting. So from a sound point, it’s probably an 8 or 9 out of 10 at minimum. Sound quality aside, the rest of this device is just baffling for something with a price tag just shy of $1,000. For starters, it looks nice and somewhat retro but I think they forgot to think about making it usable as well. TINY LCD: It only has a TINY little LCD screen that tries to pack in a ton of information in an unbelievably small font. Unless I’m standing or sitting within 3-4 feet of it, I can’t read most of the content. If you’re planning on putting it somewhere and then only operating from directly in front of it or within a few feet, you’re not going to have any idea what mode or setting is currently running. When sitting on my bed, I can read anything on the LCD while it’s sitting just beyond the foot of my bed. So I have no idea what is going on unless I physically move over right next to the unit. Maybe they were going so “retro” that they wanted you to go back to the days of standing up to change channels and adjust the volume with an on-board knob. Who knows! APP CONNECTIONS: I thought that it probably wouldn’t be a big deal because I could just control everything with an app through bluetooth. So I finally figured out how to connect it and found out that you have to hook it up to Google Home which basically gives you a volume dial and that’s about it. You can’t change modes, adjust settings, or any other day-to-day operations. You can select it at a sound target from the iPhone (meaning you can play directly from Amazon Music, YouTube, etc). But that’s no different than a dumb bluetooth speaker that costs way less than this device. I was extremely disappointed to find a lack of app support for switching input modes, sound settings, etc. REMOTE CONTROL: I then thought I’d try out the remote to update things. However, the remote has some really poor layout design and is also frustrating. First of all, it’s about 1 ½ times the size of my iPhone 14. It’s way oversized for what it does. It’s not a lighted remote. So if you’re in the dark and trying to fumble around with the mode switcher, it’s located on a VERTICAL button instead of a HORIZONTAL button. So trying to go between modes requires you to press the TOP to go Right and the BOTTOM to go Left. But it’s sitting by itself in a huge area with nothing to the right and left of it. Why couldn’t they just use a horizontal layout so it was more intuitive to go left / right to navigate the menus? It’s hard to remember which direction the top / bottom does to the menu. And there aren’t specific buttons to instantly jump to a certain mode. You have to cycle through all the modes one by one until you get to the one you want. But as I mentioned earlier, you can’t see what mode you’re on unless you’re standing right next to the unit. So why even use the remote at that point? And several other tiny round buttons are just oddly placed around the remote. It feels like it was rushed together at the last minute without any thought to how people would use it. VOLUME CONTROLS: Whenever I tried to use this system as an output for a TV, phone, or other external device, I found that the sound would jump many levels by a single press of the TV or phone volume buttons. So it would jump large volume ranges with a single press. So I could never dial in a good “low” volume for night listening. I ended up having to have my phone AND the huge Technics remote on hand to control volume which was just frustrating. I shouldn’t have to use 2 devices to play and control volume with a device of this price point. MODES: There are a lot of modes (many of which I didn’t bother to even test because of how cumbersome it is to navigate around the menus and inputs. I’m assuming many of them are great but it’s so annoying to switch between modes, I didn’t want to ever leave Bluetooth mode for fear of not being able to find it again by sound rather than sight. I could probably keep going but it’s just not worth it at this point. From a sound quality perspective, it’s a 4+ star product. For everything else, it’s really a 1-2 star. And that’s astonishing given the price of this item. In all honesty, I’d say the sound quality would be well worth a few hundred dollars. But I wouldn’t ever pay that much for it because of how cumbersome every other aspect of this is. It’s just not something I’d find myself using on a regular basis since it’s just a glorified speaker. I’d be much better off spending hundreds on a Sonos speaker or something that comes with tons of options and better connectivity.

This thing is GREAT! It looks and sounds wonderful!

I think this might be primarily designed for people who want to put this under a computer monitor that doesn't have speakers. It sounds nice, but because the speakers are next to one another, the whole experience is of having just one speaker. So it really only makes sense to have this immediately in front of you if you're sitting at a desk, so the two speakers are effectively aimed at your ears. But my computer already has high quality speakers in it. And adding speakers to this would just be silly, since it's really just the speakers that are expensive on this, I presume. Also, most of the controls are on the remote control, which is annoying if you're right next to the receiver already. So, yeah, this seems like a very niche product that could otherwise be attained with much less expensive separate products.

El Ottava SC-C65 tiene un diseño atractivo y un sonido bastante decente, pero lamentablemente lo terminé devolviendo. El principal problema fue su mal funcionamiento con Spotify: aproximadamente una de cada tres canciones se detenía abruptamente, lo cual resultó muy frustrante. Además, no entiendo por qué marcas de este nivel no se esmeran más en desarrollar aplicaciones eficientes y versátiles. Irónicamente, he visto apps mejor diseñadas en amplificadores chinos mucho más baratos. Una decepción para lo que promete ser un sistema de gama alta.