The speaker system in ours is a 5 Watt (RMS) twin speaker set. The only thing
that was really better about the TSX-140 was the fact that their speaker
technologies uses 4-way speakers, rather than 2. That said, Panasonic has used
some quite nice trickery in thee systems which, when you tweak the
configuration, can cause the audio to actually surpass that of the Yamaha.
The amplification circuitry is, I can confirm, digital. As is most relatively
high end audio equipment manufactured today. But it's possible to place too
much emphasis on that and sometimes I wonder whether people really would,
putting two relatively comparable systems side-by-side, be able to hear the
difference even assuming one uses digital amplification and one high-end
analogue incorporating distortion filtering technologies.
As for our problems with the 140, had the seller bothered to honour his
obligations without causing us to fight for our basic rights under UK consumer
law, we'd have simply had it replaced. Overall it's a nice unit although
looking back I'm quite pleased we now have the Panasonic instead. One
compelling reason for that was the price. The retailer Lynne mistakenly opted
to buy from charged us £349.95 GBP for the TSX-140. Another seller she found
later was only asking £269.95 all inclusive for the same unit, the Yamaha
TSX-140. The Panasonic cost us exactly the same, £269.95 which just goes to
show that one should shop around before buying and I think Lynne learned a
valuable lesson there. :)
yes, this machine has AirPlay. It also has a button marked "WPS Pairing" whose
function I'm not sure of at the moment. But as far as AirPlay is concerned, setting it
up was something that Lynne found easy. I need to do some research to find out what the
WPS Pairing button actually does, because Lynne used the menu system to set up Airplay.
It also has a very interesting design which has allowed them to make the CD
player and the iPod/oPhone dock easier to use. The front panel comprises of a
12-inch square display which slides to the right, at the touch of a button,
providing access to the iPhone/iPod dock and the left when you want access to
the CD player. Once you've inserted your media or your iOS device you can
optionally have the screen slide back to the centre or leave it open, which
ever you like. That system pugs the Yamaha's system to shame actually. The
dock on the Yamaha is exposed by removing a plastic cover which you need to be
careful not to lose. The CD player on the Yamaha was alright, I must admit.
Although again the way Panasonic has come up with on this is better because it
means that no dust or air moisture can get into the unit. The clock on the
Panasonic is also better, as it picks up the time from DAB or DAB+ transmission
whereas the Yamaha had to be set manually. The alarm functions on both
machines would appear to be inaccessible. In the case of the Yamaha you slide
a switch from Clock Set, Normal and Alarm Set. The Panasonic's alarm is
configured via a menu function I believe. The sleep function on the Panasonic
is also configured via menu which is a bit of a shame, although I can't
remember how this particular function compares with the Yamaha.
The case of the Yamaha is dreadful in comparison to the Panasonic we now have.
It's made from cheap and nasty plastic made to resemble chip-board. That said,
the Yamaha did have its good points. Some of the functions of the Panasonic
have to be accessed via menus, whereas most of the Yamaha's were touch buttons.
I'm definitely not taking pot shots at the Yamaha, before anybody jumps
unnecessarily to its defence. This isn't about my toy's better than yours. :)
The acoustic chamber technology which Yamaha uses is very definitely a plus
point although for our needs it doesn't really matter that much. I submit that
what you can't hear doesn't matter all that much and what I get out of the
Panasonic in terms of audio quality is at least comparable to that of the
Yamaha.
The antenna input on the Yamaha was far more easily accessible than that of the
Panasonic. They both use 6MM F-connectors but the Yamaha's in on the back,
whilst the Panasonic is located in a recess and faces downwards. The Panasonic
offers either desktop or wall mounting, whereas the Yamaha is only desktop
mounted. Again, that's horses for courses, and at the moment we haven't
bothered mounting ours on the wall. That might change, I don't know yet. The
dual-function dipole shipped with the Yamaha is of a really flimsy design. It
has two rubber hooks on the end which you're supposed to fit over small tacks
or other mounting material. That could be specific to the UK model because I
believe different regions transmit their digital radio broadcasts in different
parts of the spectrum. The dipole that ships with the Panasonic isn't much
better actually, and you're advised to mount it using adhesive tape, (Not
supplied with the unit), which is almost nonsensical.
The source control on the Yamaha TSX-140 is a rotary control, whereas the
Panasonic employs touch buttons. That makes life easier if you're not using
the remote control as the Yamaha doesn't have an end stop so it's possible to
mistaken activate the wrong source. Again though, there are work-arounds on
the Yamaha.
There are a lot of other pro's and cons with each model, but the one which
really stuck out in my view is the sensitivity of the respective FM and
DAB/DAB+ tuners. In the case of FM, the Yamaha wins the battle hands down.
Using the same type of antenna mounted in exactly the same location with the
same orientation, the Panasonic wins the battle in terms of DAB/DAB+
sensitivity.
My one major gripe regarding both of thee models is that they use a common
antenna input for both FM and DAB. This is very inefficient over here because
of the different bands we use for the various functions. The FM broadcast band
on the Yamaha was 88.00 to 108.00 MHZ. With the Panasonic, it is 87.5 through
109.00 MHZ. Off the top of my head I forget about DAB frequency usage. It's
also a little difficult in some respects trying to gage the sensitivity of a
DAB receiver because it isn't possible to receive anything other than locally
transmitted DAB signals. The multiplexors throughout the UK use the same
frequencies country-wide, so all BBC local radio uses its own multiplexor for
each region and the transmitters dictate what the receivers do when switched to
a specific channel.
The only realistic method of gaging the performance of your DAB receiver, and I
totally accept that my methodology was quite crude in this regard, was to tune
through the various DAB signals to find out which ones are distorted and which
are not, which ones are received on one machine and which were not. I didn't
have the two machines side-by-side which, to be totally fair, would have been
the best comparison. All I could do was go by memory of how the Yamaha
performed.
With practise, Lynne thinks that it shouldn't be too difficult for me to memorise the
functions of each menu on the new Panasonic. One good thing is that each menu has its
own control on the InfraRed handset so, for instance, if you need to enable the repeat
function for CD playback, you press a button whose name is "Play Menu" on the
handset. The radio menu system is only accessible when the source is set to radio, which
makes sense. Like the Yamaha, the Panasonic can handle audio content via USB. However,
it has a couple of huge plus points which are not available on the Yamaha. Because the
device incorporates AirPlay functionality, it can also handle a lot more audio formats,
such as MP3 (VBR and CBR), Wav, FLAC, WMA, Quicktime Movie and M4a/B/MPEG. You'll notice
that I included Quicktime Movie. That was no mistake. And the reason for that is that
the Panasonic also allows you to play video content from an external device such as a USB
hard drive or memory stick.
I am, as some on list might remember, not the type of person who immediately
dives for the user guide when I get a new device like this. However, I won't
deny that having the guide available to me in this instance would probably be
very valuable. That said, the user's guide that comes in the box is
astonishingly thin, and the print is so small that even Lynne who has excellent
vision had some difficulty reading parts of it. When I tried to scan it, no
matter which scanner, which OCR software and which operating system I used, I
haven't been able to find anything which is capable of recognising the
unusually small print font they've used. I also have to admit that Yamaha UK
were unusually helpful in terms of providing me access to their documentation.
They actually created a PDF version of the manual that was not encrypted for
me. The reason for that being that the downloadable version was multilingual
and split into columns. Because of the encryption they have used, it wasn't
possible to OCR that and remove the additional languages, or even to load it
into some readers at all.
With regards Internet radio, yes the Panasonic we have does support this.
However, as you rightly say it's not really accessible. To me, nothing could
matter less. I already have what I need for Internet radio on another device
and as has been discussed on list before now, that device is totally
configurable to the user's requirements. Added to which is the fact that I
rarely use Internet radio much these days anyway. When I/we do use it, it's
only to listen to one of about 3 Sky.FM channels and, as I said, that is
already set up on another device. I'm far more concerned with other media and
the Panasonic gives me access to all of that without issue.
Finally, I can't remember which CD formats the Yamaha TSX-140 supports.
However, the Panasonic has no issues with CDR/CDR-W/CDR+W so that's not an
issue for me. I still have a lot of experimentation to perform before I can
claim that I've discovered all of the good and bad bits with this machine. But
so far I have no reason for serious complaint.
Anyway I am rambling again. I'd be happy to continue this discussion off list
is anybody is interested. Again I'm trying to be very objective and I'm
certainly not saying that the device we now have is better in every respect,
because it isn't.
Gordon
On 26 May 2012, at 13:15, Dane Trethowan<[email protected]> wrote:
Yes, I had heard that Panasonic had lifted their game with regard to their
Micro systems.
I'm sorry you had difficulty with the TSX-140, I still have my Yamaha TSX-130
here and wouldn't part with it.
Regarding the Panasonic I had been thinking of buying it had nice extras like
Bluetooth though Panasonic had taken some shortcuts.
For example, the Panasonic model I have talks about Internet Radio? Yes, it
does have that though you have to use the IOS Panasonic App with your IOS
device connected to bluetooth to get it working, that alone didn't worry me
however what did annoy me was that the Panasonic app which tunes the Internet
radio and controls many of the Panasonic's features was inaccessible, so much
for that!
Quality from Bluetooth streaming is okay! but still nowhere near as good as what you'll
get from an "Airplay" System.
With the Panasonic I had there was no indication as to what sort of amplifier
it was using, whether that be digital or anoalogue, I know my Yamaha uses a
digital.
Anyway was disappointed with the Panasonic I had so didn't go any further with
the purchase and thankfully I was able to try it before handing over any money.
Again I stress that this was just one model I tried and what Panasonic models
are available here are certainly different to what may be available else where.
Now my opinion on the best sounding Desktop Hi-Fi system? No going past the
Bose range, yep you pay for them but you hear the difference, just unreal.
Second to that are Altec Lansing, both Bose and Altec Lansing blow the common
house-hold brands out of the race and so they ought to with the prices
charged<smile>, just proves you pay for quality most of the time.
On 26/05/2012 10:05 PM, Gordon Smith wrote:
Hi all
This is just based on my initial findings.. However, I wanted to post to see
if anybody is interested before I go further.
So, here goes. Just before Christmas Lynne bought us a Yamaha TSX-140 desktop
audio system. Unfortunately, that system went wrong and, after a protracted
dispute with the Amazon seller she bought it from, we eventually got our money
back.
On Thursday of this week, Lynne and I went to a local retail store and started
looking around at their range of available systems, of which their were many.
Eventually we opted to chance our arm on a Panasonic system. This particular
system was priced at 90 Pounds less than Lynne paid for the Yamaha, although in
all fairness I later found the Yamaha on a different site for the same price as
the Panasonic. Anyway, feature-wise, the Panasonic blows the Yamaha out of the
water, just as it does in terms of design and the sound of its audio
reproduction. I'll list more if anybody is interested. But I'm very pleased
with our investment.
Gordon
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