Product: Philips Emotive Micro Audio Systems Price: HK$2,490 Pros: Wacky styling, sharp sound, plays MP3 files Cons: Poor bass, no optical output
Thanks largely to the popularity of online file sharing, the ubiquitous MP3 digital music format is finding its way into many devices - from mobile phones to the home stereo system.
The most striking feature of Philips' new line of Emotive Micro Audio Systems is they are packaged in three different, rubberised styles with distinctive names - Matt (red), Blast (silver) and Gloss (green).
The promotional material suggests the system is composed of three contoured units, but there is a fourth, slightly smaller box containing the power adaptor.
Set-up is simple and the speaker wires are jack plug-type rather than bare-wire connections. The 50-watt (RMS) amplifier, two-way bass reflex speaker system and three-inch full-range woofers offer above-average sound quality.
As far as performance goes, the system did justice to jazz tunes, with high-pitched notes sounding fairly sharp and crisp, but our techno discs were a bit of a letdown, mainly because the bass notes were only reasonably - and far from impressively - resonant.