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.

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

I could not find the SC65 on Technics website but was able to find that this is actually a British/Irish version of the product. It does have a few less features than the SC70. I got a warning when setting up that this was a model for another country but the install went fine and everything worked well. No worries about the plug. It is standard 110 U.S. plug so a bit of a mystery there. You have to download the Google Home App to connect to your network. It seems they could have included that function in the Technics app. After setup I deleted the Google Home App. Not fond of all the personal info it required. I found that I did not need it other than for setup unless I wanted to use Chromecast apps. I primarily use Apple AirPlay so no big issue for me. Setup was overall not bad. There were a couple of firmware updates that took a while to load and install. As far as sound...this sounds great with certain types of music. Vocals forward and minimal instrumentation music sounds deep and spacious. Wall of sound music seems bumped in certain frequencies and minimized in others so those songs are missing something and don't sound the same as my full stereo or my car stereo. I will need to explore more in the Technics app for options to balance the sound. I did and still have some issues with the Technics App. Deeper functions on the unit require the app. I have changed bass and treble settings but there is no noticeable change to the music so I ended up putting back to flat as they were. I will need to do more research on that. I did find myself sitting in front of it over the first few nights I had it exploring some of my old playlists. It does have a rich sound that is not lacking in bass or clarity. As an all in one unit it is reasonably easy to place in a room. I did find myself wondering how much better is this really than a high quality bluetooth speaker for the money if you are only using music apps. This unit does have a really nice CD player, radio, and is obviously more audiophile quality than a BT speaker but you have to consider your primary use for it in terms of it's value to you. Overall I am pleased with it.

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.

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.