Entered CNET Catalog: 05/02/2006
SKU: 0046838022005
Manufacturer: JVC America
Manufacturer description
JVC ETERNO EX-A10 is a new compact component stereo system, with Two-way Wood Cone Speakers that use wooden diaphragms to take advantage of the superior natural qualities of wood together with its DEUS high-fidelity digital amplifier. This marks the third in JVC's series of "mature audio" devices for the enjoyment of music with even better sound.Product summary
The good: The JVC EX-A10 is a handsome desktop home-theater system highlighted by the sake-soaked birch woofers and tweeters utilized in its furniture-grade cherrywood speakers. Each woofer and tweeter is powered by a separate amplifier channel in the receiver, and the system plays a wide variety of discs, including DVDs, CDs, and DVD-Audio, as well as those encoded with DivX files.
The bad: At this price, HDMI video output and a satellite radio option would've been nice.
The bottom line: The elegantly designed JVC EX-A10 delivers rich sound for movies and music without taking over your entire room.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/23/2006
The EX-A10 is a fairly radical update of the first model to employ JVC's sake-soaked speaker design, 2004's EX-A1. First and foremost, the EX-A10's speakers employ larger two-way (woofer and tweeter) designs, and the system now boasts a more powerful A/V receiver and a separate DVD player. By contrast, the old model employed one-way (woofer-only) speakers and a less powerful combo receiver/player. Those are two key reasons that the new model almost doubles its predecessor's $550 list price.
The JVC EX-A10's single-disc mechanism plays a wide variety of optical media, including DVD video and DVD-Audio, as well as audio CDs and discs encoded with MP3 and WMA files. VCD, SVCD, JPEG picture discs, and DivX video discs are also supported, as are most common home-burned DVD and CD formats. The system provides two-channel decoding of Dolby Digital and DTS audio, and it includes a faux surround "3D-phonic" mode. Setup chores are minimal compared to those of surround-sound HTIBs; you'll probably have everything squared away in just a few minutes. Speaker hookup is a little unusual--each speaker gets two sets of wires, one for the tweeter and one for the woofer.
Operationally, the EX-A10 conforms to a "keep it simple" design strategy. The receiver and DVD player faceplates have just a few buttons, and they won't challenge the dexterity of even fumble-fingered users. We mostly liked the remote, which keeps nearly all of the most used buttons in a logical array near the top. It's just that you have to slide a three-position switch between DVD, Receiver, and TV settings to control those components--a minor kink in the EX-A10's ergonomic design.
As mentioned above, the 4.25-inch wood woofer and 0.75-inch tweeter are easily the most unique design features of the JVC EX-A10 system. The birch drivers not only look really cool, the designer claims the wood provides "an ideal combination of high sound propagation speed and high internal loss." JVC engineers experimented with many types of wood over a 20-year period, but birch wood had the best acoustic properties. Thus, thin sheets of birch are soaked in sake to allow them to be molded into woofers and tweeters.
While the EX-A10 is a stereo system, it has four Hybrid Digital Feedback Amplifiers: a pair of 30-watt amps and two 20-watt amps. The 30-watt amps drive the speakers' woofers, while the 20-watt amps drive the tweeters. This biamp approach is said to offer significant performance advantages over conventional single-amp operation.
The receiver's connectivity options are limited to a pair of analog and optical inputs (one of which is dedicated to the DVD player), as well as an RCA output for use with a powered subwoofer. There's a built-in AM/FM tuner, but unlike the $400 Onkyo CS-V720, the JVC is not XM ready. The DVD player has standard video output jacks (composite, S-Video, and progressive/component), but we were disappointed to find the DVD player lacked a HDMI output, which is quickly becoming standard issue on even bargain players.
The system's refined sound was well suited to straight dramatic films such as Good Night and Good Luck and Crash. The JVC EX-A10's home-theater skills are exceptional for a subwooferless compact system. We even subjected the minisystem to a bout with the Flight of the Phoenix DVD and were satisfied with the sound; it was detailed, dynamic, and remarkably spacious. The speakers' ample bass has enough oomph to fill even moderately large rooms of up to 300 to 400 square feet. Dialog was articulate and full bodied. The most obvious limitation was volume on highly dynamic scenes. During the last DVD's harrowing crash sequence, we could sense the little speakers' inadequacies--it works best at moderate levels. While you can add a powered subwoofer to the system, it won't significantly improve the EX-A10's overall volume capability.
CDs, especially of acoustic jazz and pop music, sounded rich and full. Standup bass had the sort of "woody" acoustic naturalness we associate with pricey high-end speakers. Rock music was somewhat less satisfying, but it you really want to rock out, a desktop system, even one as accomplished as the JVC EX-A10 won't be the best way to go. That said, the EX-A10's home-theater chops are more or less on a par with those of many small 5.1-speaker HTIBs we've tested. All in all, it turns in spectacular home-theater performance for such a compact system, and it will appeal to buyers who would like to avoid the hassles of placing a subwoofer in their rooms.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3out of 3 user reviews
Very musical
Pros: Excellent CD player and amp, lively and detailed. Looks chic too.
Cons: Clunky remote, weak tuner.
out of 3 user reviews
chic little bedroom home theatre
Pros: nice sound and finish. prestigious. looks good on your shelf. speakers look like expensive little monitors.
Cons: wacky remote control - press and press to no avail until you find out you have to toggle from 'dvd' to 'receiver'; silly unergonomical spherical volume button; what's that "bass adjust" for? underpowered.
Updated on Aug 25, 2009Pros: nice sound and finish. prestigious. looks good on your shelf. speakers look like expensive little monitors.
Cons: wacky remote control - press and press to no avail until you find out you have to toggle from 'dvd' to 'receiver'; silly unergonomical spherical volume button; what's that "bass adjust" for? underpowered.
Summary: 50w/channel rms is perhaps insufficient for watching films some films which are recorded lower than music cds. thse wood cones and their paltry 82db/w (in)sensitivity ... you need MUCH more wallop. my usual film-watching volume in my 160 sq-ft living room is at around 90% power, only adequate for making out what is being said. but what there is sounds really good : it's the closest i've come to hear resembling a system from the '80's composed of lynn kanns / sondek (sic) which were perhaps a bit 'airier' and more nasal especially in what concerned piano reproduction. and had a heftier clout of a price tag! if not when cranking the volume.
out of 3 user reviews
Great design but badly flawed
Pros: Above average sound for a desktop. The treble is sweet, not particularly extended but not fatiguing either. Female voices are liquid . Upper bass is incredibly tight and tuneful but enough lower bass to give the impression it's there. Good depth too!
Cons: Very weak tuner, tried 3 antennas including a premium one and it can't lock in cleanly to FM stations. No HD radio. Because of rear vents speakers have to be kept away from rear wall. Male voices sound cupped -imagine making a trumpet with your hands
The final conclusion: for all the technology that went into designing this unit in the end it's still just a Japanese mid-fi and overpriced as such. The midrange coloration spoils what could otherwise have been a sincere taste of hi-fi which would have justified its price. Without that taste this is just another expensive lifestyle toy.
Updated on Apr 18, 2009I meant so say ONLY enough lower bass to give the impression it's there .... but that's the best compromise when using tiny speakers.
