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The MSU-2020's LCD offers a quite legible two-line display with 16 characters per line, and you can set the text to scroll or remain static. In addition to providing useful control feedback when setting various configurations, the display delivers ID3 info from MP3s, CD Text on compatible audio CDs, and RDS (Radio Data Service) text on many radio stations. You can save a total of 30 radio presets--20 FM plus 10 AM. When the unit is off, the display reverts to a clock, which you can choose to display in the 12- or 24-hour format. The Lasonic also includes a sleep timer and a snooze function in conjunction with its dual-alarm function. But for snooze especially, the tiny front-panel buttons are a real detriment--pity the groggy office drone who tries to remember which of the 23 miniscule keys is the correct one to depress at 6:30 in the morning. On the bright side, snooze time is adjustable from 5 to 22 minutes.
We weren't prepared to be blown away by the sound of the Lasonic MSU-2020--and we weren't--but it was certainly as good as if not better than many of the $100 to $300 iPod speaker systems we've heard this year. The default sound is somewhat narrow and thin, but toggling from Stereo to Wide and adjusting the treble and bass helped enormously. The 2020 could go nice and loud without distorting, and bass was decent enough (once we cranked it up). In other words, if you're stepping up from a clock radio or a bargain boombox, you may very well be pleasantly surprised, but don't expect the Lasonic to go toe to toe with a similar unit from Cambridge, Bose, or Boston Acoustics.
We'd like to see Lasonic fix the USB functionality, deliver a more intuitively designed set of front-panel controls, and price this type of unit closer to $150. In the meantime, given that one of its distinguishing features--the USB input--didn't work for us, it's hard to recommend the MSU-2020. As an alternative, for instance, we'd probably opt for something like the Philips MCD702--not a tabletop radio per se, but an attractive bedroom minisystem that offers DVD playback and is available for less than $200.
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