Panasonic SC-PM77MD... one of the best Mini Systems I've ever tested.

I'm a bit of an oddity here on this site... I'm that one guy who on a portable audio forum likes to talk home audio gear... but not proper home audio gear, just the stuff that is barely larger than a battery operated boombox but must remain plugged into the wall. So, by talking mini systems and shelf systems, I'm talking gear that is too cheap and puny for the home folks, and too large and bulky for the portable folks! Seriously though, after delving head first into BOTH of Sony's first Qbric units from the 90s (links down in my signature), I have fallen in-love with these high-end consumer mini systems from Japan, and I occasionally grab 'em when I can find them cheap online.



Even after all of the Sony Pepz, Qbric, and Pixi systems I've seen, this Panasonic SC-PM77MD released in 2003 may just take the cake for the very best mini systems I've ever handled and listened to. It has great sound, fantastic build quality, and all of the features you could possibly name. It's also insanely practical compared to some of the more weird Sony concepts released around the same time. This system was sadly a Japan market only product... not released in the US or Europe... but I will say similar looking units made their way to the US from Panasonic that didn't have the MD drive. I bought mine new old stock from Japan Mercari, so it arrived sealed and untouched inside.

Now, I was specifically drawn to this system for 2 reasons: the quality of the build materials, and the shear amount of features it has. Before I jump to my build quality observations, here is a quick rundown on the overall specs:

• 5CD Disc Changer
• MP3/WMA/Hi-MAT format support
• MD & MDLP Player/Recorder
• DUBBING from CD to MD at 5X speed
• AM/FM Radio
• USB PC Audio support
• Auto-Reverse Cassette Recorder with Track Search & Blank Skip (TPS)
• MD-NETWORK LINK
• AUX IN
• 25W+25W BI-AMP Output (Low range: 13W+13W High range: 12W+12W)
• DSP & EQ Modes (2 Virtual Surround Modes, 5 EQ Presets)
• Conveniently placed Headphone socket on front
• Remote Control

So, this thing basically has everything you'd ever want... and then some. I don't think I'd ever use all of the features this thing has (for instance, the USB connection for PC audio), but it's nice to have something so versatile and feature rich for future use and flexibility!



So now for the build quality. Starting on the inside, I was quite surprised how well-built the entire machine is. The tape mechanism has a proper flywheel and electro-magnetic erase head, plus the CD changer mechanism is fairly heavy and well-engineered. Everything on the cassette side is also full logic controlled, which was hard to find in 2003. On the circuitry side of things, Panasonic decided to use quite a few of the Nichicon Gold Class capacitors throughout this unit (even on the power stage). There are also plenty of the Nichicon red and green caps to be seen as well. Finally, I found plenty of heatsinks on transistors and audio components that get hot which is great for longevity. This thing was clearly built to last. The build quality on the outside is also fantastic as well. The speakers while being that classic early 2000s vinyl wrapped MDF are still very high quality, and having two speakers per box with separate wire and amp drives is a major win for sound quality (more on that further down). The sturdy metal posts on each speaker box combined with the rubber grommets on the speaker covers means that even at high volumes, the speakers will not rattle. I also love the beautiful circular brushed aluminum plate on the CD changer lid, as well as the mirrored plexiglass screen that makes the display text blend in to the mirrored finish and the display panel itself nearly invisible to the naked eye. It is all so carefully considered, and for a simple mini system (especially one from the early 2000s), it appears bespoke, intentional, and as something undeniably high end.



I guess it should come at no surprise that the build quality is exceptional, as this was Panasonic's flagship model for 2003 in this category. Based on the print ads and catalogue shown above, they were very proud of this product, and marketed it quite hard in Japan. I just love the hero shots shown here, and I have to say, that white model is looking particularly clean and fresh. I can't imagine this product was seen as a cutting edge device, and I'd also believe that this product category was rapidly shrinking by this point. I know from experience that Sony's compact systems from this time period were not marketed with this amount of attention to detail, nor were they particularly well made or nice to look at. So way to go Panasonic for making something so beautiful and high-quality at a time when it wasn't as easy or as profitable to do so.



So, it's built well, has plenty of features, and looks great... but what is the user experience like? Thankfully, using it is easy and simple with no confusion. The 4 main glowing buttons on the front panel are the 4 'play buttons'. Having a separate play button for each mode (CD, TAPE, MD, AM/FM), instead of just one play button is a great way of combining a function selector and a play button into one action, and you don't have to play guessing games at what the play button is going to do in a given scenario. It's also nice that the volume dial glows, I think it kind of separates the most important high level functions from the rest.

The display also really shines with this unit. It's a beautiful screen, and it shows a variety of information in FM and MD modes, such as the artist, album, and track titles of MDs, FM station messages, and custom preset names. The display also has a cute little graphic of a tape, MD, or CD depending on which mode is active and what media are in the drives. Finally, the screen shows secondary information, such as what EQ/surround mode is active, what MiniDisc play mode is active, and what direction the auto-reverse is currently in.



Unfortunately, the user experience with the display gets considerably worse with CD and tape modes. For CD mode, CD TEXT is not supported, and all you can see on the screen are the words 'CD PLAY' and the track number and time elapsed/remaining. This is a huge misted opportunity, as CD TEXT support would have made the 5X MD dubbing really that much better. I mean... why would you show MD text, but NOT CD TEXT?? On tape mode, you don't even have access to a tape counter of any kind... WHY?? Furthermore, if you want to do any MD dubbing or recording, you must input each character of each track by hand using the remote in edit mode, you can't transfer the CD-TEXT data to MDs. They must have thought about this... right?

In short, I think the overall user experience and usability is good, and it's certainly on the easier side to use, but the lack of CD TEXT support or even a tape counter really bothers me.

I'll finish up this post by touching on the audio quality, as it's kinda a mixed bag. The speakers themselves are very powerful and deliver clear and balanced sound with excellent bass and treble, with just enough mids to get by and still sound pleasant. It can get very loud without distorting or sounding harsh, and more importantly to my suspected main demographic for this thing (which is Japanese tiny apartment dwellers), it can sound really good at extremely low volume levels that have no chance of disturbing others. The volume control and balance is unusually precise at near quiet levels.

Where things start to go awry is with the 4 presets and 2 surround modes available. Both surround modes aren't too bad, with Music Surround being the best of the two. When Music Surround is enabled, you can freely move out from away from the unit and feel like the sound is spreading throughout the room (as long as that room isn't too big). It's a neat feature that a lot of these Panasonic mini systems from this vintage had that I find myself using from time to time. Theater Surround mode is a bit pointless to me, as this unit has no way to handle video or DVD, so you can only really make use of it by running a TV or DVD analog audio signal through it. To be clear, Theater Surround mode is not a proper DTS or Dolby 2.0 decoder, it's just a simple DSP that randomly spaces out certain frequencies and sounds. With music, Theater Surround mode makes the sound signature way too reverb heavy and unclear.

The EQ presets of Vocal, Heavy, Soft, and Clear are even more random. 'Clear' and 'Heavy' sound really poor to me, with both presets boosting the normally respectful and punchy base sound to extreme muddy levels, and 'Clear' in particular makes any treble frequencies very harsh and overdone. 'Vocal' is just ok, and offers slightly more mids than the other presets. 'Soft' is the best EQ, and when listening to the system at very low volumes, 'Soft' fills out the base and mids perfectly. Honestly, aside from 'Soft', these EQs are really bad, and Panasonic should have either left them out completely, or just made them less dramatic. To sum it up, I'd say if you stick to no EQ or surround presets at normal volume, and 'Soft' at low levels, you will be listening to one of the best sounding mini systems around, but start playing with the other EQs, and things will go south really fast.

That's pretty much all I got to say about it! It's a great sounding, compact system that also happens to have a ton of features. I'm really happy to have this one in my collection, and I doubt I'll run across one feature rich or well built in a good while.


Please enjoy this awesome commercial for it, featuring Ayumi Hamasaki. I think the music and art style really echo the design of the device and what it's like to use it. Understated elegance. Effortless and precise.

 

A picture of the innards! Thanks for posting, I was struggling to find time to take mine apart again for some shots. Look at all that gold! Those caps were money back then... too bad they don't make em anymore. That same blog also has a Sony from the same time that the same guy was repairing... build quality was not like this at all.

The display *looks* like a bunch of tiny LEDs, but it's just actually a normal VFD. If you turn the lights down or off, you can see the heaters glowing slightly through the mirrored front panel.

 

Very nice! I never got into minidiscs, so I wouldn't have gotten that. I got this one instead, back in 2002:

Panasonic SC-PM27 shelf system with subwoofers! SA-PM27 mini stereo