It’s not that easy with MP3. First, the notion of a folder is altogether absent. MP3 files can be played either sequentially or randomly. There is no third alternative. Any navigation about the disk is completely missing. The screen is not graphical and cannot display file names, not to mention the MP3 tags. These two minuses transform into one big disadvantage: to listen to a certain file, you have to know its number! The same goes for listening to a certain album. Thirdly, you can switch between tracks only by browsing through them! You cannot type in a number and jump straight to the desired file.

The playback of MP3 disks was good. I didn’t check all possible MP3 bit-rates, but the most popular - 128, 160 and 192Kbit/s - worked well. There were no problems with CD-R and CD-RW disks, as well as with 80mm media. Even an old 80mm CD-RW disk was read without errors.

A funny thing about WMA files... Having swallowed the disk, the MEGA wrote «SH». It means «wrong format» in its own lingo. It did try to play the files, but without much success. After a second of trying, it switched to the next track and so on. So, you cannot play WMA files. Well, no one actually promised this, but it was worth a try...

There is an equalizer, although only in the way of four presets: Normal, Pop, Classic and Jazz. Funny, the visualization in the LCD screen changes depending on the preset in use. Here is how it looks:

Normal

Pop

Classic

Jazz

The sound quality was up to the mark, at least, for me. The equalizer proved to be a glitchy thing, though. For example, “hard and heavy” music was noticeably wheezing with the Pop preset :). It also wheezed with Classic and Jazz presets, although less perceptibly.

Besides the equalizer, there is one more function - SRS (Sound Retrieval System), which «dramatically improves the quality of ordinary stereo» as the user manual claims. I wouldn’t judge whether it is dramatic or not, but the sound did improve (again, to my taste). Despite the availability of the card-reader, the MEGA cannot play flash cards, which is an inconvenience for people who store music on memory cards (owners of PDAa and some MP3-player models).

Yet another inconvenience is that the settings of the music box are dropped to default when the power is turned off. This is irritating when the electric mains go down or when you want to move the MEGA into another corner of your room.

So, the verdict is simple. You can use the MEGA as a music box, but only for impressing your guests or when you have very little free space and a standalone music box is too big for you. Or if you only need two things: a basic CD/MP3 player and radio, while other things are unnecessary.