The Emerson GM522 Karaoke Machine - Reviewed

I am getting really fed up with the lack of quality in products we've purchased lately. So I thought hey I'm gonna write about the ones that suck and the ones that rock -- this way you can hopefully put your money to better use then we did.

The first item up is the Karaoke machine I bought my daughter for Christmas on ebay. I usually don't buy stuff online because it costs way more by the time you pay for shipping and customs but I wanted the latest Karaoke machine and I couldn't get it at the local Toys R Us here in Canada. I didn't pay full price but I didn't pay much less either, I was short on time and didn't need the extra hassles of waiting out bids that end up near the price anyway. By the time it went through customs and was delivered I had to add another 50% of the cost to the machine. Turns out the ebay seller just drop ships it from Kmart.... lesson one, drive across the border its cheaper.

The first issue ... the microphone that comes with it doesn't work very well.... you have to almost swallow it for your voice to come through. We had a professional quality mic already so I didn't worry to much about the crappy mic.

The next issue ... it worked good for about a month then all the CDs started skipping and whiting out the screen and the lyrics kept writing over themselves. Now it skips all the time and barely can play one bar without skipping. My daughter isn't dancing around and when it started was sitting in front of the machine reading the lyrics as she sang them. I watched her today and she just stood there reading the lyrics and the machine kept skipping the CD. I changed CDs a number of times but it didn't matter - it is definitely the machine and not the CD.

She loves playing with it so much I have to get it fixed somehow. I'm going to try calling Emerson and see what their client service says. Failing that - I don't know what to do, any suggestions?