$500 mini system suggestions, Bose need not apply


Hello all. A friend of mine is a Speech Pathologist. She works with children and adults with mental and physical disabilities. Recently, she attended a conference on Music Therapy. The main speaker adamantly suggested using the Bose Wave radio/CD and "nothing" else. Upon hearing this, I immediately talked her out of it; reasons why need not be expanded upon here at the 'gon. Anyhow, I'm not too familiar with the currently available mini systems, but recall that Denon, JVC, etc, have produced good ones in the past. The key here is clean sound. A lot of her patients are autistic. She warned me that distorted sound can sometimes upset these special patients. Her main request is for clean, full sonics. I was thinking a decent frequency response would be nice as well (40hz or 50hz - 20khz), perhaps a sat/sub type system, source only needing to be CD playback. Her office therapy room is about 15' x 7'. Since she was originally willing to spend $500 on the Wave, please try to keep suggestions in/under that price range. Also, she needs receipts and a warranty for business purposes, so please suggest equipment she can purchase new. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your support.
creeper
For what it's worth Consumer Reports has recently rated both table radios and minisystems. I wouldn't trust their ratings of speaker systems, but for this kind of stuff they're more reliable (or maybe I'm less finicky).

Among table radios, top sound went to the Tivoli Model 2. (The Model 1, by contrast, scored lowest.) Other contenders were the Wave, Cambridge, and the BA Receptor.

A $150 Philips minisystem took top honors (and I've heard good things about it elsewhere, too). Unfortunately, the Denon and Onkyo systems, which are probably the best technically, weren't rated.
Does it have to be portable, coz for this important professional cause, you might want to go with a better sounding gear for more money if possible. Brain scientist can measure positive effects of good music, and to get this therapeutic effect, one has to go with something better than a portable system. Just thought that such an important cause deserves the best we can give it. You can also chat live on audioasylum.com for advices. Good luck with a rewarding venture.
Check out the Cambridge SoundWorks "SoundWorks" Radio CD 740 priced at $399. A CD version should be available shortly. The web site is:
http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/store/category.cgi?category=aud_radio&item=c174rcxxx

The Denon Mini System (M30 ?) is nice and may also work. cheers..
Hello all. Again, thanks for all the posts. I ended up finding a good package deal on a NAD L-40 with PSB speakers for her. I had a couple runs of Harmonic Technology Melodyline sitting around, so I let her have them to complete the setup.