• Most important comment: voice quality is fine; maybe not quite as good as on the much-more-costly hard drive voice processors, but certainly good enough. The medium is not affecting the message very much.
• Most important surprise: two VS50s can be connected to one KX-TA624, for a low price 4-port setup.
• Most unexpected pleasure: CD-ROM manual with hyperlinks.
• Most unexpected advantage of flash memory: faster turn-on of message lights.
• Best thing about the VS50: low price.
• Coolest thing about the VS50: Caller ID tricks.
• Weirdest thing about the VS50: manual for KX-TA624 is on the VS50 CD-ROM.
• Worst thing about the VS50: choice of actress for prepared messages ("system prompts"); she sounds like a whore in a hurry.
• Biggest Blooper: Instructions for "DIP" switch are confusing.

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• The 50 is full of features, but very small, physically. Even though the housing is the same as the one used for the KX-TVS75 and KX-TD308, it seemed smaller, maybe because the packaging is more compact. Panasonic supplies the 50 in a double box, but the total package is still small -- about the same size as a 7400-series phone.
• Serial port connector is a male DB9, pointed downward and usable with the cover on; unlike the VS75 which has a female DB25 which is usable only when the cover is off.
• I can understand changing the location and size of the connector, but why change the gender? I've long been annoyed by the lack of standardization among Panasonic products -- such as the serial connectors on the KX-TD1232 and KX-TVS100 facing in different directions; and now we have two similar voice processors with connectors that serve the same purpose, but have different positions, sizes and genders. Why should installers have to carry a collection of cables and adapters?
• The panel beneath the small cover on the right side of the unit has been re-designed from the VS75, to include a ferrite core to surround the line cord. We heard no difference with it and without it. Apparently it's supposed to keep noise from leaking out, not leaking in.
• The jacks and ground connection have been moved, but we still get a label telling us that the unit "must be earthed." Here in the USA -- the country that won the war with England -- that's called "grounded."
• You can probably use a 25-pin null-modem adapter with a gender changer and 25-to-9-pin adapter, but we wanted to minimize potential foul-ups, so we used a 9-pin female-to-female serial cable, and a 9-pin null modem adapter from RatShack. You'll have to remove some itty-bitty hardware to plug it into the VS50. Watch out for un-needed couplers on the end of the cable that goes in to the PC, too. 

TIP: Instead of mounting your voice processing system next to the phone system control unit, mount it near one of your computers, so it's easy to make programming changes. It won't take up much space, and the wiring is very simple -- much simpler than extending a serial cable 50 feet.

• One reason the box is so small is that there is no suicide-inspiring 400-page manual packed inside. Instead, you get a small printed subscriber's guide and a CD-ROM, which strangely includes a 390-page installation manual and a 214-page user manual -- for the KX-TA624 control unit.
• The VS50  manual is provided in two formats: Adobe Acrobat PDF and web-style HTML, just like the CD-ROMs now supplied with the bigger VPSes. It's well-organized and gets a B+ for user-friendliness. 
• The white and yellow Times Roman tiny type on black and blue backgrounds violates basic design principles and makes the contents pages look like they came from a low-budget porno website.
• On the other hand, the actual instruction pages have nice black type on white background, with clear tables and diagrams, clearly-defined section breaks, and -- WOW -- hyperlinks that will open other windows to show related sections. 
• You can click all over the on-screen manual, and easily go between manual and HyperTerminal, or whatever software you are using to program the TVS50. This is the way learning and set-up should be done... and it sure beats flipping paper pages and sticking in paperclips and Post-it notes.
• Unfortunately, the instructions still have remnants of "Ancient Japlish", that should have been fixed years ago. 
• There are lots of mentions of "PBX" systems, but we're supposed to call Pana systems "hybrids." Silly and sloppy.
• We recommend the you follow the sequence on the AbleComm site, and print a paper copy of the manual to keep as insurance. 
• If you have experience with Panasonic's other Voice Processors, there is less need to print the manual.
• Section 3.2.3 of the manual strangely refers to connecting the VS50 directly to phone company CO lines. The manual for bigger systems mentions this, too; but we never noticed it before. Weird. More on this later.
• Instead of the micro-size rotary switch used on the other voice processors, the 50 uses a "DIP" (dual inline pin) switch assembly, with four tiny switches that can be set for either of two positions (zero or one). Unfortunately, the instructions (Section 4.3.1 and perhaps other places) refer to "position 5." This is not like the position 5 on the rotary switches used in the other systems, but refers to a pattern of flipping the individual DIP switches, shown on page 18 of the PDF manual. 
• Initialize the VS50 with the four switches in the following positions:

  1	right (1)
  2	left (0)
  3	right (1)
  4	left (0)

  Move all the switches to left (0) after initialization, so your settings can be saved.

• SURPRISE: The KX-TA624 can use TWO KX-TVS50s. 
• The CD-ROM instruction sheets show programming changes for digital systems using Panasonic's DOS software. Nice!
• Panasonic apparently thinks most purchasers of the VS50 will use it with the KX-TA624, so default program setup in the VS50 is for the A624. You'll have to make changes for it to work with the Panasonic digital systems. 
• If your 624 has not been upgraded, you'll have to use "inband signaling," and can use line cords with just two conductors (no black and yellow outer wires).  
• If your 624 has been upgraded, use "APITS" integration (program 130).  Disable programs 102 and 103. Program 130 is not in the original 624 paper manual, but is in the revised manual on the CD-ROM packed with the KX-TVS50.
• The new box has a new voice. Pan sez there have been complaints about the previous canned messages, but I can't stand the new voice. Frankly, she just doesn't sound like a nice person. 
• The previous speaker may have been a bit too "formal," but this new witch/bitch is bossy and impatient and talks too fast. She is obviously in a hurry, and wants you to get finished quickly with whatever you have to do. She made me think she was a "lady of the evening," and I was the tenth customer and she had 40 more scheduled after me.
• If you can ignore her bad mood, you'll notice that the voice quality is fine. It sounds 95% as good as as we've been getting on the previous hard-drive-based voice processors.
• You may not share my opinion of the prepared announcements, but if you do, you can replace them with you own announcements.
• The "company greeting" recording slot provided in the other VPS models does not exist in the VS50. However, there are pre-recorded bits that produce "good morning/afternoon/evening; welcome to the voice processing system" messages that will be delivered before your first custom menu. You can kill or modify these prompts if you want to, so callers will hear your own message as soon as the system answers. See section D6 in the appendix of the PDF manual, or section 6.1.4 in the HTML manual. Make sure you have selected "User 1" not "system" prompt in the service setting menu or your changes will not take effect.

• There's another advantage to making this initial recording:  If there is an emergency or temporary change in your company's schedule, you can call in from anywhere and change the opening message to something like "Thank you for calling Honest Charlie's Used Cars. Because of Hurricane Hilda, we will be closed until Wednesday," but you won't have to re-record your big main menu.

• The lack of moving parts seems to have speeded up operation. The Message Waiting light is illuminated less than a second after a caller hangs up after leaving a message, and the port is quickly available for the next call.

Michael N. Marcus

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