Thanks for your responses, I feel reassured about the issues I raised. On this link, a consumer reviewer says he can't adjust the bass or treble without the external EQ unit sold separately, but it sounds like perhaps he just hadn't found out how to yet.

At any rate, I'm now pretty sure it's the deck for me, I just need to decide if I want to buy it off a U.S. web site and save more. Of course, the down side would be warranty issues. I need to ask myself if I feel lucky I guess...