Bought this cuz I was in college and moving all the time... DONT BUY THIS PIECE OF JUNK if you want it to last at all. CD player is worthless- sometimes the carousel just spins for a few minutes, never landing on a CD, and sometimes stopping half-way between two CDs. If it ever picks a CD, then it's a crapshoot if it will ever find a track to play. I have two other friends with Aiwas and same problem. Who cares what the speakers sound like IF NO SOUND WILL EVER COME OUT!!!!???!! It'll cost as much to fix it as to buy a new system... :(

Just like everyone else, I bought this system about three or four years ago cuz it was on clearance at circuit city. I was 15 years old and I thought it sounded great: it shook off all the stuff piled up on my entertainment stand. Then, of course, the cd player dies after about a year and a half. Since then, it has rarely been used to make tape recordings using my sony portable cd plugged into the aux. I would get a better system, but first I have to figure out what to do with the lame aiwa. for now I'll be looking into getting some good headphones for my portable cd player. so...:

Sound and multiple features

CD player, what else!

Like everyone else I bought this system FOR $300 after hearing rave reviews about Aiwa products. A year and a half later the CD player would not reconize Cd's. I used a disk cleaner and it did not work. These systems regardless of brand are made to only last a short time so you are forced to buy another one. STAY AWAY FROM ALL of these so called mini systems becuase they really come up short in the long run. It is better to buy the components separately.

You guys all have it right on the money. But LISTEN to Robert's instructions! I just followed what he said, with a q-tip (compressed air might be better) and my AIWA stereo is now working as good as it used to. Boy, that CD player used to suck, and now it's back to normal. How can such a good company not tell you such vital things? They need to make some lens that is on the top instead of bottom so that dust can't fall on it. Well, I guess they'll learn. I LOVE the internet! Good luck. All it takes is a screwdriver, breath, q-tips, and patience ... then on to the smooth listening!

Luke

Good audio and plays well with TV and Movies with surround sound.

None until now and the CD player would not play.

Loved the system and was disappointed when the CD player started messing up. Took the cover off as Robert suggested and cleaned the lens with a Q-tip and alcohol. Not Scotch.
Working great in less than 10 minutes.Robert did not suggest the alcohol.

lots of flashing lights!!! ;)

doesn't work

Well, this thing WAS pretty good, as far as shelf units go. That is until it stopped working. I paid $120 to fix it, and it broke very soon after. Same symptoms as everyone else. I don't even feel it is worth it to open the unit and clean the lens...

As a side note: My aiwa car unit's cd player also quit working.

In summary: avoid aiwa cd-players like the plague!!!

Similar Products Used:

various shelf units

I love music. Pure and Simple. My CDs are a part of me. I would wither away and die if I could not listen to them. And this almost happened after about a year of having this Aiwa. It was the third Aiwa audio system I owned and for the third and last time the CD player quit working. I warn those of you who are planning on purchasing audio systems NOT and I repeat NOT to go with aiwa. Three of my friends had similar stories with their Aiwas. They weren't as nice to it as I was. All of them became so frustrated they destroyed the units. I would have done the same but tried to at least contact the company a few times. It took quite a lot to get a hold of anyone there. When I did they were not helpfull in the least. Aiwa CD players are JUNK. They are worth about as much as a pile of rotten camel dung. DO NOT waste your money or time with their audio equipment (if they could even be called that). In fact all three of the units I owned went bad in about one year... coincidence? I don't think so....

Good radio, ease-of-use, compactness

not very good casette deck; CD player "decays" pretty fast

Bought this minisystem in 1995 for $440 and it was a definite step up from my Sony boombox which suited me fine at first due to my on-the-suitcases lifestyle then. Had no problem with Aiwa for the first two years then one of the belts in the carousel broke and I had to pay $80 to get the new one and to have the system cleaned up from the remnants of the old belt. Finally, in the fall of 1999 the CD player started to break apart - refused to play some of my disks (CD-Rs at first, then others). The last straw was when the left cassette well stopped running (sometimes, after a good kick it would work for an hour then stop again). Gave it to a friend as a gift - he needs something to start his audio collection and to listen to his MP3 files (speakers, BTW, are not that bad). Instead I went and bought Yamaha's RVX795a receiver, CDC775 CD-changer, KXW421 double-well cassette deck and BostonAcoustics CR-8 and CR-2 speakers - that's what I call Hi-Fi (all for under $1900)! It is strange to see how poorly Aiwa minisystems fare with the listeners - they used to be very high rated 5-6 years ago (above Sony, Panasonic and other mass-production giants).

Similar Products Used:

Sony CFX, various boomboxes, Yamaha components

100w

cd player

This is the worst you can buy. After less than a year it was taking a while for it to find the cds I put in. A month later it just stopped working. Now if you push the cd button the tray goes in and out for no apparent reason. The only good thing is that its pretty powerful for a minisystem. I still use it by hooking up a portable cd player with a 1/8 stereo jack to phono adapter in video/av mode that I bought at radio shack for 5 dollars. I would have given it a much higher rating if the cd player would work.

Great Sound

CD Player

Excellent for the first three years, the CD player went
south two years. The symtoms are pretty much the same as
everyone eles. You insert a CD, the unit picks it up, spins
it a while then drops it. I cleaned the inside of the unit to include the lens, I used both Q-Tips and compressed
air to no avail. The rest of the unit works fined.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic SA-AK58