Price Paid:  $300.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
I have bought two Aiwa minisystems over the past few years. The CD player has screwed up on both of them in various ways, especially the "spin-no play- CDs disappear" problem described by others here. They also have problems reading CD-Rs-- sometimes doing so, sometimes not. In fact, I have even had the strange experience of the unit apparently ERASING all the tracks on CD-Rs I have unsuccessfully tried to play.

I'm a music teacher, and the school I work at has an AIWA system as well, with a CD player that frequently exhibits the same problems. I paid to have this problem fixed in my home system a couple of years ago. I haven't been using it for a little while, because I had to dismantle it while work was being done in the room where it's located. I just set it tonight so I could use it, and damned if it doesn't refuse to read any CD I own.

I will never buy another Aiwa product again in my life!

Strengths:
Sound quality good, but what use is that if the CDs won't play?

Weaknesses:
CD player is a worthless piece of crap.

Price Paid:  $135.00 from Sam's Club

Summary:
I have had the CD player repaired 3 times. I just finished the paperwork to be reinbursed for $125 (max) for repairs. A consumer lawsuit was filed against Aiwa for the defective CD player, was recently notified by mail.

Weaknesses:
CD player

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
This system is engineered to break. It has a problem with the CD player that Aiwa should have recalled and fixed.

Strengths:
In the beginning it works great and give you good listening quality

Weaknesses:
CD player sucks. Needs manual EQ.

Price Paid:  $149.00 from sears

Summary:
I bought this system years ago. The CD player had problems, although, the sound wasn't bad. 20watts/channel was pretty cheap, but when I opened the speakers up, it had a little 4" woofer and a little tiny ceramic tweeter. the reason it sounds like this is that the woofers are actually full ranges and the tweeters are just...there. you can't even really hear them. I hooked better speakers to the stereo, but it wasn't worth it. It stil sounded crappy. The CD player I had to fix several timez, but I think the coolest thing aBOUT THE system is that you can see thru the top and it has milti colors inside. (that glass cracked and eventually broke off.)

Strengths:
small, affordable, decent sound, features

Weaknesses:
no manual EQ, cheap speakers, cheap CD playa.

Similar Products Used:
JVC mx-j50 (120 watts/chaneel, much better)
Aiwa NSX-A303 (30 watts/channel)
sony (MHC-????) 15 watts /channel

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Sears

Summary:
I've had this system for over four years and I have used it a lot. I've been having a lot of problems with the cd player
in the last six months. It just spins and spins on a cd and won't play it, sometimes it won't even recognize there is a cd loaded in it. I always had this problem when playing cd-r's, but it would eventually play them. It won't play those at all now. I am happy to go on here and see that I am not the only person who has trouble with the cd player.
I probably won't ever buy another aiwa. I think when you
pay $200 for a system, it should last a little bit longer
than four years. I didn't think the sound was too bad.
As noted above, I don't know why anyone would find continous play a useful feature, especially instead of auto reverse. This is a stupid feature. I also don't like the antennas. They are too cumbersome to use; I'd rather have a regular antenna than the long stringy ones that need to be attached to something. I don't reccomend this product to anyone.

Strengths:
I don't think the sound is too bad.

Weaknesses:
No auto reverse. What is this continuous play crap? Who would want that over auto reverse? The salespeople
did not know what it was and told me it was auto reverse with a different name. Not quite! It sucks!

Similar Products Used:
None