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Review 1 of 4
Price Paid:
$250.00
from Somewhere? Summary:
My sister bought this mini system a while back for some unknown reason and while I can say it is an OK unit, it's not especially impressive either. The unit does have some good points. It does allow you to connect other components from your audio system and the built in CD player and receiver are pretty decent. The whole slide-open CD mechanism is kind of cool and the unit also looks nice. I will also say that the speakers produce a good amount of bass for their size, but that seems to be both a blessing and a curse which I will get to in a minute.
Now let me get to the bad part. The control dials on the unit seem to have been designed more for looks than ease of use. Almost everything has to be done using one of the dials on the front, and I don't find this system to be intuitive at all. It's not too complex and once you get it down you'll be fine, but you really have to read the manual just to get an idea of what you are doing. Another strike against this unit is the speaker connections themselves. You can't really use any other speakers with this unit besides the ones that come with it (which might be good due to its low watt rating, you'd probably just end up blowing out any other speakers anyway). The speakers themselves have two connections, one for the high range (treble) and one for the low range (bass). The bass is connected via an RCA style cable which seems pretty solid, but unfortunately the like a 1-gauge speakerwire (maybe not literally, but the wire is ridiculously thin). The RCA connection could also be for power (I'd have to look again), which is actually even worse because it means ALL the sound is being carried on that thin little wire.
Now we come to the sound itself, the most important part of the system. In a word, the sound on this system is average, or maybe mediocre would be a better word. As I mentioned before, the speakers produce a lot of bass, but that seems to be at the expense of other sounds. The system comes set with the bass boost all the way up. The bass the speakers makes is loud, but it's just a boom-- there's no real articulation or musicality to it. I ended up trying to turn the bass level down to try to reduce the boominess and get some more quality out of it, but the bottomline is it's made to BOOM and not much else. I guess they designed the system to be a BOOMbox and impress people who like a lot of bass (and who have never heard a more expensive system). As far as treble goes, I feel the speakers are really pretty weak in this department. Once again, the sound is mediocre at best and it gets drowned out by the overpowering bass.
Overall the system sounds OK, but in the end it's just a cheap system. I can't compare it to other similar systems, because I haven't listened to any others. But, before spending your money, I'd suggest listening to it and other units in the store.
If you're really considering getting a system like this, I'd also suggest that you SERIOUSLY consider just buying a cheap stereo receiver (Onkyo is good) and a decent set of bookshelf speakers. It WILL cost you more, but it will also sound a whole LOT better. Consider buying some bookshelf speakers made by Cambridge Soundworks. Their Newton line is very good, although I'd highly recommend going for the M80s instead of the M50s or M60s (both of which are still better than these Aiwa bookshelves though). Strengths:
Component Connections
Decent CD player
Looks Cool
Boosted BASS Weaknesses:
Unintuitive controls
Crappy speaker connections
Bass booms but has little articulation (even when turned down)
Treble is mediocre and drowned out in the bass
Not designed for use with other speakers
Better price/performance out there (but not necessarily in your local BestBuy/Circuit City).
Overall it's just a cheap system. Spend twice as much, you'll get something 10 times better. Similar Products Used:
Polk, CSW, etc
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