How-to repurpose your inevitably-broken Aiwa bookshelf system
By Evan Blass 
posted August 4th 2007 6:24AM
posted August 4th 2007 6:24AM
posted August 4th 2007 6:24AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
What a sloppy project... look at all the cables. I bet that thing overheats before you can say 'crap cheap ass stereo system'
but okay, you seem like a nice enough guy and you tried something (dont want to sound too negative here :)
Spaghetti?
Buddy its a Via EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX. Im sure it cant even cook an egg! well actually I dont know. but its a 1ghz C3 cpu i'm sure it doesnt get all that hot, the hard drive gets hotter most likely.
Its late excuse my spelling/grammar/ect ect
And I thought I had a cable-clutter of a system.
I kinda like it. Could the cabling be shortened & neatened? Probably. Would it be worth the effort? Don't think so.
Looks to me like it has plenty of ventilation. Rear, bottom, and both sides, with a chassis fan and PS fan.
One thing I would do is opaque the smoked plastic cover over the CD drive. Black paint from the inside would do it.
A 24 port switch? Is this a network server or what?
I'd like to see it mounted in a 19-inch rack in a datacenter just to make the executive tours interesting. "...and if you'll step this way, you'll see our mission-critical bookshelf stereo system. All our revenue-generating applications run on this machine, with full treble and bass control..."
I gave one of these shitty systems away a few years ago. Yeah, the cd stacker was broken. That wasn't the really good bit though.
The volume knob wouldn't turn down unless you had a lot of patience and a steady handy. Worse, turning it down would actually turn it up. We'd leave it in the common room playing something annoying. Someone would inevitably come and try to turn it down. It'd go up. So they'd turn it the other way. It'd go up some more. On, and on, and on until you could hear it across the block.
Good times.
Mine does the same thing. The best solution I found is to just use the remote to change the volume.
I've got the same problem with my volume knob. I use the remote. Annoying, but its the only real solution.
Same thing here. You try to turn down the volume know when abba comes on, and you end up blasting it through the house instead! What a crappy system, all around.
one time i was in an office depot checking out the speaker systems. i thought i turned it down all the way, but than i pushed the little button thing that corresponds to that set of speakers... needless to say all eyes were on me
AIWA -- inevitably broken indeed. Mine's been broken for years.
It's called the garbage. Since I'm moving today (and yet posting to Engadget...), I've grown to be great friends with it. We geeks tend to have some pretty horrific packrat tendencies. The key question is: Have I used it in the last year?
Nothing wrong with my Aiwa. I've had it for 6 years now and only one fairly insignificant part of it (the ability to get to the equaliser menu) has broken. That was about a year ago. Otherwise, it's still going strong
It just hit me. I worked in the Audio/Video department at Circuit City until late 2003. When I worked there, Aiwa was a name I'd hear every day. I'm suddenly struck with the fact that I've not heard anything from them since I quit. I do have to say they had a nice sound for the money if you were shopping in the $120-$200 range, but otherwise, there were nicer choices.
Why must people plug shitty music? That guy has some of the worst rhymes/beats i've ever heard.
I have a little Micro-ATX MB with a laptop HD that would be cool in a project like this.
I like the project!
Makes me look at objects and gauge their "caseability"!
My brother and I both got an AIWA shelf system one Christmas, and the CD player broke on both of them at nearly the exact same time...I think it was about 1 year after we got them (the warranty was also 1 year). Everything else on it still works, so I just use it for my computer speakers (yeah, I'm too cheap to buy computer speakers).
I don't get it, all of the AIWA shelf systems I've gotten over the years still work fine, and the speakers that came with one of them are great speakers, I use them with a different system now and they have such a full range of sound and everything is clear. The first AIWA I go was 10 years ago and it still works fine.
Wow, I have this exact same Aiwa shelf system. I've had it for nearly 10 years, and it still works fine...
Now...What REALLY would have been cool is if he could have made the cheezy useless level meter display on the front panel work...Maybe even make it indicate something actually useful like fan speed or temp or something...
I have been wanting to do something like this for ages, except, leave the stereo part intact, and wedge a system into it to use it for a music server.
I have an Aiwa stereo similar to that one. It's from 1993 and it still works, as far as I know (it's not hooked up at the moment, but I had it set up last year and I'm sure it's still fine today). So what makes them so crappy? Looks like lots of people here own working systems.
It seems like about a 50/50 shot with the Aiwa units...I had one that worked great for years. I had another unit with a failed CD transport after less than a year. It's the price you pay (or rather don't pay) for relatively cheap consumer electronics...
It isn't limited to low priced consumer gear though...Recently some of the high end professional gear I have purchased has been subject to the same "luck of the draw" in terms of failure rate as well. Perhaps quality standards in general have just been going down since the mid 90's.
"What are all these phone plugs on the back? Dude, I thought you were building me a 24-channel *mixer*!"
I have had a similar Aiwa shelf system (I use it as the sound system for my television in the basement) and it has been running flawlessly for the last ten years. I have heard that these have proven to be fairly unreliable units, I suppose I just got one of the good ones. :)
I got one like that(maybe same model?)and its been fine, and sounds great.
Don't throw out the AIWA remote- some of them can be used to de-regionalize Samsung DVD players (and other good things). You can find info on some of the AV forums.
Just a thought.
Wow, I've used my Aiwa system for more than 10 years. I use it almost everyday, and it sounds great!
I've got a set of grado headphones, shure earphones, and a decade old speaker system that I use for my computer and television.
I had no idea they had this reputation.