Aiwa LCX-337

Author's product rating:   

How is the Sound Quality?	Excellent
How is the Look & Design?	Excellent
Range of Features	Average
Durability	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Small, pretty, with a good sound for its size
Disadvantages:	Poor radio reception

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

We purchased this little compact disc sterio system for our bedroom. This means we were looking for something small and attractive that had good enough sound to meet our very high standards.

Now remember, models come and models go. What you read here about this particular model should tell you what basically this type of system made by Awia will or will not do for you. Take it more as a general review of Awia's compact disc sterio systems than of a review of this model in particular. Now that we have this straight, let's get on with it.

The Look of It
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Firstly, when I saw this system, I really liked the look of it. It is silver and blue, which is perfect for our bedroom, which is all shades of blues. The speakers are covered in a blue fabric and there is blue plastic over the tape deck door and display screen. However, when the sterio is on, the display screen is a sickly green - such a shame.

But it was small enough to fit on our bookcase and that was also a consideration.

The Ease of It
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There were no tricks in putting this together to get it working. Plug the speakers into the sterio, plug the antenna into the sterio, put batteries (supplied) into the remote and then plug the system into the mains and turn it on. Nothing easier.

But after that, there were some problems. For instance - setting the clock. I can never remember how to set the clock without looking at the instruction book. Now this shouldn't be a problem but we often have little power cuts, and every time that happens, the clock settings go off. What's more, so do the radio stations that you set up for yourself. And setting those stations is a bit fiddly. I finally gave up and stopped setting both the clock and the radio stations. Mostly because I don't need to use the unit as an alarm clock (which you can do) but also because this unit doesn't get very good radio reception, and the stations I like don't come in very clearly. But since I bought this mostly to play CDs (and occaisionally record tapes from my CDs), this didn't bother me.

I also found that if you don't use the remote, the pannel buttons on the sterio aren't marked too clearly and you can get confused.

But it does have some nice features, if you read the instructions. One of them is that this machine will record a cassette for you so that it will calculate the time on the cassette and then figure out which songs to put on which side of the cassette so that it fits in as best as possible. Of course, you can also just record straight or you can pick and choose which songs you want to record. But again, read the instructions carefully or you'll botch it. Thank goodness Awia wrote an extremely simple to understand instruction book. And that's certainly one point in their favour.

So while, for the most part, this system is fairly easy to use, it could have been a bit easier.

The Sound of It
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As I noted above, the regular antenna that comes with this machine is just not good enough to get good station reception. If you really want to hear the radio clearly on this machine, you have to hook it up to an outside antenna. Once you've got that, you're fine.

Now, what really made me buy this machine was the sound it produced. We listen to a great deal of classical music and need a system that will do it justice - as well as for good jazz and blues and folk music. We are very discerning listeners and are very particular in the sterios we buy. So I was very surprised to find such a rich clear sound out of such a small unit. And this, with a graphic equalizer that is on three pre-set buttons marked "rock", "pop" and "jazz"! Well, you can turn that off, but there is no changing the bass or treble if its off. While this could be a drawback, we found that the "jazz" setting is exactly the way we like it. If you're not happy with any of the three or having it off, you'll have a real problem with this machine.

For the technophiles out there, the speaker power output is rated 4W + 4W (4 ohms, T.H.D. 1%, 1 kHz/DIN 45500), whatever that means. Since its in my bedroom, I really don't need much power, and I've been able to hear it quite well without turning the volume totally up. I would not, however, recommend this for your main sterio needs - its just too simple and small.

The Extras of It
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There are some nice extra features here such as a sleep timer which will let you listen to the machine for a set amount of time and then it will automatically go off. It also has an alarm timer which will go on like a clock radio for you in the mornings and it will buzz at you and then put the radio, CD or tape on for you - which is a pretty good choice. And, if you have something else connected to the machine, you can have that go on for you, too. Not bad.

Like I mentioned before, there are some nice recording methods on this system. And you can program up to 48 radio stations. The cassette player has an automatic reverse so it plays or records on both sides of the tape without you having to turn it over. And you can play a CD straight, random or only the tracks you want. Pretty much standard. The remote is very easy to use, and actually I like using it better than the buttons on the machine itself.

The CDs load at the top of this machine, and while I don't mind this, I did find that the shelf I put it on had to be high enough to accomodate the opening of the CD lid. You should think about that when you're buying a shelf system, and if there is a height problem, you might want one of the newer front-loading systems.

We've had this for a several of years now, and its working today exactly as it did when we set it up - and we haven't even had to change the remote batteries. So if you're looking for something durable, you'll certainly get a winner with one of these.

By the way, when we bought this it was before the time of MP3 files, but my son has successfully been able to make compilation disks from our MP3 files on our computer which play perfectly on this machine. Mind you, I don't think he leaves them in MP3 format, but the newer models by Aiwa all seem to accept MP3 disks, so that shouldn't be a problem.

We paid $200 for this in Duty Free on sale, and as I said at the beginning of this review, I don't think you can purchase this model anymore - nor could I find any for sale on E-Bay. However, similar Aiwa shelf systems cost in the range of £70-120 these days, which certainly isn't a whole lot of money for a small system that truly sounds as good as this.

The All of It
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So, what, after all, do I think of this machine. Its not perfect, no. But it is just good enough to be kept as a 2nd sterio - one for listening to in the bedroom when the kids are occupying the living room or when I'm reading or writing. Nothing amazingly fancy or special, its just right, and just what we were looking for. So the bottom line is, I'm very pleased with this machine, and I'd not hesitate to buy another Aiwa shelf system, if this one ever dies (but... it doesn't want to die, but I'm not complaining!).

Thanks for reading!

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Technical Stuff:
The Aiwa web page can be found at http://www.eu.aiwa.com/en/?x=www.aiwa.co.uk and you can find similar micro-systems on this page http://www.eu.aiwa.com/en/category.php?c=63
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