Aiwa NSX-S 70

1995 seems like a long time ago but that's when we bought our Aiwa NSX-V70 from Comets and, although I am aware that others seem to have given this stereo system bad reviews, we have found ours to be really excellent. Maybe it's something to do with acoustics but we find the tone very rich, particularly on its equalizer settings - I purchased a couple of phono leads and connected to our nicam Sony VCR and/or DVD player. Another thing that must be said, is that we have not "hammered" the system to maybe that's why is has given such long service.

Although the original price was near to £400, I have since seen the same unit going on Ebay from around £50. The prices have come right down on these units now.

Facilities:

The two speakers have two sets of cables, one (twin) set for standard stereo and another (quad) set for the surround sound.

The system has a 3 X CD player. That means you can place 3 CDs in the tray and it will play through them one after the other, you can also program individual tracks you want to listen to, have it repeat single tracks or full CDs. The CD holder slides out at the touch of a button and each tray is numbered (CD 1,2,3) and can be individually accessed and played when closed from the corresponding numbered buttons on the front of the unit.

It has twin cassette decks. Although I know these are not used very much these days, I have found the recording quality really excellent for making relaxation/hypnotic recordings for my clients.

You can record tape to tape continuously (i.e. dubbing both sides of a recording) without having to manually turn the tape over. And there is also what is referred to as "Edit Recording" that enables CD-to-tape recording without worrying about the length of the tape. The CD calculates track lengths and if necessary will rearrange the tracks, so that they will fit on to the tape so no tracks are cut short. With this facility, if a track is too long, it will simply be left out of the recording.

There is a clock that displays the time even when the unit is switched off and is used for timed recordings, from the radio or through the video/aux if you have an external device such as video or musical instrument connected.

There is also a clever karaoke facility that we have had some fun with in some of our parties. If you put in a CD/cassette, the unit can be set to a function called Auto Vocal fader that softens the singer's voice on ordinary tapes or CDs - a lot softer than the backing, so a karaoke singer is heard, but the recorded singer is not. Tracks can also be programmed and reserved for each participant. Two microphones (not supplied) can be used and balanced to each singer's voice. Echo can also be added to make a singer sound better.

It comes with a remote control with which all the above mentioned can be set up and adjusted. One fault…
What I have found is that the CD player need regular cleaning with a CD lens cleaner otherwise I get problems when playing CDs, but just one insertion from the lens cleaner from time to time clears it up. I tend to use the lens cleaner after each use now. Apart from that there has been no problems whatsoever.

The FM radio works very well with the provided aerial inserted, but we are in a good reception area in Cardiff. What the owner's manual suggests for the best reception is to connect to an external FM aerial. Favourite radio stations can be stored for easy access.

The graphic equalizer can be set via buttons to…

ROCK: More powerful treble and bass.

POP: More "presence" in vocals.

CLASSIC: A more generally enriched sound.

There is what is termed a BBE SYSTEM - this enhances the clarity of the higher pitched sounds and is good for karaoke.

And then there's my favourite, the SUPER T-BASS SYSTEM. With this turned to full, the bass tends to vibrate through the floor. Mind you, we do have wood flooring which probably enhances the entire listening experience.

The three other settings are DISCO with disco like sounds, LIVE - this is slightly reverb making music sound like you are there. HALL - this sounds as if you are in a hall with a longer reverb than live.

On the speakers there are two indicator lights. One green when it is playing in ordinary stereo and a red one that comes on in addition, when the unit is playing surround sound. I have noticed when playing DVDs (connected to a DVD player) with surround sound, even though I have the speakers in front of me, sometimes it seems as if some sounds are coming from a different part of the room. It's really weird, but makes fascinating listening.

First installation.
On getting the boxes home from Comet's, we found it an easy system to set up with the help of some very clear instructions. The only problem I had was that I wanted the unit sited at the opposite side of the room to the speakers and the (quad) surround speaker cables were not long enough. I sorted that out easy enough by purchasing two sets of twin cables for each speaker and lengthened them - there was no reduction in quality of surround sound at all. The only thing with doing this is that care needs to be taken to connect the correct wires because they are all the same colour.

The manual is A4 size and is very informative, written in plain English.

Well that's it on this product. Thanks for reading.