AIWA was middle class quality in the 80s and 90s until Sony bought them in 2002 and killed the brand a few years later.
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AIWA micro-system. This is so my childhood. 
New info to me. Never knew why/how they disappeared. 
Great photos, @pennstac. You should hand this to a museum, or build one of your own. 
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**The Year was 2002**
We were digesting the meaning of 9/11. The dotcom bubble had not yet burst, Y2K was a memory. Academic publishers had put out new editions to cleanse the shelves of 1900âs copyrights, and to force students to buy new books. Nancy Pelosi was the leader of the House for the first time.
The West Nile virus and listeria topped health news. Smallpox was thought to be the next terrorist bioweapon. Nirvana had come out with their self-titled album, but it made less of a splash than Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf . Top album for the year? Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Sonos came out with its first wireless multi-room system. Lexus put a Mark Levinson system in its cars, while Mercedes, Accura, Porsche and Caddy were all installing Bose. Time Magazine said that one of the best inventions of 2002 was the wireless earphone from Jabra, Plantronics, Motorola and Sony.
My old Walkman. I wasnât playing cassettes often. Not even CrO2 Dolby cassettes. I had a first-generation DiscMan. Horrible. Skipped with every step. I replaced it with the AIWA XP-Z5C that could also play back CD-R and MP3 files. I see now it had a 16 bit DAC - but at the time, I didnât know or care what that meant.
My friend Bret was into headphones. We worked together, and he was always bringing something interesting into his office. Tiny headphone amps built into Altoids tins. A high-end Grado. The first STAX earbuds. The year before, he had talked me into buying a headphone amplifier, because headphone jacks just werenât powerful enough. And I got the Sennheiser HD-580s after listening to his HD-600s, which lasted until next year when he sold them and got HD-650s when they came out.
It wasnât like I had never listened to headphones. I was already a confirmed stereo buff. Heck, my wife claimed she married me for my stereo. And has on occasion, upgraded me. Barbara is a speaker girl, never cared for headphones.
Now for some listening impressions -
Iâve plugged in the Audio Technicaâs into the AIWA directly. Listening to the Evil Genius Orchestraâs Cocktails in the Cantina - a well-done lounge mix of Star Wars themes. This is surprisingly nice. My general feeling about these phones is that they have an overwhelming and sometimes muddy bass, but not on this content. Playing with the AIWAâs EQ setting proves to be a bad idea. Classic is OK, but Jazz makes it tinny, and moving to Rock first makes things sound more open, but that bass gets muddy. The ATâs are âorthodynamicâ an early planar-magnetic design.
Adding the Airhead to the line-out of the AIWA, I can immediately hear a difference, but it is not the difference one might expect. There is better separation and clear midrange. The added power in the bass brings back the boominess of the ATH-2 signature. The bass is punchier. The headphones need EQ, but not the EQ settings available on the CD player. JAZZ EQ helps the overall balance, makes the boom go away. Itâs right for the Cantina song, with vibes and sneaky bass line. I need to swap out for the Senns to compare to a more modern and rational sound.
Iâve just jumped ahead about 25 or 30 years. The Sennheiser HD-580 is cleaner, but less intimate. Maybe because the pads are flat on the Audio Technicas. No EQ. Altogether better presentation. The Cantina song is just as sneaky, much cleaner, but not as smoky. Bass as deep, but not overpowering. With the ATHâs on, I might meet Miss St. Clair from the cover art in the Cantina. With the HD-580s, itâs like NYC after Dinkins scrubbed the city of some of its sleazy luster.
And the Sennâs without the Airhead? 95% the same. Midrange is there, as is soundstage, but the basslines are just a bit sloppier.
Music recommended for this retro-excursion
I may continue with some other genre. I think the batteries are good.
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This is confirming that technology sometimes moves very slowly. How close over time? Without a back to back, is this like buying a new car because the old one wore out, or because the old one was a Model T? After you habituate for an hour, would you notice?
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Precisely right, @generic. I almost decided to continue my post with that observation. I recalled the 2002 AIWA as being pretty good. I know the HD-580s because I still use them on occasion. What came crashing through my thick skull is that the sound was pretty good 20 years ago, and that the nuance we like to explore in high-end headphoning is in fact, nuance.
This does not stop me from wanting a BiFrost2, some higher-end STAX, Wilson Audio speakers, and my lost youth.
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I totally thought this thread was about Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Timely, too.
Iâm sure OP had this in mind, but I like to state the obvious. 
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Actually, I was going to call it âBring Back The Deadâ but thatâs even more ambiguous. This was a call for YOU to bring back YOUR dead, sir! Posthaste!
Consider that the dead can indeed sing again:
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Coming soon, a comparison between:
- Dinosaur-era TDK 48x CD burner (late 1990s or early 2000s)
- Recent Samsung external portable DVD writer (dated 2013)
- Lossless streaming services in 2020: Tidal and Amazon HD
I expected to hear no differences from the CD when piped through USB to my MacâŚbut I am hearing substantial differences. This seemingly follows from the playback methods of the distant past versus bit perfect modern methods.
Tested with music from the TDK era in a crusty old jewel case. I used the TDK to rip a bunch of CDs way back when, and would regret that decision if I had to rely on those old files today. Note that the TDKâs headphone jack is either dead or lacks contemporary drivers (no go with several headphones).
Testing in progress.
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Comparison Check: âCD Qualityâ audio over the last 20 years
TL;DR: Contemporary lossless streaming services generally deliver better audio quality than physical CDs in older players. CD output quality has improved substantially over the last 20 years.
My testing of the TDK CD, Samsung DVD, and 2020 lossless streaming is now complete.
CD Transport Technology
I have experience with three generations of CD transports, and IMO they were and still are associated with playback quality differences.
The first generation (1980s) used gravity to drop the disc on a spindle, and was known for slipping and skipping. Early solutions included weighted sticker rings and heavy pads that kept the CDs from floating and fluttering. Some early players were horrible indeed, whereby inner or outer edge tracks would routinely skip. I also recall seeing magazine stories for upside-down transports (data side up), but they were rare and expensive.
[This issue seemingly also led to the infamous green Sharpie mod. I recall an audiophile vendor selling superstitious snake oil a really fancy device that would simultaneously cut the edge of a CD at an angle and apply dark green ink.]
The second generation of transports lifted the CD up after being loaded into a gravity tray. A rotary weight on the upper spindle kept the disc from fluttering â it was a cheap CD-ROM solution in the 1990s and essential for the rapid speeds desired for CD data transfers (e.g., 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 48x). The TDK drive used for testing has this system.
I first saw the third generation on thin profile notebook drives, with spring detents in the middle of the disc hole. Using a disc required firmly snapping it on and snapping it off. This attachment system is both compact very positive, and prevents flutter and slippage. The Samsung DVD drive uses this system.
CD Reading Technology
In the 1980s they started out with âsampling,â and then due to errors went to âoversamplingâ (2x, 4x, 8x, etc.). Early along a salesman demoing the new CD system said to me that fingerprints were âout of focusâ for the laser and it was fine to hold CDs by the data side(!) Playback tech later went to single-bit, etc. Per my long gone CD players, new playback technologies did in fact change the character of CD output. I wish I had a first generation CD player for comparison, but my current possessions date from the late 1990s.
Test Music and Source Drift
I tested my old CD/DVD drives with easily accessible discs. Most are in deep storage and I should sort/condense/dispose of them. Unfortunately, many older CDs have been remastered and the original versions are not available from my current streaming sources. So, this process also ended up also comparing the impact of remastering.
Streaming sources: Amazon HD Music and Tidal
Failed Comparison (original version no longer available):
I started this with The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin â The 2017 remastered version improves the top end (air) and bass definition. It adds panning and clears up congestion in some passages. One wouldnât notice the differences without A/B testing, but the changes were too big to reach a meaningful conclusion. So, I switched to albums that hadnât been updated (i.e., not reported as remastered, âMaster,â or âUltra HDâ).
Test Albums
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Sting ââŚNothing Like the Sunâ (1987) â This was a 1980s marketing masterpiece, as it was proudly labeled âDDDâ to indicate digital production from start to finish (vs. the lowly âAADâ or âADDâ releases that had been produced in part on analog systems). [Ironically, precipitating the return to tubes and analog gear shortly thereafter.] Because of the DDD label, I saw it as good example of what CDs were intended to be in their first generation. It was and remains a very clean recording.
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Alison Krauss + Union Station Live (2002) â Lots of clean instruments and vocals; crowd noise for added complexity.
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Johnny Cash American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002) â Simple content focused on vocals and guitar. It now comes across as quite forward and victim of the Loudness Wars.
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The White Stripes Icky Thump (2007) â It was easy to reach and has a ton of electronic distortion. Given that CDs can degrade over time, this is a pretty fresh piece of plastic.
Note: Physical CD discs do in fact vary widely in quality. Some are not quite circular, some have thin aluminum and donât reflect light well (i.e., see through), and some have pinholes in the reflective layer that lead to pop and skips.
Test Setup
CD/DVD transport -> USB -> MacBook Pro -> DAC (FiiO Q5) Line out -> THX AAA 789 -> Focal Clear
Findings
Bottom line: The 2020 streaming sources were both plainly better than the physical CDs, and generally equal to each other (Amazon HD and Tidal). Following from mass releases and working with music vendors, they seemingly never have to deal with end-user transport and physical disc issues. Given their consistently better clarity, less noise, and stronger dynamicsâŚIâd say they basically âremasterâ all CDs on the service. So, I gave them both a comparison value of 100% for all ratings.
Starting with the old TDK driveâŚsigh. It averaged about 90% of the streaming quality. Various issues include a lack of highs, muddy lows, inconsistencies between replays (e.g., flutter), static/confusion in complex passages and with crowd noise. It was more mid-focused and also more laid back than the streamers. All in all, the TDK was slightly but always gray and shaky. Following from above, either the transport and/or the processing technology was inferior.
Moving to the Samsung (2013) DVD playerâŚit averaged 95% to 97% of the quality from the streaming services. The bass was more controlled and crowd noise/complexity didnât get so rough, but the high end wasnât as clean or black. Youâd really need to A/B to spot the differences. But the differences were there and were consistent.
This is a reasonable visual analogy for the quality differences:
Follow Up
Unfortunately, I used the TDK drive long ago to rip my old (and sometimes genuinely rare) CD collection. Some discs are not available online, and the plastic is getting older and hazier every day. So, I may end up re-ripping the old discs with a newer device.
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I was looking through (one of) my storage room(s) for some stuff and I came across this:
It has been a very long time since I last used this player, so out of curiosity I threw in some AA batteries, plugged in the headphones I had on hand (which I think match very well with the vibe of the player) and hit playâŚ
I was greeted by a rather loud âOops I did it againâ by a very young Britney Spears. 
Moving through the tracks, I listened to some random songs that I hadnât heard for a very long time. I hadnât touched any of the settings on the player and the Sony âMega Bassâ was turned on to level 1 (out of 2) which gave a very nice and warm sound, complementing the KSC75âs pretty well.
After listening for a while, I pulled out the Minidisc to see exactly what I was listening to. The Minidisc inside goes to prove how long this Minidisc player has been sitting in a box!
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Wow, thatâs a cool unintended time capsule audio experience! The player and Minidisc are gems. The NTWICM series were pretty solid compilations. I was a fan of the holiday album 2 volume set.
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I think I have most of the NTMICM CDs from N°41 onwards, as a friend of mine who was a DJ used to grab them every year and then give them to me the following year.
(Edit: I just checked my FLAC files and I have them from Now 19 onwards, wow, now I feel old )
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Thatâs awesome. I have a few CDs stopping at volume 15 in a box somewhere.
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Did you try it with any higher-end equipment? How does it compare with contemporary compressed source, such as Apple, Spotify, Google, etc.? As posted above, I was personally surprised at how much CD decoding improved of the years.
Nice to see a minidisc player! I still have a couple of mine. I seldom use them now, of course, but they work fine and sound pretty good for consumer audio products. Until streaming came along, I had certain albums and mixtapes - mixminidiscs? - made by friends that were only in this format, so Iâve held on to them. I just gave my Andro 2020 a whirl on an old Sony and it sounds great!
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Some Dynaco equipment and a Pioneer RT-707 reel to reel, Hitachi PS-58 turntable. I designed my own speakers and as best I remember I used Altec Lansing ring radiator tweeters with 15 inch drivers.I had a very early CD player, I want to say it had the Curtis Mathes name on it, I was doing a lot of work with them at the time. I doubt they still exist.
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Curtis Mathes was a brand from another era for sure: the âmost expensive television set in America, and darn well worth it.â I have vague memories of a local store pushing these TVsâŚthe brand was wiped out by Sony Trinitrons and then the cheaper South Korean brands.
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Very true, toward the end their quality seemed to slip as they tried to compete. I worked for RCA about the time they developed a movie disk player when other companies had already released laser disk players, I was not involved with that production but knew it was a bad idea from the start lol. Their device had a pickup that actually rode on the disk like a turntable stylus.
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I saw those in the stores and watched a good chunk of a movie or two on them while waiting for others. They had huge 12" by 3/8" sleeves and didnât play very long before requiring a flip. It came across as a desperation move; video tapes didnât require flipping or such massive cases.
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Very true, I forget what they called them, maybe video disk or such. And we know VHS was never as good as Beta but they held a whole movie. It is like MP3âs, often quality is sacrificed for ease of usage.
Here is a product no longer sold, California Headphone Company Silverados. They hit the market at about $279 but the company did better with another Kickstarter product and dumped these for $50 each. They had about the worst factory cable I ever heard, and I modified this pair to match an amp. I replaced the drivers with some BeyerDynamic 990âs I believe, and turned them from low impedance to high impedance and from closed to open.They are rugged, but that is about the only good thing I can say about the originals other than a different cable made a huge improvement lol.
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