A Fascinating Budget Cassette Deck from Aiwa
The Equipment: Aiwa Model AD-1250, a stereo cassette deck in metal and plastic case with removable dust cover.
Dimensions: 15 1/4 by 11 inches (top); 5 3/8 inches high with cover closed, 12 3/4 inches clearance needed with cover fully open.
Price: $230.
Warranty: "limited," two years parts and labor.
Manufacturer: Aiwa Co., Ltd., Japan; U.S. distributor: Meriton Electronics, Inc., 35 Oxford Dr., Moonachie. N.J. 07074.
Comment: A little over a decade ago, when the cassette was no more than a promising newcomer, some of us discovered that a company called Aiwa was building some at tractive equipment at astonishingly low prices. Then the brand disappeared from the U.S. market--because, it would seem, of some inept handling on the part of its American importers. When Meriton announced that it would take over U.S. distribution, therefore, we were eager to try an Aiwa deck. Well, folks, the cassette format has changed a lot in the intervening years, but Aiwa's admirable attitude apparently has not.
There are other under-$300 Dolby market, but few of those in the current crop that we have looked at before were very encouraging. Sometimes they failed to meet what we would consider minimum high fidelity standards, and sometimes their features or mechanical design simply cut too many corners. Whether the Aiwa cuts corners is a moot point; its "omissions" strike us as cannily chosen to keep costs down and, therefore, as virtues rather than as sins.
Take the input section, for example. There are mike in puts (1/4-inch phone jacks at the front edge of the deck) and line inputs (pin-jacks, underneath at the back-where there also are pin-jack inputs and a DIN input /output socket), but only one left/right pair of recording-level sliders. Therefore, no mixing. Similarly, the FM-pilot filter is built into the Dolby switch: no noise suppression without the response cut at the extreme high end. But instead of niceties like full-band Dolby or mixing inputs or, perhaps, Dolby-FM decoding, you get a DC-servo-drive motor that is virtually unaffected by line voltage and a cue/review feature (actuated by pressing either of the fast-wind levers with the deck in PLAY) that gives you some output from the tape at high speeds so you can find your place. And still at less than $250. If those are tradeoffs, we're all for them.
Not that performance is consistently spot-on when compared with, say, a $400 deck. In many respects it is excellent but, in that company, the response curves look a little less flat than we would consider par (though they are not really substandard); the action of the averaging meters, which seems at once sluggish and underdamped, is saved only by the peak indicator; the crosstalk is a little high, though better than you're likely to have in most program material. And the owner's manual is almost a travesty. Not only do we defy novices to interpret correctly some of the opaque English, but the tape table is misleading because it is based on brands available in Japan, rather than those familiar can affect performance.) This is a great pity. Otherwise the tape-matching scheme is among the best we've seen in any cassette deck at any price. It has separate switches for bias and equalization, each with three positions: CRO., FECR, and LH.
These three positions are further identified on the face plate in terms of actual equalization (70 microseconds for the first two eq. positions, 120 microseconds for the third) and percentage of bias with respect to that for LH (low-noise, high -output ferric tapes): 150, 110, and 100, respectively. At last-a really rational approach! CBS's lab tests were run with Sony tapes: UHF ferric, Duad ferrichrome, and chromium dioxide.
That assumed "100%" bias point wants some discussion. Since Aiwa designates it for LH tape, we would tend to assume that it is a little on the high side for the bottom formulations in quality tape lines. Since the CBS lab data show flatter response in the right channel than the left for ferric and ferrichrome tapes, we used that channel to run some quick tests with a variety of tapes to see which matched which bias points best. "Hotter" ferric tapes like Maxell UDXL-1 seemed a hair over-biased at the 110 set ting, a hair under-biased at 100; Ampex 20/20 + , which prefers a lower bias, seemed an excellent match to the 100% setting; Fuji FL, as an example of a moderate -priced formulation, still did well at tie 100% setting, though evidence of over-biasing was starting to show. So these differences, while they will be of interest only to the really fussy recordist (perhaps one too fussy to consider an under-$300 deck), indicate teat the 100% bias position is best suited to ferric tapes in the medium-high price bracket and that no option is given for getting the best from the cheapies. Perhaps that is as it should be.
The angling of the front panel makes the deck a joy to work with. There are two dust covers: The large, hinged cover that protects the entire working surface can be slipped off and laid aside if you choose; in addition, there is a sliding, smoked plastic cover over the cassette well that automatically pops out of the way when you press EJECT.
Like the deck as a whole, this feature is well thought-out: efficient, attractive, practical. The AD-1250 really is an excellent value.
-------DIN PLAYBACK RESPONSE (0 dB= -20 VU)
-------HARMONIC DISTORTION CURVES (at -10 VU)
------- Aiwa AD -1250: Additional Data [not shown]
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(High Fidelity, Apr. 1977)
Also see:
Crosswinds outboard subsonic filter
Ortofon moving-coil phono-cartridge system (ad, Apr. 1977)
Technics SB-6000A floor-standing speaker system (Equip Profile, Oct. 1977)