That Youtube Techmoan guy took an Amstrad Hifi apart recently, and you wouldn't believe the tat inside. Outside it looks real high end with it's silver metallic buttons and knobs, but inside, its Electronics are no more substantial than a low end Sashio boombox. The "tweeters" had nothing behind them.
Just watching that today.... I had that Pioneer, someone gave me the set but I got rid of it quickly, BPC, not much to it, surprised it cost so much when new. I've seen the Sansui at the thrifts years ago, also mostly plastic crap so the Amstrad wasn't in bad company.
Paging through vintage UK Audio Magazines with Amstrad Equipment and the mid-level stuff looks respectable, was it all junk? Even Pioneer and Sansui were cranking out BPC but they still had the good stuff, just not as much as the 70's.
Yup. Amstrad was all junk. Sugar himself called it the "mugs eyeful". It passed the "Amstrad test" Mimic the Pioneer/Technics look on the outside. And then put cheap electronics on the inside that Sashio or Unisef might put into a bottom end boombox. The problem with this was it killed the middle end hi-fi market, as people wouldn't pay £100 extra for a Pioneer or Sony that looked similar, even though the internal electronics in the Sony/Pioneer were vastly superior. Alan Sugar and his ilk have a lot to answer for. Ruining the market for everyone with his junk. Below is ALL of the electronics in the Amstrad Hi-fi that Techmoan took apart.
I doubt he ruined it, he just saw the future. Over here, 1980's Fisher (Sanyo) was cranking out giant all-in-one systems with the awesome vinyl covered pressboard racks. Every girl had one and every store sold them while traditional 70's equipment was considered boat anchors. Us young kids were told that the technology was superior in the light-weight equipment and the old stuff was junk. Back when I was thrifting all the time I'd run into the 4' tall Technic Speakers all the time, huge but they only weighed a few pounds. My collectable speakers from the 70's need a dolly to move around, guess which ones sound better?
Now I know why in the 90's, both aiwa (vs. early 1980s AIWA) and Sony had smelly the same SMD capacitor leaking problems.
This says they owned 61% in 2002 which doesn't match the other articles but around now aiwa started to really disappear.
So aiwa is back! Here's the Japanese Website, it looks like they have some big money funding them from a Japanese Manufacturer. Interesting product line and no boomboxes.....yet.... https://aiwa-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
John Edwards did some research on the subject years ago with some interesting tidbits. https://www.stereo2go.com/topic/ind...6116882239054327&board_oid=522740502721869426 It's interesting that his dad was big in the tool industry, I didn't know that back then...
Another little discovery that I can add to this thread is this...Aiwa hs-J500 with Sony chip for the radio and for the head preamplification...the collaboration was already well underway
Billboard 1969, Superscope and Sony had a lot of similar lawsuits throughout the years they held distribution rights.
