I Should Have Stuck With Sony, Aiwa XP-V511 Is Less Than Impressive
Written: Jan 04 '01 (Updated Feb 02 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lightweight.
Cons: Bad buttons, cheap headphones, anti skip feature doesn't work at all.
The Bottom Line: Stick with Sony ...
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| Freak369's Full Review: Aiwa XP-V511 Personal CD Player |
Yesterday was my birthday ... and I got stuck buying all the presents. All day long I had hoped that someone in my house would remember my birthday but alas – it went by unnoticed. So at 10:00 p.m. I decided to go to the only place that was still open and charge away on my ex’s credit card. Tower Records was my saving grace – although overpriced I did find some of the CD’s I had wanted and some much needed blank tapes. What I didn’t expect to purchase was a new portable CD player. Looking back I should have listened to my first instinct and passes on this model.
I have always trusted the Aiwa name for stereo equipment and cassette players and thought that the CD player would be a good addition to my growing assortment of gadgets. Wrong. This unit’s bad features and qualities out number the good by three to one. I am still kicking myself for not getting the Sony CD player but I knew that it was at least $30.00 less at another electronics store.
The Aiwa XP-V511 CD Player is small and lightweight and claims to have a 40 second anti-shock system. For those of you who don’t know what this feature is I will try to explain it. This player claims that it has a 40 second Electronic Anti Shock System – so if you are jogging or running the CD won’t skip. It was explained to me that it hold the music in memory to avoid cut outs and jumps. What they don’t tell you is that you get half the battery life if you use this feature. I tried it out by gentle tapping it on the table a few times and guess what – it skipped. So I got on the treadmill and took a brisk five-minute walk. It skipped then too. So I played with the different features that allow you to choose between 40 – 10 – or off. This designates the amount of the song to keep in it’s memory. None of this playing around had any effect on the amount of skipping that occurred. So I tried putting the unit on the treadmill screen – same result. Over the next three hours I tried a number of experiments and could not find one instance where the unit did not skip.
I specifically picked this CD player because of this feature and was completely let down. The shape, design and weight are almost perfect but then you get into the buttons and controls. Since I spend a big chunk of the time in the gym or on the beach walking I need something that is able to stand up to a little rough handling. Like I said, I always trusted the Aiwa name until now. The volume control is located on the front right side next to the headphone port. It is not recessed so if you have this in a backpack or bag chances are it will get bumped or moved around. This thing isn’t very loud either. I am notorious for having people look at me when I crank up my Sony Walkman all the way.
Headphones are a crucial element for any portable player and the ones included with this one are bad, really bad. They aren’t the nice sleek "ear buds" that you get with the Sony products – but rather those big bulky ones that fit over your ear and give a distorted and distant sound. Even Pearl Jam couldn’t make these headphone sound good. The redeeming feature is the extra long cord – but what good is a long cord when it is attached to poor quality headphones?
The unit doesn't have a very nice open and close feature either. There is a slide button to open the CD door and the door pops up rather than glides. It doesn't stay fully erect – it sags a bit and that can cause some real trouble if you bump it when you are putting a CD in the chamber. It goes without saying that if you break the door the unit is ruined. I don't like the fact that this button is right on the front curve of the unit as well – if it is in a backpack or bag it could easily get pushed over – even if the unit is locked – it still popped the lid open when I tried it. And since we are on the subject of the lock feature, the lock feature is designed so that the unit won’t open while in play mode. However, I managed to open the lid even with the lock button pushed to lock. To avoid scratched CD’s and broken lids always take advantage of this feature if it is available on your compact player.
As far as the play and stop buttons, they are located on the top of the unit and look pretty nice – until you go to use them that is. The buttons are awkward and you have to push them hand to get them to work – which resulted in songs skipping to the next track. The next and back buttons are located top left and are very misleading. They are rather small and also have to be pushed hard to work. I can’t stress this enough – if you have this in a backpack or bag these buttons will get pushed and you’ll have an audio nightmare to deal with. This unit also features a play mode button so you can loop the songs or pick the tracks you want to hear. I didn’t try this out since I don’t have the least bit of interest in listening to anything on this unit. The display mode allows you to choose between time lapsed, time remaining, disc time and disc time remaining.
The Aiwa XP-V511 also comes with an AC adapter so you can use the unit without batteries. The instructions are very misleading on this – they imply that you have to use rechargeable batteries to get the until to work but that isn’t try. NEVER recharge batteries in ANY portable unit – always use the manufacturers charging unit. If something were to happen to your compact player while you were recharging the batteries [like the batteries exploding or leaking] then your warranty would be voided. A handy fact to know.
The display screen is small and you have to hold it at an angle to read it properly. It’s just my opinion but the screen should be bigger so it isn’t so hard to read the time and mode you have programmed. Also – no clock! My Sony Walkman has a clock that runs on a solar panel – which saves so much wear on the batteries. The least Aiwa could have done was thrown in a clock with this piece of junk.
Some other things to know – the battery compartment is a tight fit. When I went to pop in the 2 required AA batteries it actually bend part of the mid section spacer. I know a nice snug fit is needed for good contact but this is taking it a bit too far. I used the unit for about four hours before the power indicator started to blink. The box claims 27 hours of battery life – Somehow I got screwed out of 23 hours. These aren't cheap batteries either ... Energizer Platinum Series.
The overall view of this is pretty bleak. I called Tower this morning and they kind of laughed at my reaction to the "anti skip" feature. They told me that it is extremely over rated on all portable CD players. I am going to exchange this for either an MP3 player or get a store credit. In any event it will be a long time before I try another Aiwa portable unit.
My recommendation is to avoid this at all costs. If you do any exercising or jogging this is not the unit for you. In fact just sitting at the computer typing up a review make it skip a few times when I hit the keys too hard. Stick with Sony or even GPX rather than trying this Aiwa.
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Recommended:
No
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