Aiwa Aiwa 22

Probably the most successful "mini" system ever sold during high-fidelity's good times. Not only did Aiwa sell many, but several other manufacturer's rebadged the main units and sold them under their own name !

I have found so far four different versions : BASF (who attempted several times to crash the audio market), Metz (yes - the photographic flash maker, who also attempted several times to crash the audio market), Uher later on with a radically different design and Wega.
The latter rebadge remains very strange given Sony's 100% ownership of Wega since march 1975... However, Aiwa was under 52% Sony ownership since 1969 (54,6% in '82) and many sharing of engineers and factories so this may explain that :)

Metal, cast aluminium, steel enclosures - and surprisingly good sound to boot.
Like Sony's Precise P7 or the Toshiba System 15, this was all the 1970s could offer in quality budget with the upcoming 1980s' slick and unobtrusive packages.

As for the Sony Falcon, naturally, Japan saw a myriad of 22 dedicated and very elaborate racks and accessories and lower-end versions which would require an entire TVK to be displayed properly ; the four racks below are nevertheless the most interesting.

The (many) components are :
S-A22 : integrated amplifier
S-C22 : preamplifier
S-P22 : power-amp
S-R22 : am-fm tuner
AD-L22 : k7 recorder
S-V22 : TV-sound tuner
MT-22 : digital audio timer
MIX-22 : reverberation mixer
S-22S : turntable
SC-E22 : loudspeakers

Aiwa made many later versions until 1983 but none had the success of the original "22". Only Sony managed to top Aiwa's success with its Heli system, known as FH-7 outside Japan.


The 22 components will be posted separately on TVK : this is a main presentation page of the system.