I read online somewhere about Aiwa losing money, so I checked their
financial reports here:
<http://www.aiwa.co.jp/english/index_e.html>
In a nutshell, Aiwa's first loss in 13 years was experienced in fiscal 1999,
and they continued to lose money in the first half of fiscal 2000. Aiwa
estimated that it will lose money all the way through fiscal 2000 (ends at
the end of March).
Shortage of component supply, especially the chips that are key to
downsizing equipments, was cited as one of the reasons for the loss.
Assuming that this holds enough significance, going for cloning probably
relieves them of the pressure of procurement.
The F80, for instance, uses Sony ATRAC and Philips A/D D/A converter, seen
in the pictures at the bottom of this page.
<http://www.puwa-net.com/minidisc/mdworld/m-binshi/f80_k.html>
Leon
on 3/23/01 6:57 AM, Eric Woudenberg, Minidisc.org Editor at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Norbert (indirectly) forwarded this link for Aiwa's English AM-F90
> page to me: <URL:http://www.aiwa.co.jp/english/exhibi/new_p2001/am-f90e.htm>
>
> Actually I'm a bit sad to see it, Aiwa's were always somewhat unusual
> in their feature set (e.g. AGC *AND* on the fly recording level
> control, program play mode, backlit main body display, etc.) and I
> thought of them as the real "hacker" (or "MD nerd") machines. So, does
> this spell the end of Aiwa-unique units?
>
> Judging by the initial monthly production numbers (Aiwa AM-F90: 3000
> units, Sony MZ-R900: 50,000 units) they must not have very high
> expectations for it -- or maybe Aiwa's will now be unique by being rare!
>
> Rick
>
>
>
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