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Aiwa XK-S9000 vs Aiwa XK-009 Excelia

Posted by Braxus (A) on July 4, 2008 at 21:15:27

I have both of these decks and they are both hooked up in my rack at the moment. Both have been serviced with new belts put in. Anyway I decided to have some fun and see what differences I could notice between the two decks. I recorded a tape on the 9000 which was a Sony Metal Master of an Elton John CD. I put the tape in each deck while playing parts of the songs and switched back and forth during parts of the song. I noticed the alignment is slightly different between the two decks which accounts for part of what I noticed. On the Aiwa 9000 I noticed how rich the sound was with excellent depth and how real the sound seemed to be. When I put the tape into the 009 deck, the sound went flat and lost that rich sound. Even the low end wasn't as good. The 9000 seems to be a warmer deck with excellent low end. The 009 deck just missed what makes the recording jump out at you and makes you go wow. I don't know how two decks of similar design can sound so different. I do know the price difference between the two decks was about $400 Canadian. They seemed to just make the 9000 a better deck. The 9000 seemed to have a dynamic sound the 009 didn't have. Even the 009 sounded more cold and sterile compared to the 9000. I guess a fare thing to do is record the same tape on the 009 to see if it improves, but I didn't expect the other differences to jump out at you. The 009 deck still is a decent deck and is on par with my Sony 909ES. I heard someone comment on how the designers on the 9000 seemed to burn the candle at both ends to the 11th hour to make it a better deck. The 9000 typically sells in the upper range between $800 and $1000 used in good condition, and as high as $1300. If the 9000 sounds as good as that, I couldn't imagine what the Tandberg 3014 must sound like. For reference I used Dolby C on that one tape.

Oh and for a good tape website- check out:

http://www.tapeheads.net/

Edits: 07/04/08 07/04/08

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