Aiwa CS 220 (1981)
The Aiwa CS-220 is a portable stereo radio cassette recorder, a boombox in plain terms, that left the factory in Japan in May 1981. It appears to have been sold under a few regional suffixes: the CS-220E for Europe, the CS-220U, and the CS-220H. Beyond that, the record is thin. Most of what survives comes from classified listings and repair videos, not period reviews or service literature.
What the listings say is consistent. It's a four-band AM/FM portable measuring 425 x 230 x 140 mm and weighing 4 kg. The radio side is generally reported to perform well - sellers in Finland and Poland both describe the tuner reception as working properly or even excellent. The cassette deck is another story. Multiple independent listings note that the transport fails to spin, which is the usual fate of 1980s belt-driven mechanisms. A belt-and-oil service kit for the CS-220E exists on eBay, so the repair path is known. One Finnish seller put it this way: "Radio side works as it should. Cassette side does not work."
Pricing in the wild has ranged from about 2,200 rubles for a non-working unit in Russia to 40 euros for one in Finland. A Polish seller described their example as being in excellent collectible condition. One working unit was described by its seller as sounding "awesome," but that's a single data point. A service manual for the CS-220H variant is available, which helps if you're attempting a belt replacement.
Known specifications:
- Type: Portable stereo radio cassette recorder (boombox)
- Bands: AM/FM (4-band tuner)
- Dimensions: 425 x 230 x 140 mm
- Weight: 4 kg
- Production: Japan, May 1981
No power output, frequency response, speaker driver sizes, or original price are documented. If you own one and can fill in those blanks, the archive would welcome the data.
eBay Listings
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