so much honestly sound is great its operating that bad
591491
so much honestly sound is great its operating that bad, button function or mixed up and off centered for touch and slide
3570614
I really, really like this stereo. The sound is rich, the pairing is easy, and it gives me an excuse to sing badly in the shower.

The things that keep me from loving it are the lagging in the controls and the joke of a suction cup. The lag makes things like controlling volume irritating, while the suction cup is there for show only.
2479519
I am, yes.  I bought my first one a year ago but did not review it because it would have been one more 5 star rating piled on a giant heap of other 5 star ratings.  It wold have been one of those reviews that said "I would give this 10 stars if I could!!"  The sound is stellar, amazing, incredible, beyond expectations, it's everything that's already been said.  There was no need for me to regurgitate it.

So what happened?  My bubble burst.  I have been let down.  Ever since I bought my first one, I have been ITCHING hard to get a second one.  As far as I know; this is the only decent speaker that allows you to link two together and I oh so have the purpose to link two together, I have lots of purposes actually.

The linking process is more than glitchy.  It's almost a fail.  Sometimes they link up in seconds and sometimes they never link up at all and I just give up.  The last week though, both speakers have been stuck on Satellite mode.  It's not even supposed to do that.  There's supposed to be a master and a slave, but they're both linking up as two slaves.  After countless power-on/power off, plug/unplug, disconnect/reconnect, I finally emailed Aiwa.  They responded in less than 24 hours (YAY Aiwa!!) with instructions on how to reset each speaker.  While the reset worked and I was able to get the speakers off of dual slave mode, it did not correct the glitchy pairing and issues I continue to have.

I may still have kept these at five stars simply for the fact that Aiwa CS was so responsive and did resolve my issue, but as other owners of two Aiwa's have reported, the slave speaker has a problem dropping off for a second every now and then when paired.  It only happens when they are paired and it doesn't matter if it's a bluetooth connection to my playback device or a direct connection.  The slave speaker just cuts out.  It never cuts off completely and stays off which I guess is a relief.  But I pair them with one speaker inside and one speaker outside.  When you have a group of people sitting outside grooving to the music and the music is consistently dropping out; that's a problem.  Everyone noticed it and commented on it.  "Why does the music keep cutting out?  Can't you fix that?"

As a standalone unit - 5 friggin stars!!  10 if I could!!  As a paired set, I would give them 2.5 stars, especially at the combined $600 price tag.  So I have to blend my review to 3.5 stars and round up to 4 beacuse the sound that comes out of these is so unbelievably incredibly amazing.  I love the EQ, I love the long battery life, I love the user interface, I love I can do firmware updates, I love the USB port to keep my phone charged. I love, I love, I love!!

Do yourself a favor - for $15 buy the remote.  I do NOT feel the speaker should come with a remote included.  I have a drawer full of useless remotes I never use and owning two of these would have given me one more useless remote.  To me this is a green move on Aiwa's part and it also helps keep the price of the speaker under $300.
536076
It sounds great, it really does, but I bought a set after I heard my brothers set. After about 3 months of using, there is a load of static in both of our sets when you change the volume. The volume of the static is so loud, I can't hear my music. I recommend getting another speaker system if you aren't ok with this much static.
808193
It's great entertainment and it's ability to play music on demand is wonderful.
What I like the least is the mediocre sound quality.
1957862
The curved screen and resolution is nice, also the sound to be honest. But would be great if always worked, out of nowhere shut off and loses sound.
4508593
Great sound when you get it to work properly.  If looking only for music I highly recommend.  If you are looking for surround sound for your TV I would look elsewhere.  Too many connectivity issues.  Loss of sound and issues with updates.
3104051
I actually enjoyed the way this sounded the TWO times I played it before it apparently repeated what caused it to be a "refurbished" model. The Sound Bar simply failed to work one day when I  went to show it off to a friend, so I assumed it must have turned itself off somehow during the few weeks I had made no demands on it. As I approached the Sound Bar planning to look for and flip an on/off switch or plug it back in to the TV if it had somehow gotten unplugged, I detected the unmistakable odor of  freshly burning wiring toward the mid-left of the Bar. Long story short, it was the Sound Bar frying one of its connections and it never worked again after that. Unfortunately, by then the first 30 days had already passed and I had ripped the huge shipping box to pieces for recycling to get it out of my house while I had a pile of company visiting. The Sub Woofer appears to still be functional (power light comes on), but since it only works through a blue-tooth link with the Sound Bar, it's a rather incomplete setup. So I'm out a chunk of money with only a working sub-woofer to show for it, and who knows how long that part will last. I waited a LONG time to splurge on that combination for my own listening pleasure, so I'm *very* disappointed. I expected better quality and frankly, I needed this to work longer than TWICE. It's a great Sub...sure wish I had a great Sound Bar to go with it, since I bought one!
2139049
The surround speakers have excellent sound quality. The subwoofer has always had a slight, very slight hum. I've had this for about two or three years and play my music and movies at a reasonable level. The subwoofer is prone to bottoming out at higher levels under higher demands. Recently it has been creating a popping noise every 5 minutes or so. The sub just went out and when I plug it into the power outlet alone, unhooked to the AV Tuner, it has a loud audible distortion with significant flex in the cone. All in all the surround sounds great but I thought the sub would be more durable. I replaced the sub with a BIC 12" RTR-EV 1200 and the performance is amazing. It may have been defective from the beginning, I don't know. Circuit City went out of business shortly after I noticed these problems so I could not return it.
3233171
The sound is really nice but damn it's hard to get support...I now have the Play 5 and the Play 1 - I was planning to get another Play 1 and the soundbar but I need some assistance from SONOS and for some reason, every time I try to contact them they tell me they cannot communicate with me because they don't recognize my email address.  RIDICULOUS!

Wish I could figure out why the system stops playing all by itself?
3025591
I will say that this system does sound good but the problem is that it is no better than the sound that you can get out of a decent Pioneer, Denon, JVC, etc receiver with a good set of surround sound speakers.  If you think Bose sounds superior then I'll let you have that.

Where this thing horribly fails is in the video switching.  This thing is absolutely horrible and I even worked with Bose on multiple issues and it seems like every time we fixed one thing another thing was broken.  Some things that we encountered:

* The newest DirecTV receivers cause serious problems when using HDMI
* Roku player does not work reliably if in HD mode (720p, etc)
* This device has issues with 5.1 sound over HDMI on various different devices
* Unit will display a purple screen often while switching between different devices and occurs not just with one device

I could go on about the issues that I've encountered with the video switching on this device but I'm just going to recommend that you avoid this unit.  The cost of this thing is just the nail in the coffin.... you can get a much more functional set up with a speaker set, a good receiver, and if you want the single remote throw in a Logitech Harmony.
253945
The sound quality it amazing best ever but for me the mic sounds like someone taking your order from McDonald's it's bad other then that every thing else is amazing.
2171022
They have serious sound problem. This is a very basic function that they cannot solve for more than 2 years. [...]
882132
man the sound was sooo good, and when i started my new job which used an on the phone service, i was thrilled at this find... until the mic just completely went out with no warning... and i lost a customer... which meant that i lost more money than i spent on the headphones themselves, due to the headphones.
i still use them for the amazing sound quality and they are WICKED COMFORTABLE. but forever fail because of the obvious defect in all these headsets (ITS NOT JUST MINE IT's A GOOD 15%-30% DEFECT rate) so...
2 stars because sound is great
2 stars because mic failed epically
2 stars because i lost me money at my job because of KOSS SB49 suck mic defects.
2588798
My unit worked maybe 20% of the time and when it did the sound was atrocious no matter what volume it was. It's what I imagine listening to headphones through a tin can would sound like.
832488
All the reviews for this product sounds so great. Probably mine is the only one with issues. The fan makes a hell of a noise that I cannot hear the audio. In a dark room the image is barely visible at 4 feet. I could not get the entire screen to be focused at the same time, the edges of the screen is blurred when the focus is on the center of screen. Thinking of returning it to add some money to get a different model.
3279355
Let me start off by saying this sound bar has AMAZING sound. I love the tone and stereo seperation. The reasons for the lower rating are not sound related  its the weird things they tried to make the sound bar into.
 First, every other sound bar I have ever had would turn on and off by the TV remote. This one does not. According to the manual (and Sony which I have been contacting), the sound bar will go into standby mode when you turn off the TV IF you have specific types of televisions. Supposedly the newer Sony Bravia or other brands that send an off code back down the HDMI cable. Im connected to a Tivo so that aint happening. The Tivo is on 24/7 and never goes off. If you have a DVR you may have the same problem. Also I have a circa 2005 Sony Bravia 52 and it does not send the appropriate signal. Although the manual does not say it, Im assuming they are talking about HDMI 2.0. If this would turn off through the remote, I would have given it one more star, but to me this is a MAJOR problem as you MUST keep the sound bar remote available to turn it on and off. Great, one more remote for the collection.
 Second, video signals sent through the sound bar are degraded  no, thats not correct  they look like SD instead of HD. That may sound like the same thing but its not. Its weird. Bottom line, the picture is much better directly out of my Tivo and Samsung BluRay player rather than through the Sound Bar.
 Third, this is a SOUND BAR  not a video switching device. WHY does it have three HDMI inputs and one HDMI output. Better yet, why does it have ANY HDMI connections? ITS A SOUND BAR!!! SOUND bar. SOUND, SOUND, SOUND. Am I getting this point across? Why are they trying to make it into a sound bar / video switching device? Dont most TVs have three or four HDMI ports? Isnt the optical input sufficient? Why in the world would you have to go through the sound bar to work your TV?? Going outside your main field of expertise is almost always a fail, and this is no exception.
 Bottom line, if this was JUST a sound bar that turned on and off through the TV remote control, I would definitely give it 5 stars.

UPDATE:
After talking with Sony and intensely studying the owner's manual and start up guide, if you want the sound bar to turn on and off automatically with the TV, you MUST have a TV with an HDMI ARC port (which is the new standard) and feed all video feeds through the sound bar.
Bummer.