As most of you know, I recently bought the Aiwa Exos-9 Bluetooth speaker. And like many of you, I wasnt in love with the "modern look" Here is what I started with...
View attachment 25373
I had an idea in my head before the E9 even arrived, to pay respect to the old school Aiwa 880.
So I ordered up some vinyl wrap with a blue brushed metallic look, and some Spaz Stix paint and got to work.
The rings around the tweeters do not simply pop off like the others do, so I left them alone and on the E9. Once the other speaker trim rings were removed, I measured and roughly cut out some holes in the vinyl to prevent it from sticking to the foam speaker surrounds.
View attachment 25378
After applying and smoothing out the vinyl, It was time to trim off the excess. My Xacto knife came into play when it was time for trimming.(excuse the bad lighting)
After patiently trimming the vinyl, I did a dry fit with the soon to be painted trim rings.View attachment 25380
Time for paint. My first attempt at the tweeter rings were done with a paint pen. The result wasnt what I wanted, so I masked the E9 up, and decided to spray paint them instead.
All of the trim rings were 1st sprayed gloss black, and set aside to dry for 3 days before applying the "chrome" paint.
View attachment 25382
After the chrome paint is dry and cured, it has sort of a dusty haze to it. So using a soft microfiber cloth or, I gently buffed off what looks like overspray, until it shined up.
All trim rings polished up nicely and were put back into place. DONE. Although this will never look exactly like an 880, I think the appearance changed dramatically. Its an AMAZING sounding Bluetooth box, and now it somewhat has some new attitude. I placed the grill on just to see how it looks, but to me it hides too much of the color. View attachment 25387
So I will leave the grill off.
So here it is, the finished product, enjoy, and if you ever have a chance to hear one of these, its well worth a listen. Long live the Old School, hope you enjoy my tribute to the Aiwa 880...Cheers!
View attachment 25373I had an idea in my head before the E9 even arrived, to pay respect to the old school Aiwa 880.
So I ordered up some vinyl wrap with a blue brushed metallic look, and some Spaz Stix paint and got to work.
The rings around the tweeters do not simply pop off like the others do, so I left them alone and on the E9. Once the other speaker trim rings were removed, I measured and roughly cut out some holes in the vinyl to prevent it from sticking to the foam speaker surrounds.
View attachment 25378After applying and smoothing out the vinyl, It was time to trim off the excess. My Xacto knife came into play when it was time for trimming.(excuse the bad lighting)
After patiently trimming the vinyl, I did a dry fit with the soon to be painted trim rings.View attachment 25380
Time for paint. My first attempt at the tweeter rings were done with a paint pen. The result wasnt what I wanted, so I masked the E9 up, and decided to spray paint them instead.
All of the trim rings were 1st sprayed gloss black, and set aside to dry for 3 days before applying the "chrome" paint.
View attachment 25382
After the chrome paint is dry and cured, it has sort of a dusty haze to it. So using a soft microfiber cloth or, I gently buffed off what looks like overspray, until it shined up.
All trim rings polished up nicely and were put back into place. DONE. Although this will never look exactly like an 880, I think the appearance changed dramatically. Its an AMAZING sounding Bluetooth box, and now it somewhat has some new attitude. I placed the grill on just to see how it looks, but to me it hides too much of the color. View attachment 25387
So I will leave the grill off.
So here it is, the finished product, enjoy, and if you ever have a chance to hear one of these, its well worth a listen. Long live the Old School, hope you enjoy my tribute to the Aiwa 880...Cheers!
I thought about painting the grill as James suggested, but its so hard to see through this grill I don't know if it will still be hard to see through or not. For now I'm just gonna leave it off. I emailed a few pictures to CEO Joe Born and he liked it. He asked for a link to this thread once I posted it here. I know AIWA has a Facebook page, but I don't have Facebook.
(hint, hint Mauricio) 
SLO, You F'en rocked it out of the park on that color scheme & I learned more about how to do chrome paint the right way.....DAAAAMMMNNNN!!!!
But no matter how much bling we add to the E9, some will still hate it Lol, which is fine, and expected for collectors of classic boomboxes/radios or anything vintage for that matter. Change is tough sometimes.
but its all cosmetic and nothing internal so Im hoping I will not need to use the warranty for any issues. So far so good! Originally my plan was to have the front face prepped and painted, but the vinyl wrap was easier and less risky, for me anyways.