In the late 90s and early last decade, there was a huge surge in the sales of mini/midi systems in India. The market was swamped with products from Sony, Aiwa, Philips, Samsung, LG component systems. They started around 15k back then and went up to 50k (INR). And their power, as advertised, (hold your breath) was in the range of 2000 to 10000 watts PMPO. 10000 watts. Yes. That was an LG product as well IIRC.
Some of those systems were good (for non-audiophile kind of people). Some Sony and Aiwa models produced some real distortion free chest thumping bass and crisp smooth highs when played normally. Unfortunately, the crowd buying them was mostly party animal type, which knew only one way of listening to music. All the knobs turned all the way to the right. That is full bass, full treble, full volume. Needless to say, they got much less from their systems that they were actually capable of. Consequently that product line got associated with mediocrity, despite that even before that there were companies that had excellent sounding mini / midi system. Specially from likes of Onkyo, Aiwa, Sansui etc.
The best sounding mini system I heard was 3 years ago at a showroom in China. I couldn't believe the sound. An absolutely distortion free, non-fatiguing, pristine cohesive from top to bottom sound. As if it was a single driver full range driver playing. Sweet deal at around INR 40k. I would have bought one instantly if I needed one.
That was the past. Nowadays these products are targeted at people who would be playing a 25 buck CD with 150 songs on it. Needless to say, for that market these are nice products.
You see, at the end of the day, everything that is produced, has a target market segment. Products such as the above are NOT targeted at audiophile.
