The return of The Aiwa

 We've talked a bit about portable music but for me the portable cassette player starts off with a friend at boarding who got a Walkman in 1981 and getting a basic Dixons store brand model around 1983 as a number of important events in my life were happening.

That was the period where pre-recorded cassettes started to outsell records that could have bonus tracks and even special cassette extended play singles were issued like Warner/Elektra/Atlantic's 12 Inches on Tape series although I recorded many of my own.

This was my first proper Walkman, bought from a store at an amateur radio rally that sold B grade and shop returns that served me really well beating big brands like Sony's in the 1990's into a cocked hat.

The Aiwa HG-S 35 MkII to give it its clumsy name was a solidly built tape player that had auto reverse using gears and a dedicated four channel head that was switched electronically which was more reliable than the rotating ones on home decks for staying properly aligned.

Made in 1986 it came with a three band equalizer while some had five band models that were potentially more useful for taming too bright headphones rather than the gawd awful "Mega Bass" Sony inflicted on their later models adding a thud to the sound it messed up.

Unlike my first one , it had a equalization selector for regular (120 us) and Chrome/FerroChrome/Metal (70 us) tapes for accurate replay and its quality was extremely good for having a decent mechanism with metal parts.

It lacked a radio which the mark III added but neither had Dolby B noise reduction which may of been an issue to some back then but I don't use it much finding it touch and go if works without being too obviously intruding on the sound quality.

The small amount of background hiss is hardly noticeable at normal listening levels when you don't use it and you can forget using Dolby C as that sounds horrible without a dedicated decoder.

My original got lost but recently I picked up a used new to me one and ordered new drove belts to keep it going as it was something else in the days of Bros and Swing Out Sister.