Found this from the Facebook marketing site. Apparently I couldn't source the information about this model when it was actually released in the market but I believe this probably the beginning era of plastic casing walkman in the late 80's. What makes me go for this is because I hardly see plastic casing walkman with 5 frequency equalizer.
Very nice condition indeed! Do these cheaper units also suffer from capacitor issues like the other Aiwas?
Looks very nice. It's one of the very few walkmans with a 5-band EQ, as far as I remember. And it doesn't sound bad, does it?
It has quite a decent sound but the mechanism is a bit rough and simpler in design. The Walkman is so light as you don't feel the sturdiness as compared to the older generation Walkman that made of metal.
I realized some time ago that these mid-range models sound much better than I remember from back in the days. My sister had an AIWA very similar to the HS-T30 (but with DSL and BBE) and it sounded just good with the recordings we made in our boomboxes. That's what we could do those days. But now, testing with a good recording made in an excellent deck, it just sounds really good! So the big difference was in the recording, not on the walkman.
Great find with the original box. AIWA was heading for hard times around this time, while partially owned by Sony they were run independently until Sony bought controlling ownership (according to internet lore) in the early 90's. Sony turned them into an entry level brand and they had great success through the rest of the decade. These later models were probably meant for market share to increase either sales or company value for a future sale.
