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| Year: |
1985 |
HS-P08 |
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| CONSTRUCTION
AND FUNCTIONS |
| Housing: |
Metallic |
| Color and
finish: |
Silver, Black, Red |
| Tape transport: |
IC Logic |
| Radio: |
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| Recorder: |
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| Remote control: |
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| Auto reverse: |
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| Battery: |
AAAx2
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| Ext.
compartment: |
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| Volume limiter: |
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| Blank skip: |
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| Case: |
PVC |
| Charger: |
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| Price: |
19XX: 90$
2010: 150$ |
| Availability: |
Extremely Rare |
| Others: |
Remote control,
Music sensor. |
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| SOUND |
| Bass
boost: |
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| Equalizer: |
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| Sound processor: |
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| Noise reduction: |
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| Head: |
Standard |
| Freq. response: |
40-12.500Hz (norm)
40-14.000Hz (CrO2)
40-16.000Hz (metal) |
| Max. output: |
20 mW |
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A BRIEF DESCRIPTION
When AIWA released
the HS-P08 in 1985 it was a revolution because
of the many advanced features that they achieved
to fit in a small player. No other player from
SONY or other brands could offer such a huge
amount of features at the time; it was far more
advanced than any other player in the world,
except for it's bigger brother, the G08 and the J08 (this
one was the most advanced walkman on 1985).
Features like feather-touch buttons, remote control and
music sensor put it on a superior
step over the rest, and the auto-reverse, Dolby
B, hard case, new small earphones that doesn't
have upper band and a body made almost full from
metal, complete an incredible set of features
for a player at the time.
AIWA released their players in the asian market under the "CassetteBoy" brand, which they are basically the same, except that they don't have the "0" before the "8". So in Asia they are called "P8" and in the rest of the world, "P08". All my units are from Asia, so you'll see the CassetteBoy logo in the gallery, below.
CONTEXT
80's was a very particular
years and at 1985 many manufacturers were trying
to offer an idea of breaking the old rules, to bring fresh
ideas. And walkmans helped so much the idea to let
the user to listen to music everywhere, but with
not so much quality and comodity. The P08 was AIWA's first player with a
remote control, to allow the user to take the
player inside (for example in a very cold environment)
and fully control it. The autoreverse brought
the user the ability to not to take it outside to flip the tape, so I think it was a huge step ahead that set
a new level of quality and sophistication, although the SONY WM-7 was the first to have autoreverse, feather touch and a remote, but in a pretty bigger size.
At that time SONY had the WM-101 that focuses
in size, as it was a very small player, a succesor
of the ground-breaking WM-20 released two years
before. The WM-101 and the G08 have some common features, like: auto
reverse, Dolby B and small earphones. The WM-101 also
has an external compartment for an AA battery.
But it didn't have IC logic control, remote
control, music sensor or two outputs...
NOTE: If you have any useful
info about this model, you can collaborate with
us if you want to. Please send us an email and
share your info. We will update the page with
it. |
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For rating the sound quality, we use a pair of
high quality Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones,
and a test tape (SONY UX-Pro) that has been recorded with a high-end deck (a specially modified and upgraded SONY D6C by Dr Walkman in Italy). If I tell you that this small deck performs almost at the same level as a Nakamichi Dragon, and it records even better in some cases, you probably will say I'm exaggerating, but... believe me: I'm not (and yes, I have a Dragon).
The audio tests include an objective test and a subjective test. The results of the first one are shown in the graphs and data; the results of the second one, however, are a personal opinion and they're
not intended to be a precision rating.
The SONY D6C, a superb recorder
Before rating this model, it was taken to a
professional technician for examine, repair and
fine adjusting. Remember these are old machines
and internal belts stops working properly after
some time. Of course, head and rollers have been
carefully cleaned before testing.
This player offers pretty good performance. The sound is clean, open and well balanced, except a lack of deep bass. It really shines when you turn on Dolby, specially if you have a recording deck that offers excellent Dolby performance. So if you want excellent Dolby B performance and the power of a 5-band EQ, this player will give you many hours of enjoying.
If you love bass, like me, I suggest you to connect it to a portable amp equipped with bass enhancing, like my CmoyBB.
| Frecuency response |
As the P08 basis is the same as the G08, it shares the same performance. Looking at this graph we can see a pretty good curve, specially in mids and highs. Without having any sophisticated HX head, it delivers very good performance in highs, with a clean and detailed sound. The sound is also open and well balanced overall... except the lack of deep bass.
The output is powerful, perfectly capable of drive my Sennheiser HD280Pro, but adding my CMoyBB gives my the addition of bass I usually like.
The unit I'm testing has a slightly high playing speed (when testing a 3kHz recorded signal, I measured 3030Hz), but itsn't annoying at all.
Overall a good player with slight lack of bass. |
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| Background hiss and noise reduction |
| *: The original FRC is measured with a recording without Dolby; the one with Dolby was measured with a Dolby-encoded recording.
This is undoubtely one of the best features of this walkman: very good performance with Dolby B: with super-low noise and a pretty good FRC with almost no loss of highs. It's very surprising to say, but this cool AIWA can offer sound performance close to Dolby C ¿?!! |
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Wow & Flutter: |
0,186% (RMS) |
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With 0,186 of W&F this player has enough low fluctuations to be very pleasant to listen to. This effect is not clearly noticeable, except if listening to clasic music (with violins) or many sustained vocals. Not bad at all for a walkman, indeed. |
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So finally I listen to my reference recording (already explained here) and combined all data into a single graph, to let us quickly see all the measurements about it:
AIWA HS-P08 final rating.
This AIWA P08 is very well built: heavy, almost full-metal body and it has one of the coolest designs, together with the G08. If I have to pick up one design in the '80s era I'll probably choose it. I love the diagonal lines.
It offers a really good performance with Dolby B. The combination of strong construction, cool design and a complete list of features (including one of the first Music search function and a remote control) blowed away the competition back in 1985.
It's really one of the coolest walkmans ever made IMHO, definitely a milestone and a must-have for any serious walkman collector.
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Red version, which has a very powerful red. Extremely rare to find. |
Blue version, far more difficult
to find than the red one, which is far from being easy... |
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| The music sensor (which detects the next or previous song)
is activated by pressing FF or REW while playing. |
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We haven't any info about licensed
models from other brands. If you know anyone, please
send us an email to share
the info, and we will update the page.
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This site is free and completely mantained only by me. However, it would be a nice help if you do a donation (even small). You can do it using Paypal (it's secure and fast). It will help me continue improving this site and keeping alive the memory of those loving walkmans for future generations.
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| BBE |
Barcus Berry Electronics, the name of the actual BBE
Sound, Inc. |
| DSL |
Dynamic Sound Loudness |
| DSL-EX |
Dynamic Sound Loudness EXtreme |
| HX |
Headroom Extended |
| MS |
Music Search |
| PLSS |
Private Listening Sound System |
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