A BRIEF DESCRIPTION

With the PX303, the best player in their '89 catalogue, AIWA evolutioned the personal cassette player into a higher and more advanced level that came with some impressive technologies. One of them was the brand new HX Amorphous Narrow gap head. This new head (that was used by AIWA for the first time in the ultra-rare HS-PX20, only released in Japan) offered a better high frequency response thanks to the amorphous alloy and the narrow gap shape. This high frequency improvement can be easily heard when comparing against the PX101.

Anothe improvement was the bi-azimuth system, that allowed to precisely adjust azimuth independently to each side of the tape, which was an absolute new technology in the AIWA line. This feature allowed to solve a common problem: misadjustments of the azimuth on the other side of the tape. With it you can adjust precisely so it matches perfectly to both sides.

Inside of the PX303.

Detail of the HX Amorphous Narrow gap head and the bi-azimuth mechanism (the pivot below the head).

The other big improvement was the new two independent controls for the parametric DSL. This time, rather than controlling highs and lows like the PX101, both selectors control the bass, pushing it to a new level. With the upper one (Frequency) you select between L (ultra low) or H (low) bass, and with the lower one (Level) you can control the intensity of the effect (off, 1 and 2). What I can say is that the H position is similar to any other bass enhancing system... the big surprise comes with the L position, which goes as low that it even shakes your bones...

Detail of the Parametric DSL switches.

In my opinion it's the only one walkman that has such a deep bass enhancement that is close to the legendary Boodo Khan. I appreciate it a lot and it's one of my favorite players, thanks to that DSL. Although I'm not a 'basshead', I find it very useful when you're in some noisy environments a good bass enhancement that allows you to keep feeling that bass, without making it excessive.

While in Europe and America AIWA released only a black version (which, BTW, has been named weirdly as "Darth Veider's walkman" by some), in Japan there was a silver version which I find far more attractive:

The silver version, only released in Japan.

As many other advanced models from this brand, it used plumb batteries (particular the PB-3 ) which offered a quick charge (as quick as 15 minutes for 2 hours of playing) but sadly these batteries are all dead nowadays. Lucklily all these models had an external detachable battery compartment that allowed to use two AAA standard batts, which is the one that everyone uses today.

Both versions together.

Similarlly to the PX101, the PX303 came with a good, big pair of headphones that featured a remote. The headphone itself seems identical to the PX101, but now the older pair of connections have merged into one, making it much more convenient.

The PX303 with it's remote and headphone.

CONTEXT

By that time, in '89, seems that SONY did what they had to do and released some technologically advanced models that had similar features like the PX303, with feather touch buttons, autoreverse, Dolby, MegaBASS and remote control. However, none of them had a special amorphous head or Dolby C... except the 703C, a very slightly renewed version of the famous 701C, which was its direct competitor.

Both the 701C and the PX303 together.

The next competitors were the SONY WM-607 and 609, which were similar to the 701C but without Dolby C and amorphous head. And next to them came mid-class models like WM-170, 171 or the 702. So at this time AIWA was absolutely making one of the world top-class walkmans, together with the WM-701C. And the next year the world will see how they wanted to lead the industry by incorporating BBE sound processor and other exciting technologies.

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As you can see here, the response of this powerful walkman is almost plain (remember I'm using a top-class UX-Pro chrome tape) from 25 Hz to 14 kHz, which is clearly better than the SONY 701C, especially in lows. The response in highs is very similar to its competitor.

As you can realize from the interactive images, the PX303 enhances almost only the bass, not the treble like the 701C. Well, I can say it pushes also the treble but, really, 1-2dB are almost nothing. This can be very useful when you have good recordings with good highs that don't really need to be pushed up. In noisy environments this can be very helpful because in those situations the bass is what's really lost, not the treble.

It's also clear that the L position goes very low and deep in the bass, as it can push it up to 15dB at just 30Hz! That is really amazing, and confirms the shocking bass your ears can hear when you set the DSL to L2. The position H enhances the bass from 30 to almost 100Hz which makes the bass sound wider and a bit boomy.

Another interesting thing is that it doesn't look as a dynamic enhancing because there's almost no difference between 1/2 and 1/4 volume, while the 701C shows clear differences depending on the volume set. It looks more as a static preset EQ.

Original FRC*	FRC* | -XX dB Treble loss	FRC* | -XX dB treble loss
Background noise (-55 dB)	Background noise (-65 dB)	Background noise (-67 dB)

Move your mouse over the buttons to see the animation

Dolby performance is very good, with just a slight loss of high frequencies (up to 3 dB with Dolby C) and a very powerful noise redution of 10dB with Dolby B and 12 dB with Dolby C, which is more or less the same as the 701C.

With Dolby C there's almost no loss and Dolby B works perfectly. The only requisite for this is that recording has a perfect encoding of the Dolby, which is not as easy as it seems. Just by activating Dolby in the deck is not enough. Your deck has to be perfectly calibrated (internally) and you have to record putting care so the levels go up to the dolby mark. For more information, read my guide for excellent recordings.

*: The original FRC is measured with a recording without Dolby; the ones with Dolby were each measured with recordings made with the same Dolby system measured.

0,136% (RMS)

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-PX303 final rating.

Overall score: 8,8/10

So, up to date I can say that this is, together with the 701C, the best sounding walkmans I've tested so far (excluding the Super-D6C used as a reference, of course).