At first I thought it was one of those slim Panasonics , a closer look and surprisingly , it was a Goldstar walkman , practically Goldstar walkmans are virtually non existent where I live . But I let it go , it was filthy , full of some kind of sticky residue , you could lift it up just by touching it ! When it was new the factory sprayed it with a special rubberized black paint that gives a matte finish with anti slipping characteristics . After years this paint becomes to this sticky residue very similar to the melted belts that we all know from walkmans etc. Nevertheless , as I was walking away from the seller I felt it was wrong not to buy it . So I returned home with the Goldstar walkman and started cleaning it , sadly all the lettering was printed over the paint and what had not been disintegrated by itself now was disappearing with the cleaning , sad but I couldn't do otherwise . WHAT A SURPRISE And then a very strange thing happened ! While I was reaching the plastic surface of the walkmans case during cleaning in all the places where there were letters and symbols , they started appearing again now printed solidly on the case ! Admittedly I was confused but kept cleaning , when I was working the side where the control buttons are at a place with no lettering , another surprise , under the paint capital letters started appearing , the final word : DAEWOO ! With a few exceptions all the printings are in Korean language ... above and underneath ! Now some photos of what was described , but revelations are by no means over yet ! The Goldstar AHA-F56 , cleaned but not thoroughly especially at tight places , I left uncleaned the "AUTO REVERSE" printing to preserve it us there isn't anything printed underneath. DAEWOO , at a place which is part of the bottom case of the walkman , so at least that part started its life as a Daewoo walkman model ... and a model number just in case we had any doubts : AHS-81C ! Original Goldstar text disappeared but Daewooo remained : This side is interesting because its the only part that retains its original paint and printing , underneath presumably is the Daewoo printings , it can be seen clearly the shade difference with the cleaned door just below . THE INTERNALS Here is the Goldstar with its cassette door open , it looks nice and maybe .... familiar ? Indeed , those who have experience with the early Sony EX/FX series walkmans will recognize the similarity ! Here in comparison SONY WM FX-50 and GOLDSTAR AHA-F56 . Lets resume for a moment , we have a Goldstar walkman which is also a Daewoo with a Sony transport Mechanism , thankfully it's not April fools otherwise none would believe me ! But is this transport mecha Sony ? I have in my collection too many EX/FX Sony walkmans with this transport mechanism and they are all made in Japan but this proudly says Made in China , the quality and all is definitely Sony , it doesn't look like a copy . Goldstar as Sony clones have existed in the past with most renown the Goldstar Jockey 7 a Sony WM-7 clone. Very interesting though is that this Goldstar/Daewoo walkman managed to squeeze around this transport mechanism an analog dial radio (Sony used the cassette door space for that) and a large diameter very narrow speaker , to achieve that , PCB is custom made labeled MOA MH-32. Also to avoid the characteristic Sonys battery hub for the single gumstick or AA cell in EX/FX series the Goldstar uses a single AAA battery cell , the outcome is a fully equipped slim walkman with clean lines . CONCLUSION Goldstars AHA-F56 build quality is a few steps below Sony with exception of the transport mechanism but looks less bulkier with cleaner lines and an attractive cassette door that looks at the center like the front of a CRT screen , sound quality is good but nothing to be excited . One can only imagine how and why this hybrid saw the light of day but I found it extremely interesting hence I'm sharing the experience with you. On the web there is absolutely no picture or mention about Goldstar AHA-F56 or Daewoo AHS-81C . Finishing a few more pictures : And a possible explanation to what AHA stands for in Goldstars model no. AHA-f56 : Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more aha /əˈhɑː,ɑːˈhɑː/ exclamation exclamation: aha; exclamation: a-ha used to express satisfaction, triumph, or surprise. "Aha! So that's your secret plan!"
Is there anything inside you could use to date it. I think you can date things as to whether they were "Made in China". My guess is that Sony sold or transferred their old tooling for making decks to China. A quick Google found me this article https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicat...ety-to-industrial-powerhouse-in-just-35-years which claims that the first Chinese Industrial Revolution started in 1988. That sounds about right to me given all @Mister X s articles about manufacturing in Singapore, and the fact that when I bought an Olympus camera in the early 1990s I was surprised to find it was "Made in China" yet Olympus still felt the need to also specify"Parts made in Japan".
It's easy to put a time frame to Goldstar AHA-F56 . Goldstar merged with Lucky on February 28, 1995 to become LG , one of the ICs has production date 2nd week of September 1994 (using a Hitachi Year Month Week model). If these dates are correct the production date is limited to 5 1/2 months and even less as the IC spent sometime to reach the production of the walkmans PCB , this walkman looks like the swan song for Goldstar which partly may explain the discrepancies. Deliberately avoided any assumptions in my initial description. I thought about the tooling transfer from Sony to China but experience has shown me that if you blend facts with assumptions people tend to take everything as facts . PS : No Made in Korea or China anywhere on the walkman except the "Made in China" on the transport mechanism . Another IC is labeled "KIA 6092F" , I'll look further maybe Samsung is also involved !
Hi there, I've registered just to show you some photos of original Daewoo ahs-81c. It's from local Russian bulletin board, I had a chance to buy it, but didn't. I've owned one in 1999 till 2003. We lived in Uzbekistan that time, my mother got one for about 80 bucks, than presented it to me a bit later. I liked it, it was rather good for a kid after some Chinese noname devices. It's very rare as you mentioned. And it broke in 2003, just the engine stopped spinning, and I couldn't find another one so slim, like it had. That's the end of the story. Also thanks for your photos, here are mine (not my original one, but looks the same).
If you've got some questions about it, I can answer. Mine was made in Korea, but don't remember about it's motherboard, though I disassembled it in age of 12
Hi @Daewoo_nostalgia and welcome , thanks for the photos and your input ,there has been a while since my post but it's nice to see how an original Daewoo AHS-81C looked like. From your photos we see that the Daewoo AHS-81C door is different than that of the Goldstar AHA-F56 so it is possible that Goldstar might took the trouble to design a new door until of course we see another Daewoo AHS-81C exactly the same as the Goldstar AHA-F56 that is. Another difference with the Daewoo based Goldstar is that the Goldstar/Daewoo back label is in Korean which means that the Daewoo base was originally destined for the local market whereas the model in your photos was for export.
I think Daewoo is a rather large company similar to Hitachi. As a young sales guy I used to sell Daewoo Forklifts as a budget model to the more solid Clark Forklifts.
Indeed Daewoo must was a large company and somehow embarked in the electronics and eventually in the walkman business probably when the market was hot , it seems something didn't go as planed and their stock ended up to Goldstars hands .
I kind of forgot that history, I left the forklift world right before Daewoo's Collapse. I was just reading Wikipedia's Version of what happened, interesting.
