That's right, you got it, the accessories kind of give me warm fuzzies. Looking through the Japanese Catalogs it's clear that they made sure you could use these little players for many uses or situations. Sometimes it's like playing with GI Joes and wanting all of the gadgets. Most people don't look for these so pricing is still reasonable but they don't come up for sale very often. We all know the AIWA HS-J02, I think this may be the best bargain going right now, it may be a little clunky but a super nice unit and it makes a perfect base unit for the AIWA FM Transmitter, the little guy in gray and (Sansui) turquoise. The transmitter has a dial on the back that can be changed to an FM frequency. The idea is you use your FM radio headphones with your portable. So the trade-off is the large transmitter for a headphone cord. I'm sure the unit was meant more for a radio-free player but the buttons and jacks all line up. It is cool that on the inside there a power jack cord that connects to the HS-J02, this works when you connect power to the top of the unit or connect another cool accessory, the large battery case to the unit as I've done in the photo. The transmitter itself has a headphone jack that plugs into the base unit. This early player can record, up until 10 years or so ago, recording players were extremely hard to find, now there tends to be a decent supply. I always lusted after the few I could find and this model was near the top of my list but it's a little different, most of them have dual built in mics, this doesn't. For recording I've got the AIWA CM-Z3 Microphone, a super good looking mic with all metal construction, who doesn't love the perforated cover? It also comes with a foam windscreen but doesn't look nearly as good. The FM headphones were part of the AIWA line and were meant to be stand-alone, there's no cord for your base unit, thus making the transmitter an attactive option. The cord coming out of the bottom is an antenna, a lot of small japanese radios had these little screw in wires, one of the hardest accessories to find, everyone lost them. Feel free to post your accessories, I'd love to see more!
Man, I LOVE YOU! I had the same obsession for the baby-Discmans, collected 'em all: battery packs, IR controllers, antivibration plates: it Feels Good to make your little babies feel cozy!...
Of course most guys our age love the gadgets! As a kid you'd see an older guy mess around with an EQ or DBX box and you thought it was the coolest thing, regardless if you picked up the nuances. Do you still have the Discmans?
I have quite a few of the mini-speakers, always grab them if I find them. I have a couple of Sony external AC adaptors too that I found in a joblot on eBay
Beautiful collection! I have to get me a pair! Testing the progress of repairs through the headphones sometimes gets quite unpleasant Sloooowly rebuilding my collection, started with the ones I missed on my first try: Denon DCP-100 and Toshiba (actually, I had two Tosh of that fancy-legs model but never got around to fixing them)
That AIWA was the first on many fronts, there's a thread around here somewhere on it. It's still a great bargain, they are nice beefy little units with all of the great AIWA Features.
I just scored an AM cartridge! After searching for years I finally found one of the hardest to find accessories. Most of the players that had a cartridge style radio came with FM, AM was an option and I don't think they sold many of them. Now my Toshiba KT-R2 has a new friend. According to an old John Edwards Thread, the AM is extemely rare but these will fit in a few Toshiba Players provided they have the pins and dial opening in the cover. I always liked having a radio with my player because the batteries didn't last long with cassettes, but you could still use the radio for a few days. The red is Toshiba AM Tuner Pack RP-A2 and the more common blue FM RP-S2. They have a lock in the case that locks it to the player, they must of had problems with the pins not making constant contact.
Good luck Jorge! That was one of the first items on my wishlist going back years, they were non-existant but who knows, maybe they're coming out of the woodwork. The dork factor might be on 10 with this one, I don't think the younger generation has any interest in AM.
I was checking around the internet for cool stuff and one of the Japanese Bloggers talked about his Sony TMR-FM7 Transmitter and I had to dig a little more. I love this type of gadget from the early 80's, over here there were a lot of restrictions so we didn't see them. It basically gave you a way to use different equipment to listen to audio as long as it had an FM receiver. This one is sold! Found on a yahoo.jp listing.
The Personal Hi-fi Blog describes using the Aiwa HS-J9 as a "time stamped voice recorder". It isn't clear if the device was ever developed. https://personalhifiblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/hs-j9-hs-j09-hs-j600.html?m=1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US5225947
It's unfortunate most accessories for these players go missing over the decades. They got lost or broken or people who inherit them have no idea what the accessories are for. In order to stop buying J9/09/600's, I decided to focus on getting a set of M11's and a microphone for each of the 14 units I have accumulated and refurbished. Aiwa HS-J9/09/600 came with HP-M11 headphones. Which were the same as the HP-M10 except that the M11's folded. Besides going missing like all accessories, the M11's also suffered from blown speakers and the plastic headband parts broke. Which meant most were thrown out even when the units were current. So extremely few have survived. So far only four HP-M11 earphones. All of them needed new foam pads, which are cheap and easy to get. As far as I can determine, the speakers used in the M10 and M11 were not used in any other earphone. So they are unavailable. Two of my M11's had blown speakers. I have found replacements with the same diameter and electrical specs. But they have a little weaker bass than the originals and require a lot of delicate plastic reshaping to fit in the housings. Intact M11's usually are too expensive for my liking. Like around $200cdn including all costs. The acquisition of One Point microphones is going better than the earphones. I've learned to watch out for the two versions of the mic. One version has a flexible plug extension, and only that one came with the J9/09/600. The RB-100 charger/power pack is extremely useful for testing. Using batteries to test these units undergoing repairs is awkward at best. I'm not going to get more of these. There's also the belt clips, cases and packaging. The latter is hopeless and doesn't interest me. If a unit came with a belt clip or case, fine. But I'm not after more. I have the owners manual, warranty card and repair depot sheet because I bought the silver J09 new in 1986. I was thinking I could get a print shop to duplicate the owners manual so each unit could have one. Service manuals for the player and the mechanism are essential accessories. Too bad there is no manual for the J9, since the circuitry is different from the J09/600 because of the TV audio reception. The FM transmitter is a modern equivalent of the device shown in the OP. And I've managed to get all the colors except for the blue and pink units. I think I can live without them. The lower photo is the accumulation as of a couple of years ago.
When I read your post the first thing I thought of was the movie Iron Eagle. Going by a rusted memory, the kid steals a fighter jet and plays hair metal through his AIWA? In hindsight, when I was thrifting a lot 10-20 years ago, I wish I had paid more attention to the piles of headphones they used to sell for cheap. I used to see hanger racks with around 20-30 but headphones were kind of gross and I didn't like touching them too much. Of course you rarely see that many these days.
Never saw that movie. Of the earphones I've bought, only one needed significant cleaning. Installing new foam pads pretty well sanitizes them.
