AIWA were famous for having licensed the BBE System from BBE (Barcus Berry Electronics) Sound Inc.

This was a control to correct phase errors in music. It gave some music more clarity and brightness, and sometimes mistaken for the treble control.

There were many models made over the years by AIWA with BBE System. Many only had three options of 'OFF', '1', or '2' with a couple more offering a fourth option of '3' as well.

However AIWA made five models that actually gave the user discrete control as to how much BBE to add. I am going to focus on four that were all based on the same alpha tape transport. (The fifth one was a cheaper non-logic controlled model - HS-J505.)

All four models featured AIWA's Amorphous HX heads and also feather touch logic controls, along with in-line remote controls. Shown below are the models in default black, silver was the secondary colour, but other colours were available. eg green in the HS-PL50 model.

Top of the list was the HS-PX50 (aka HS-PX505). This was the flagship player in this range. It was the only model out of the four to feature Dolby C. and also had an extra DSL stage over the other three models. It was a player only model and therefore did not have the radio or recording function.

Next up was the HS-JL50 (aka HS-JL505). This was arguably the swiss army knife out of the four since it had the most features. It had a bi-azimuth head assembly, stereo reverse recording function, manual tuning TV/FM/AM radio, and an external speaker too!

The third in the list was the HS-RL50. This lacked the recording function, but retained the same manual tuning three band radio as the HS-JL50 before it. It seems this was a Japan only model. Curiously the external speaker works on this model too, but there is no screw hole to securely fix the speaker to.

Finally there was the HS-PL50 (aka HS-PL505). It lacked both the radio and the recording function, but also like the HS-RL50 was able to make use of the external speaker too from the HS-JL50.

Thanks for such a good article, Plop! Very interesting. And all your units are in mint condition, congratulations!

You focus primarily on AIWA walkmans, right?

The photos are very good. The white balance is perfectly adjusted (I see you did it manually) and lighting is diffuse so we can apprecciate all the details. Good!

Also, I suppose that you used a tripod, because of the slow shutting speed, but why didn0t you chose a smaller aperture? At this distance, the DoF (depth of field) is so small and can cause some areas of the walkmans to go out of focus. 

By the way, I like your new avatar image. Which headphones are those?

Regards,

Yes, not one of these were in working condition when I received them. These have all been resurrected from death by me. The one in the worst condition was the RL50, it also had a few components swapped from a donor unit.

Haha I was wondering if someone was going to snoop on the picture details.

Yes the Canon EF 28mm has an incredibly shallow dof and at larger apertures images can get very soft. Somewhere between f4.0 and f8.0 and images stay pretty much sharp. I took these images indoors with fluorescent light so had to use tripod to get similar shots everytime, with an even smaller aperture they would have been pin sharp, but the exposure time would have been very long. It was getting late and I didn't want to wait that long for each shot Plus a little bit of softening hides a few of the minor scratches too.

The headphones are Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80 Ohm.

I listened to BBE for the first time when my sister bought an AIWA T40 following my recommendations, many years ago. It was (i think) the cheapest model with BBE). I was very pleased with the quality of the BBE and quickly found differences between the Treble typical adjustment and the BBE.

As you say, the BBE makes music sharper.

I understand, you chose higher aperture to keep shutter time short. Well, with 28mm (that with your camera becomes a 45mm in practical terms, because of the crop factor of the sensor 1.6X) the DoF is not small, making easier you to keep all in focus, something that is even easier if you publish the image at small size, like here. But the closer you are to the subject, the smaller the DoF is. And in very close distances, the DoF quickly gets reduced a lot, so with this kind of shot it's a good idea to set a smaller aperture like f/8 or f/11.

I often use f/8, except if I have dim light, where I choose f/5.6. Recently a friend let me a very special lens: a Micro-Nikkor 85mm PC, which can be tilted and shifted and so allows the user to achieve effects that can never be obtained with normal lenses. for example: to photograph the front door at a strong angle, all in focus at the widest aperture...

This effects can be obtained with the "lensbaby" too, which is the cheap way. I'll post some shots when I could.

As I promised, I post photos taken with this lenses to show you how interesting can be the effect achieved with them. This effect is possible thanks to the "Scheimpflug law". If I take a close photo of the walkman from a side, the I can focus at the nearest point, like here:

but the far point is out-of-focus. I can focus on that far point, but the near point is out-of-focus then:

I can solve this by chosing a small aperture at the lens, like f/11, but although the DoF gets higher, there appears some problems, specially diffraction, that makes the whole image looks softer. So the DoF increases, but the softness too.

And here comes the magic: if I use one of this special lenses, like the 'Lensbaby' or the Micro-Nikkor I used here, you can take the whole walkman perfectly focused at the widest aperture:

BecauseI could tilt the focus plane so it's parallel to the walkman's front door. This can be achieved because the focus plane is the same as the front door, so the DoF moves by the vertical axis:

Notice how the bottom side of the walkman is out-of-focus. Surprising, huh?

In normal conditions, the focal plane is parallel to the camera's sensor plane:

And in can only cover the whole walkman by closing the aperture so much.

You can see a good explanation of the effect in the video at the lensbaby page (min 0:57).

Another example

Normal position at full aperture (f/2.8)

Now with closed aperture (f/11):

And finally with the lens tilted, taking profit of the Scheimpflug law, at full aperture:

Notice how the front door is perfectly focused, and the nice and surprising effect over the tape, that is completely out-of-focus.

I think BBE is a welcome feature in any case and in fact, the only thing I criticize on the PX303 is the lack of the BBE feature. If the recording and the tape are good, then there's little reason to use BBE. However, if the recording is not that good or was done on a lower quality tape, then BBE makes things a lot easier. It's far from a simple treble control, it's a real signal processor. BBE sound maximizer for example is an unbelievably useful little box. I never had a pleasure to work on excellent equipment so BBE was a savior in many ways because the mixer could never get everything right, there was always too much reverbation from the walls of the unfriendly venues that were never meant for concerts. So when I see BBE written on a cassette player, I get that old feeling...

Great stuff Plop! Very interesting and educational!

Thanks Tuna for the comments!

I have to say, the PX303 is a very good sounding walkman. Especially when listening to good quality recordings. It works very well with the DT770s that I have. I tend to listen with the DT770 and PX303 set the Parametric DSL to L1 or L2 for some real low bass rumbling, but at conservative volumes of course.

I have the BBE Sonic Maximiser for Windows and have incorporated it into Winamp. It does help to "correct" mp3 music to some degree.

@Hurodal

Thanks also for your comments and advice too

I need to take some photos of the green PL50 and the silver RL50. So when I get time I will post them up too. (maybe I can incorporate some of your photographic tips as well )

Let me know if you need some help taking photos; I'll be glad to help you.

Sorry for my last email, I think I went too far with my stuff, so nobody reply (probably because nobody cares or understand), haha. :-P

Personally I find more neutral sound profile quality 'phones with a very broad frequency range perform best. Bass heavy 'phones will only cause the bass to be exaggerated further and in some cases cause distortion.

I guess this is probably the only AIWA with variable BBE that you missed, Plop. This is the one my sister had (and still has, and she send me this photo).

I think this model is pretty forget by almost everyone but it's probably the most affordable walkman with DSL and BBE and I remember it to be probably the best sounding walkman for small budgets back in '90

Ah yes, I remembered you mentioning your sister having a basic AIWA but I could not find evidence of it elsewhere. This on first appearances would indicate that it is a low range albeit very rare walkman, one step lower than the digital tuning J505. I always had a suspicion that AIWA made a manual tuning non logic model, much like the JL50 to the JX50. Perhaps many were thrown out when their owners no longer wanted them owing to their comparative initial lower upfront cost versus the logic controlled units, which is why we see so few of the T40 about nowadays?

Certainly worth keeping if only for the fact that this the missing 6th variable BBE AIWA we now know to exist. I might now just have to find one, if only to complete the set of six variable BBE AIWA!

here is one photo