Aiwa HS-TA176

The HS-TA176 (also known as TA176 and TA-176) was an AM/FM stereo radio cassette player manufactured by the Aiwa Corporation in China. It was one in a series consisting of HS-TA21, HS-TA22, HS-TA23, and HS-TA24, sharing the same mechanism design. Here are some of the features and specifications of the one shown here.

• AM/FM tuner with manual tuning control
• Ear Guard
• Belt Clip
• 18 hours battery life
• 15 mW per channel into 32 Ω (EIAJ)
• Dimensions: 91.5 mm × 116.5 mm × 34.0 mm
• Mass: 124 g (excluding batteries)
• 3 V operation (2 × AA batteries)

The version shown in this multi-page article is transparent blue coloured, however they were available in many different colours, and the transparent versions would have been most popular.

Review

This is a very basic all plastic cassette player but with an imaginative colourful design and shape which draws attention. There was a time when manufacturers began using transparent plastic to give an impression of a futuristic design; hence it makes this cassette player a little unique in that respect. In this design, the tape transport mechanism (TTM) does not have a separate chassis that one can pull out, and instead the mechanism is mounted directly on the case itself. The pushbutton mechanism is plastic and gives a clunky and crunchy feel. Although the play button is large, it feels slightly awkward to press, and also gives a dull locking feel giving the impression that it is broken. However, I still like it because it is such an interesting and unique design. The TTM of this unit has much similarity to the HS-GS183 model.

The electronic engineering is based on the Toshiba chipset consisting of the TA2111F single chip AM/FM radio solution. This was widely used in early Sony Walkmans too, and gives good performance. The cassette player IC is TA2145AF, which contains the pre and power amplifier stages, and additional built-in circuitry to govern the speed of the DC motor. This is a very interesting IC from the Toshiba Corporation because the input signal from the head does not require a coupling capacitor, and in addition the audio power output to the headphones is also capacitor-less. The IC also has built-in volume control circuitry and the single-track potentiometer simply adjusts the reference voltage. All of these features reduces the component count, but also makes the player sound a little different to other cassette players I have heard. This IC also has capability to provide bass boost, however they have not implemented it in this design, it was implemented in the HS-TA213 model.

Price/eBay

These units sometimes come up for sale on the auction site and it is important to remember that this is a basic cassette player design. They were mass-produced in China, however the plastic tape transport mechanism will mean that there will be many broken units out there. Changing the drive belt will require removing the main PCB, and that entails desoldering wires from the motor and head. Hence, soldering skills will be required, but it is not so difficult that an experienced hobbyist or engineer cannot do. I would pay around ten pounds for a broken unit on its own requiring a drive belt; however a unit in mint condition together with the original headphones would be highly collectable. They came in a variety of colours however I have not seen the red and pink coloured ones often. If you are a collector, then ideally you want to collect them in all the available colours.

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