Aiwa LP-3000

Of the ultra-rare-ultra-invisibilia kind.

It seems LP-3000 was introduced in late 1978 in Japan and therefore still plain science-fiction at the time even if two years after the 1976 Accutrac 4000.

All the features of a PL-L1000 or PS-X800 :
Quartz-Lock Direct-Drive, tangential tonearm, feather-touch buttons, LEDs pitch displays, diecast aluminium base, 15-tracks programmability with backward and forward "skip", "repeat", auto disc-size and even an auto-record link with Aiwa's cassette recorders of the times.

With such features, the LP-3000 was almost a year ahead of everybody and head to head with Sharp and its Optonica RP-9100 which was also ready by late 1978 !

The catalog from which the two images here published were scanned from was printed in may 1979 and the owner's manual also bears that date so at least the export model came in a bit later than late 1978.

The LP-3000 was named LP-20X in Japan I believe but I have yet to find a japanese catalog or even a single mention of it anywhere.
Whatever its moniker, the Aiwa didn't sell much and its price was in it for something :
when the excellent Technics SL-10 cost 3000FF in 1980, the LP-3000 pushed programmability, linear tracking and sci-fi looks to almost three times as much : 8200FF.


The LP-3000 has three motors, all are of the BSL kind : a beefy one for the platter, another for the tonearm's translation and one for cueing.
The tonearm's lateral movement works with a threaded rod powered by said BSL motor - a down to earth approach not as "cool" as magnetic rails (PL-L1000 or PS-X800) but more elegant than Yamaha's flat belt + roller guides (PX-2 & PX-3)...

The tonearm itself has tracking force and zero balance set at its back while the little "tit" protruding at the top in front of the bearings' cache is in fact a dial to adjust the cartridge/ mat distance.

The specifications for the arm's bearing are a bit... alarming : 30mg ! I'd like to have another source for this because it is quite stiff.
But if this was no 1979 mistyping, the LP-3000's tonearm is therefore very far from a Technics EPA-100 or a Sony PUA-1600L.

The track sensing feature works with a LED and photo transistor detecting weak or strong reflections on the vinyl surface.
Since the supplied headshell holds the "disk sensor", the use of another cartridge/headshell couple requires some twiddling with spacers and specific alignements.
Nothing however to scare anyone who has already put a cartridge on a tonearm and very far from the pain of doing that on a Revox B-790 !

An optional RC-20 chunky wired remote control was available as well ; if Aiwa had really tried to market the LP-3000, I guess it would've been named RC-3000.
The diecast zinc 3,2kg platter makes for an impressive total of 15,2kg.


Build quality is magnificent if circuit-wise a little frightening : 23 ICs, 54 transistors, 60 diodes and one LSI is a lot that can go haywire.
However, it seems that samples still working today will go on forever while those that failed back then... failed back then.
The same is true of the original 1978 Sony PS-B80 Biotracer : if it had to fail, it would've done so sometime during the past thirty years ; if it hasn't yet, it won't.




The Aiwa LP-3000 was featured in UK's Hi-Fi World "Olde Worlde" section by Adam Smith in march 2009.
Adam Smith now owns the reviewed sample which he bought from Keith... who sent the detailed images you can see here under the USER thumbnail :)

Another image from the may 1979 dedicated catalog.


In real life, the LP-3000 is a beautiful object which the 45° tilted diecast aluminium front control strip is the highlight of.

From the february 1980 cover of a french magazine -

zoom-in to see that this is an LP-20X.

The three motors.

A distortion / tracking error comparison between pivoted and tangential tonearms.