Which Sony Walkman? Retro Buyers Guide.

in today's video I'm going to try and answer question that I do receive quite regularly the question is what cassette walkman would I recommend well behind me here I've got quite a few different Sony models a couple of these are my favorites and then a couple of others I'd probably recommend avoiding despite the fact there were some of the best models that Sony made at the time I'll explain what that's about during the course this video and I'll also give you some more hints and tips on things to look out for as well as links to other websites where you can read up a lot more on personal stereos that I could pass on to you during the course this video so hopefully by the end of the video if you do want to buy a walk but you'll have a bit more of a clue as to what type of model you're looking for so let's get on with it so the first thing to point out if you're buying a cassette walkman now you're not buying a new one especially not from Sony because they haven't sold a cassette walkman since 2010 and the last models they sold were only available in Japan and weren't particularly exciting either if you want a decent walk when you have to go back quite a few years before then if you look on Amazon now for a personal stereo you're just going to find some horrible plastic monstrosities which for efficiency's sake should really just go straight from the factory to recycling missing out the customer bit in the middle to avoid a load of complaints now the information I'm going to be passing on in this video a lot of it has been picked up from websites like Walkman Archive I would go there if I was you if you want to look through some beautiful pictures of different models together with proper in-depth analysis of the performance of them comparisons between different ones etc I know Hugo over at war man archive so I'm quite sure he's happy to let me use a couple of his pictures in this video and they are beautiful pictures as well he's a photographer as you can see any take some gorgeous photos of these pieces of equipment and it doesn't just focus on Sony you've got our Panasonic and Sanyo models in there I know it's the Walkman archive but it's really a personal stereo archive now as well as that website I'd recommend you go over to a forum stereo to go org of course there's lots of different sections on there but they focus heavily on portable audio cassette devices so you got to get a lot of information and help on there with whatever queries you've got about Walkman and then finally Walkman central.com if you want to look up a specific model you've got the model number you want to know a little bit more information about it there's a good chance you'll find information on there right so you want to buy the best Walkman that was made which one do you get well the WMD d9 according to the Walkman archive another very highly recommended model is the WM dc2 so let's go on eBay and see how much those costs okay well if we start with the D d9 we can see there's one here for sale it looks pretty much mint in box but it is $1700 or thereabouts now that's probably one of those speculative adverts they're just hoping someone's prepared to splash the cash but if we look at completed sales we can see somebody bought one for seven hundred and thirty six pounds plus quite have been a postage through my u.s. view is if you add those two together convert them into dollars that's about a thousand dollars so still not cheap let's look at the other one the dc2 well I couldn't find any of those that had sold they seem pretty rare the only one I found for sale was $400 and it was for parts or not working and it does look pretty beaten up as well so whilst those two models might be the best walk but I don't think they're a realistic proposition for most people instead I'm going to show you some models I think a little bit more attainable I've got two DD Walkmans here a DD 3 and a DD 2 to me this is what a Walkman should look like this is what I picture in my head if I'm thinking of a warm and a nice metal box with a good sized window on one side to look at the cassette a chunky little device but not too ridiculous not too big to fit into a pocket we've got mechanical buttons on here rather than soft touch controls it's just a beautiful object these ones went for years in different varieties the DD range and they're recognized as some of the best models that Sony made unfortunately my DD 3 model is in a bit of a sorry stay there's no shriek cover compartment you can see uses two doublea's in here there's a few loose panels and things as well I can't really use this one however my DD 2 model is in much better condition the only downside to this is it's got a crack across the plastic window on there but everything else is intact so I can use this one now the DD on the Walkman dd range stands for disk drive it's a direct drive mechanism which means there's no rubber belts inside therefore nothing to parish nothing to stretch you should get less Wow and flutter a much more accurate speed of playback and that's what it did mean back when they came out but unfortunately now DD on a warmer means that it's going to do this that noise you were hearing is coming from the machine itself not over the audio output it's actually from the mechanism it's the DD mechanism the sensor cog has snapped as you can see on this picture here this is what happens you've got a metal disc surrounded by a plastic cog and over time the plastic cog tried to shrink a little bit but it couldn't because the metal annex snapped now if you've got this stereo to go forums for years I've been trying to figure out ways to get around this problem because it's so common now you can follow a step-by-step guide and try repair your own using epoxy resin to fill in the hole and then paint it in black but you really do need a heck of a lot of skill what you're better off doing if you've got this problem which you will have if you've got a DD Wortman is to send it off and get it repaired by a professional and there's links I'll put in the video description to a chap on eBay that will do that for you however they're also still working on the problem and tried to get around the whole thing by creating a new center gear made out of brass which will replace a plastic one but again you need to get into the machine take it apart put it in there not a job for your average amateur so I've gotta say unfortunately however much I like the DD range and I really do like them for most people it's just going to be too much hassle having to get a machine and then get it repaired as well I should mention that there is a model in the DD range that doesn't suffer from this issue and it's a WMD d9 because it's got a slightly different mechanism inside however that's the one that they were trying to sell you for $1,700 so I think it's best we move away from the DD range now and I'll show you a Walkman that you can get which is the best sounding Walkman that you can possibly buy at a sensible price and it's this one it's a WM d6 see now I say sensible price these are not cheap but this is the best sounding Walkman that you've got a decent chance of getting your hands on now this is a professional cassette recorder designed really more as a smaller more portable version of the TC d5 I demonstrated to you in an earlier video that was the recorder used by reporters and for radio broadcasts very professional applications and the d6 was also used for those applications it was on sale for about 20 years but it's a little bit difficult calling it a Walkman given the size of the thing it doesn't really fit in a pocket other than the fact he says Walkman on the lid I don't think cut clasp it in the same category as their traditional warm and however it is an excellent sounding and recording device it takes four double A batteries which go in this compartment here and those batteries they don't last for very long either if we look in the manual here you can see on the right hand column alkaline batteries continuous playback six hours that's how long you get out of four batteries which isn't much at all for a Walkman but of course this was a device designed more for reporters and people walking around listening to their music all day you can of course plug it into a six volt power supply but that doesn't make it very portable center- on there I should point out as well and we've got lighted own line outs on the back as well as a speed adjustment control you can record over the lighted or via the microphone in you've got adjustable recording level and you've also got a dolby selector for type B or type C is unusual to see type C on a Walkman and you can select tape types one two and four which is better even than the TC d5 Pro I've got which only has Dolby B and only tape types one two and three and as you'd expect on Barry Corder you've got a tape counter at the top here as well as a vu meter to help you get the recording levels just right so how much does a d6c cost well I've looked on eBay today and you can get them for somewhere around about 300 to 500 pounds which is still not cheap of course but it's a lot better than those models I showed you earlier on and if you're patient occasionally you'll see a really good deal on there I pick this machine up about a year ago this is my second one it cost me about a hundred and fifty pounds but it's pretty much mint in the box I don't think all the accessories are in there but the player itself looks like no one's ever used it it's completely unblemished and an important thing that was in the box was the shoulder strap I didn't have that before because of course you can't fit this inside a pocket so it comes with this strap which connects to these pegs at either side and whether you've got it in the case or not you can then sling it over a shoulder now we'll circle back around to this machine in a moment when I play a cassette through it however we're going to move on to the next category now these are the models the range of models that I recommend most people take a look at it's the WM e X range from the Walkmans 20th anniversary or there abouts which is 1999 this model is the WM ex6 7 - but there's quite a few different ones that are quite similar to this you can see it's got all the features on here we've got Auto reverse mega base we can track skip it just uses one Double A and it's got dolby b noise reduction now you can see here we've got the buttons that are a little bit unusual looking I'll show you how all that works in a moment now the double-a battery is in this black plastic compartment at the bottom here you can see you can open that it's just a single double-a and it will run for quite a while on that I'll show you the battery life in a moment but we don't want that double-a on there really because it makes it look ugly but if we take it off how does it run on any power well it does use gum stick batteries as they call them these ones here now they slide in this little compartments on the bottom these are rechargeable die cuts and it will run on one of those not as long as a double-a battery but it's a much NEET to set up if you use it that way it's got an all metal body yet sits too very lightweight however it's not flimsy it feels extremely well-put-together and importantly unlike the bulky d6c this one will fit inside a jacket pocket it is at the smallest Walkman ever made but it's considerably smaller than the d6c the smallest one was the wm10 but this is just a nice sensible size if you compare it to the DD three you see it's quite a bit thinner a little bit shorter as well and it does weigh quite a lot less now the Walkman of this era quite often came with inline remote controls and this one's no exception we've got a volume control on here we're gonna play and stop we could select the tape direction for also reverse we can skip forward and back and fast forward rewind and we've got a hold button on the side here as well of course the first thing that you should do if you get a Walkman replace the little earbuds that came with it with a decent set of headphones that's the simplest way to improve the quality of sound from any personal stereo now the use of an inline remote control on this particular model is entirely optional you don't have to use it you can plug your headphones straight into the top of there not three-and-a-half millimeter jack and you can control it using the buttons on the device itself but it does make more sense to plug it into this extension leaves and then you've got the controls easier to access now I'm going to demonstrate these machines with a new cassette that I've recently been sent by Anders angered Jensen if you want more information on this the web address is at the bottom of the screen there Anders has provided me with some music that I've used before in previous videos which won't hit a youtube copyright flag this is a ferric tape but it doesn't have any kind of noise reduction on it so I'm going to do some demonstrations with this later on but first let me just show you how this machine works the buttons on the machine are all soft touch electronic controls so the top right walnuts play the one to its left last stop if we hit the play button again it reverses the direction of the tape and plays the tracks on the opposite side and then below there we've got a rewind and fast-forward key if we hold those down that activates fast forward or rewind if we were to hold the other one however if we want to skip a track we just tap the button and it will jump to the next gap on the tape which will find the start of the next track holding down the function key activates the battery test but holding it down in conjunction with other buttons activates other features this one turns a doll BB noise reduction on and off its while at the bottom here that's the auto volume level system or something which you can turn on or off the wall switch writes the blank skip which is a handy feature to skip past the empty part at the end of a tape or any blank sections and then this is the mega base of various other sound options the inline remote gives you access to a number of these controls you've got play and stop if you hold down the play key it will reverse the tape and play the opposite side you can also skip tracks forward and back as well as rewind and fast-forward now over the years so he managed to significantly improve the battery life on their Walkman range this 20th anniversary edition came out in 1999 and promises 50 hours of battery life and that's based on the two batteries being added together so we've got the gum stick battery which gets 12 hours on its own and double a alkaline which gets 39 add them together for some reason you lose an hour but you get 50 hours I prefer just to use the gum stick on its own it just makes a thing a lot neater now this particular Walkman was supplied with one gum stick battery as well as the charger to charge it up in now these gum stick patches that were inside the box by now is starting to get a little bit long in the tooth and are unlikely to hold a full charge but it's nothing to be concerned about because there are still people making this particular style of battery and they don't cost much either so it's worth stocking up on a few of them and if you happen to have the batteries but don't happen to have the charger quite often those charges will also appear on eBay as well so it's not really a big issue it's much better running one of these things off a gum stick battery than having that double-a battery hanging off the bottom however if you do want to use a double-a battery and you were to buy a machine that should have the battery holder included but for whatever reason it isn't in the box it's not too difficult to find a replacement I've got three different models here you can see they've got slightly different designs on the base of them however the connectors and the screw and the dimensions are all the same so you can interchange them between different models one of these is off a minidisc but I can put it on the bottom of a cassette walkman and it works just as well so that was the WMA 672 but I've also got on e^x 678 I can show you this one is brand new in box I haven't opened it before very similar model 20th anniversary 50 era battery life but this one comes with an LCD inline remote so just have a quick look inside here so buying this as new this is what it would look like you get a little pouch inside here to carry the war when round in your pocket stop it getting scratched instructions in various different languages we got the battery holder and then below that that's where the walkman hides inside this little plastic bag now just remove that I think someone's probably been in here before to test it because the things on the Left would have been wrapped up a bit differently to this but we've got the headphones we've got the inline remote control there also got the gum stick battery and this time we've got a charger which fits into a euro plug socket now this is such a similar model to the previous one you may be wondering why I'm taking the time to show it to you and there is a reason and it revolves around this LCD inline remote so I'll just put a battery in here so I can demonstrate I've got one charge for one of the other devices that are interchangeable of course and I'll put the cassette in that I use before if we look at the buttons on this you'll see that there are less buttons on the machine itself we don't have as many options we can't get into those additional settings those are all shifted over to the remote you press the menu button and that enables you to access them using this dial on the side which goes up and down you can press in to select things that's for your mega base your Dolby noise reduction all those kind of things they're all on the remote control they're not on the machine itself so if you happen to buy one of these and it doesn't come with the remote you can still use it with your headphones however you won't have access to those additional controls that are only accessible by the remote control but you'd still be in a better position than you would be if you bought this model and you didn't have the remote this is the WM e X 900 they've upped the battery life on this one to 78 hours and it's got a backlit LCD remote control however that remote control is essential because if you look at the machine all you've got on here is a hold control that's it that's the only button the machine has on it itself the other ones have all being shifted over to that remote control so without the remote control you can't even play a tape in this one now just like the other inline remote controls you can put your own headphones into this so there's no issue there however I do find this remote control more irritating to use than the previous ones because of the number of buttons on it because they've shifted all the controls onto it we've got buttons on the top and the bottom so you might be wanting to turn your Dolby noise reduction on and off if you accidentally press fast-forward on the top it's just too many buttons in too small a space now you might be wondering why says pl-1 why that should say play it's just the LCD display is a little bit corrupted on this one you might be thinking well if I bought this machine without the remote control perhaps I could use one off another device so I plugged the remote in off the previous one and all it will display is menu it won't let you play any tapes or do anything else so the remotes are not compatible with one another so all I'm trying to say here is if you do buy an old walkman which should come with an inline remote control make sure that it's included and now at long last it's time for a bit of a sound test so let's compare the different machines that I've got here [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was an extremely unscientific test but at the end of it you're listening to a stream digital file over the Internet by listening to an analog device what sounds best at my end well it's the WMD 6e as you'd expect it word it's got less background hiss and the music has more body more richness to it than the other devices it's not night and day but it's definitely better than the others now there were a couple of different models of the d6 sea over the almost 20 years it was out the earlier ones are said to be better I think this is one of the later ones it sounds great to me so don't worry too much about that however please don't let that put you off that other devices I've shown you here if I was scoring that d6 C on a scale of 1 to 5 as a 5 these other devices I'd score as a Ford a half out of 5 the only one I couldn't test was the DD 3 because it doesn't really work properly back in the 1980s and 90s I was using a personal stereo cassette player made by Iowa I couldn't afford any of these Saudi models it's only in recent years the last 10 years or so that I've picked up these Walkman and it's down to the help of websites like the Walkman archive that have pointed me in the right direction towards the models are the worth concentrating on and from here I can now pass on my limited knowledge and say which models are not worth concentrating on which ones you might want to avoid despite them originally being very good and also which ones you might want to pay a little bit more attention to so if you are in the market for an old cassette walkman I hope this video has been of you some perhaps narrowed down your selection a little bit there are of course a lot of different models out there so it's very much down to personal preference as to which model you get there are quite a few people out there quite prepared to carry around a big heavy object like this with this relatively short battery life to get the best possible sound quality but I've got to say I'm not one of those as much as I like this one it tends to stay in the house if I do want to take a walk with me when I go out it's much more likely to be an object like this with its really long battery life it's slim lightweight design but I'm not the expert of what my own personal stereos even if you do want to know more about them I've got links to various websites in the video description who could give you a lot more information on these that I can especially in the forums on there but if you're interested in buying the d6c or what are these e^x models I'll put some links in the video description so eBay which might point you in the general direction of the model you're looking for but that's it for the moment as always thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] who the heck is asking this guy what Walkman to buy well perhaps there people who want to buy a Walkman but don't know which one to get I think he makes this to hop I mean who wants to play cassettes there were knows maybe it's someone who has some cassettes that they want to listen to you make a good point but the last person to use a Walkman on ironically Walt Marty McFly he didn't use a Walkman yes he did in the first Back to the Future film no he didn't he used and I were HSP zero to mark - well it was still a Walkman no it's a personal stereo Walkmans were made by Sony Oh - show clearly you still have much to learn about the ancient arts of paedon see by yoga Prentice actually I think you'll find its pedantry but clearly you're a quick learner [Music]

Channel: Techmoan

Views: 928,493

Rating: 4.9457431 out of 5

Keywords: Techmoan, 4K, Sony WM, Sony, Walkman, WM-D6C, WM-EX672, WM-EX678, WM-EX900, DD2, DDII, DD3, DDiii, Cassette, Tape, Personal Stereo, Review, Buyers Guide, Retro, Retrotech, Best, Guide

Id: A9wT2Y4W-T0

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/nxtstp]

This came out as I have a WM-D6c coming in the mail. Nice.

[u/Pink_Ball]

I've been using a Sony Sports Walkman for a while and have had really good things to say about it. Not the same vibe as the original walkman, but a cheap and durable alternative

[u/BigPoofyHair]

Dug my WM-30 out after watching this video and then found this subreddit! Hello Everyone!

[u/howhow54321]

Really helpful video. Glad Techmoan made it.