A praise of SONY late 90's walkman's

Following Techmoan video on walkman’s I too have started re-considering walkman’s outside of the DD line. When I re-discovered my interest in cassettes and walkman’s some years ago I immediately turned my attention to DD walkman’s as they are and were considered the best walkman’s; in the end I managed to buy three DD’s, the first, (WM-DD), the last (WM-DD33) and one in the middle (WM-DDIII currently being serviced). The DC2 and the DD9 are too expensive for my pockets so they are excluded from my considerations.



I like how the DD’s sound, but I think they have room for improvements: first and foremost they are a bit weak in high frequency, even after a mechanical revision, a proper clean-up and re-alignment they tend to sound soft. I do not think my units are faulty, even in techmoan video its DDII sounds softer than all other walkman’s; I think it’s their signature sound. In terms of details, the gap with my tapedeck is still quite noticeable, I think mostly due to the softer sound. Yet DD’s are still the most sought after walkman’s and here on the forums they surely take the lion share of discussions (surely thanks also to the huge work done by Marian to fix the broken gear).

Lately I have acquired some SONY walkman’s from the late 90’s similar to those tested by Techmoan in its video: in terms of practical use they are unbeatable, being smaller, lighter, with full logic transport (adding useful features such as music search and blank-skip), powered by a small gumstick battery that lasts for hours or a single AA which lasts forever. Sound-wise I am pretty amazed too: frequency response is much wider in the high frequency region; the amplifier background hiss is also lower and even with a pure Chrome tape you can clearly hear when the leader ends and the tape starts. Megabass is definitely more effective as it adds a proper boost at the spectrum edges and it practically fills the gap between listening with an around-the-ear headphone and more discreet earbuds.



Another advantage is that despite being very small, the tape transport is quite reliable: a new belt is all that is required to bring them back to life and FFW/REW always works reliably (I do not have to cross my finger and hope for a correct gears alignment as in the DD’s). The big draw-back of those walkman’s is obviously the strength of the DD, its lower W&F. Even with brass flywheels, belt driven walkman’s have high W&F which can be clearly heard with the critical instruments (piano, harpsichord, chimes, …). But DD’s too have W&F to some degree: their spec is greater than a tape deck and given the age of the DD’s nowadays they are all mostly close to the max specified W&F; and it can be heard, at least in my units, I can hear a bit of W&F with the same critical instruments as above.

In the end I think late 90’s walkman’s are not so well considered because they were born when cassettes were on decline and personal audio was moving to new technologies. But indeed I think they were the pinnacle of technological development: 20 years of design and evolution lead to simpler yet reliable transport, complex logic control, quieter (in terms of noise) amplifier and very low power consumption. Those walkman’s are also relatively cheap to buy, I paid mine 1/4 of what I paid for the DD’s (both boxed and in very good cosmetic conditions); the “bang for buck”, again, is really unbeatable.

 

I think I tried everything I could to increase the HF response: I have a 10kHz test tape and I spent a couple of evenings last summer with an oscilloscope trying to find the best azimuth both in terms of amplitude and phase shift. I also checked with several pre-recorded tapes and that is the brightest I could set them. The DD33 do sound brighter than the DD or DDIII, but it is far from what the EX652 or EX672 can do. I do not have a DC2 so I cannot tell. I cannot rule out worn heads, but I had another DD33 prior to this one (in much worse cosmetic conditions) and it sounded quite the same. One thing I noticed is that with type II Dolby encoded tapes, the DD33 has better HF response than the EX6xx; that is somehow weird but I attribute it to earlier saturation in the EX heads compared to the DD head.

The headphones I am using now are the Bose around the ear (I think the 2015 model) and they by them self tend to be brighter than, say, a pair of vintage AKG 141 monitor. My reference is always the original source as listened while recording the cassettes, I'm not a fan a equalisation, I like the sound to be as faithful to the original as possible.

The guy I bought the EX652 from, told me he bought it in the late 90's from a Mercedes car dealer as a sort of branded special version. Actually beside the logo on the case there is no other mention of Mercedes anywhere, nor in the box or in the inserts.

The lightning is diffused natural light, I was lucky enough to take the picture at the right time of the day (thanks )

 

After checking Marian guide on how to repair a DD I was surprised by the number of things that can actually break in. Even if in good condition a DD will always require a bit of restoration to get decent quality.

Among the pictured three EX's, the 672, 652 and 506, my favourite is the 672. The 652 has brass flywheels and a complex tape transport with varying belt tension to optimise power consumption while the 672 has a more conventional transport with plastic flywheels; but soundwise the 672 is richer with good bass and excellent treble. The 506 has the same tape transport of the 672, but the sound is thinner and more compressed. Beside that I never liked the "new" walkman logo and I still prefer the original one dating from the early 1980's. What is common to all three EX is how super-easy is to replace the belt: just some screws and the belt is readily available to be replaced with no need to desolder anything; a nice touch from Sony which helps the longevity of those units.

 

I like to recommend late 90s logic Sony machines due to their general reliability as well!

The DD33 should sound waaaaay better than any of the other 90s Sony Walkmans. In fact they should sound uncannily like a full sized deck. How is the pinch roller and hinge condition?
There's a chance that your tape is skewing or height not set correctly.

 

The DD33 has been serviced by Marian and, according to him, it is perfectly fine (PB levels are perfect for Dolby decoding); I adjusted the tape guides a couple of years ago with a replica of the Terminals M-300 gauge borrowed from a friend of mine. The pinch roller is still in perfect shape and the azimuth has been adjusted this last august with a test tape and an oscilloscope. I'm not saying the DD33 sounds dull, among the DD's I have it is surely the brightest and it has perfectly decent treble response. But the EX6xx walkman's do have a flatter frequency response and are brighter than the DD's.

TOTL walkman's from the late 90's were not cheap and I think Sony still devoted some research on how to improve playback; the DD's have been designed in the mid 80's and improved only up to 1991, 7~8 years more of development in technology and miniaturisation surely brought something to the EX units at lest in the design of the playback head.

 

I've found that some models of Walkmans tend to sound duller at lower volume settings than others, and that newer models have more linear volume controls somehow. For example, my DC2 sounds best above volume 4 and my 33 above volume 5.
Just out of curiosity, what headphones and volume settings did you use on your DD?

 

That might be a good point: my headphone is designed for modern low power devices such as smart-phone and the typical volume level I use on the DD's is between 3 and 4; actually when volume is set to 7~8 the power amplifier of the DD33 is already reaching its maximum output voltage and starts clipping (as noted by Marian in a previous post, in the DD walkman's the maximum output voltage power is lower than the +/- 1.5V which could expected from a unit powered by two batteries) so there is a limited window above volume 5 which can actually be used without any distortion.

 

Yep there's a small window... the D6C seems to clip at a high volume as well (near its higher range). On the flipside, I have to crank the volume up on most slim logic walkmans, but they seem to do fine throughout most of their volume range (except the Panasonic RQ-SX series I own, definitely not linear at all in a strange way??? You can put the volume down super low and the bass level doesn't go down linearly???)

 

My DDIII, which is being serviced (by Marian), has indeed a worn head with a damaged gap and that explains its weak treble. I am always afraid of worn heads especially with walkman of that age, but the DD33 head appears to be fine. Again is not that it sounds dull, it plays very fine, but other walkmans are richer in HF.

I would like to capture some sound samples to better explain what I mean: I tried a couple weeks ago, but my ADC has a standard DIN input for +/- 1.5V; with the DD33 the acquired signal has peak around -5/-6 dB while with the WM-EX672 (powered by a single 1.2 V) it is even lower. To have the same RMS power for all samples I will have to amplify the weakest ones losing a bit in resolution.

BOSE headphone are all but flat They are designed with a V equalisation and the boost in high frequency is rather noticeable compared to other vintage headphone. But when comparing walkman's I use the same headphone and the same tape.

 

I think that hearing the sounds samples would be interesting! It won't be 100% conclusive as everyone has different playback/recording equipment and as you've said, differing levels but it can still be a good reference to talk about.

 

Here are some samples for quick comparison:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/r4ugpp

It is a 1 minute sample played back through my tapedeck (which also recorded it), the DD33 and the EX672. Both walkman's samples are amplified to match the RMS value of the tapedeck: the DD33 required 4 dB of amplification and the EX672 required 12 dB (!). My DAC is 16 bits only hence the EX672 sample is a bit noisier; please disregard that aspect, listened through the headphone it is rather quiet.

The tape is a plain Sony UX with no Dolby and peak at +4 dB VU (Dolby level +2.3 dB). The DR value of that sample is 12dB.

 

Thanks for the samples!

Here are my observations comparing them to each other (Flac played on a Walkman A17)

Tapedeck: I don't know if it is the source music, or the deck or tape, but the recording generally sounds a little dull and lifeless. What deck is it? Could you provide a clip of the original source as well?

DD33: Yep it sounds quite a bit worse than your deck. Higher frequencies are down, and the percussion (drums) sound muffled and washy. Looking at the waveform, there does not seem to be significant phase shifting. Something is clearly off.

EX672: Sounds closer to your deck, But like the DD33, some of the detail of the percussion is lost. The waveform has a slight shift, suggesting slight azimuth difference, but that is to be expected for machines like this. It really does perform better than your DD33 in this case.

 

Here is the original clip https://www.sendspace.com/file/8co2n9

I have noticed too that even the tape deck loses a bit of high frequency, but comparing tape and source while recording they sound exactly the same, hence it is the pre-amp inside the deck that somehow changes the incoming signal. The tapedeck is an AIWA AD-F 910 I bought from ANT Audio fully revisioned, restored and slightly upgraded; it is not a high-end deck, but it is much better than the AKAI GX-75 I had before.

Details are lost in the walkman recordings also due to the digital amplification required to match RMS value: the deck is pure 16 bit, the DD33 is equivalent to a 14,5 bit and the EX672 is equivalent to a 12 bit recording.

The azimuth of the DD33 has been tested several times and it should now be ok; I had this DD33 checked by Marian and he could not find anything wrong; also I had another DD33 before this one and it sounded quite the same.

I have not tested the azimuth of this very EX672, but I checked other fixed azimuth walkman's and even though they sound rich in HF the phase shift at 10 kHz can be as high as 180 degrees !

I have another DDIII which is being serviced by Marian and in that case the head needs re-lapping. I am curious to hear how it sounds with a restored head, I hope it can sound better than the DD33

 

Judging from your source file, your Aiwa seems to be doing a good job of reproducing the music. I agree that on some decks, the source button isn't a perfect comparison.
The source track is quite dull sounding in my opinion... not the best to compare performance. Hugo has a track with many genres to compare with, see if you can find it.

I'm guessing your DD33 might not be a good match for your soundcard somehow? What volume setting are you using on the DD33?
The DD33, unlike the DC2, has a standard permalloy head, and mine has a small amount of wear on it. It sounds good, but the DC2 sounds better. But the DD33 is the most robust to carry around.

I usually don't bother checking azimuth of fixed head walkmans as well, as there's not much you can do to align it, and they're not meant to be 100% precise. However, some models hold good azimuth very well.

It'll be interesting to hear your opinion on the DDIII vs the DD33 when it gets back!