What are the best Discmans

Hello to everybody,

I recently discovered my audio CD collection is starting to grow and because I like small portable devices so much (I'm referring to cassette walkmans, DAT walkmans and DAPs), I am considering adding at least one discman to my collection (probably more in the future). At this point I only have deck-like CD players.

I have done a little bit of reasearch online and loved the design of the SONY D-150 and D-250.

For me, the following factors are important:
- the design (I prefer something metal and with square case)
- to have a good DAC
- to have a good headphone amplifier (by good I mean plenty of power, being able to drive higher impedance headphones and low distorsion)
- the battery must be internal
- if it works on AA batteries it's a plus, but even the ones with recharchables that can be custom made like the D-150 are not a problem.

Reliability is also a factor, especially regarding motors and optical pick-up block. Capacitors can be easily replaced, so I wouldn't consider that a problem. Adjustments are also not a problem for me if there is a service manual available.

@Jorge Given you have a Discman collection and also have repaired a lot of them, what's you opinion ?
Of course, I am open to other brands besides SONY.

 

D-250 is the one to get! PCM66 for a DAC, 4x oversampling filter according to some reviews puts it in the same league as D-555. 9mWx2 into 32Ohms is not the best but listenable even with Senn HD-600. Easy to fix, usually just a frozen/broken 'middle gear'. D-150 does not sound as good (PCM60 and brick-wall filter) and expect some burns in its power circuit which was noted by Sony and upgraded for D-250. KSS-220A laser in D-250 with later Ser.Nos, but KSS-162 lasers in all D-150 and early (pre-1990) D-25 . The major drawback - spindle motor is not available, but I haven't seen a single D-150/250 with a busted motor... so far...
KSS-220A can be scavenged from later Sonys (D-33, D-34, D-800, etc)

My favorite Discman is D-50 MkII (aka D-7, NOT to be confused with D-5!) but this is simply because of my preference for Naim Audio snappy sound. Real headache to fix! One Sony to 'get and forget' is D-10: PCM55 DAC wth 2x(?) oversampling, the most powerful h/p amp ever found in Discmans 30mWx2 into 32Ohms. Same all-metal shape as D-250, but with snap-to-bottom battery case, easily (for @Valentin ) repairable

The one Discman to grab right away off eBay is Technics SL-XP5: battery pack is repairable, PCM55 DAC with oversampling (2x?), 30mWx2 into 32Ohm. All-metal and build quality is much better than in any Sonys! I would have grabbed it already but already have two! My Ode to SL-XP5 can be found here

Denon DCP100 has the same two PCM66 DACs as Sony D-Z555 but without any stupid gizmos, sounds better than D-555 to my ears. DCP150 is considered by many the Best Discman ever. Also unobtanium, but any DCP-50 can be sent to Kaosun at kaosuncd.com for an upgrade to DCP-150 status. This was my workhorse for years, but since I lost it I had recently bought another DCP50 and now reviving it to be sent to Kaosun for an upgrade.

DACs/parts table for different Discmans may be downloaded from square-2.com

 

Thank you so much, @Jorge ! It's so much great information, I need some time to look at all those units.

That Technics SL-XP5 is indeed to grab right away, unfortunately shipping to Europe and import charges add up another $170 to the cost. I will put this one on the list however.
I must admit I like the looks of D50 and D50 MKII. The only thing I didn't like was the external battery pack, which I assume will not always be listed along with the player.
What to you mean by "a real headache to repair" ? It is the repair process itself or parts that are very hard to find ? Or both ?

You know, the interesting thing I see is high end Discmans seem to be rare compared to walkmans, although from similar time period. Suppose people are still using CDs more than cassette tapes. Don't know if that's the real reason though.

 

My guess is that they didn't sell many. In the 1980s CDs were a rich mans toy. Did you see the page in the 1983 Comet catalogue
http://www.stereo2go.com/forums/threads/comet-december-1983-hifi-catalogue.7139/#post-51338
where they were giving away a Walkman DD with a Sony CDP101 CD Player ? As the CD player was about seven times the cost of the DD it wasn't such a great deal.

The early portable CD players had a number of disadvantages compared to a Tape Based player.

• Bigger and Heavier
• Poor Battery life
• Prone to skipping if moved

If you wanted a player to go roller skating with you would be better off with a TPS-L2. Unlike those I notice they never had adverts showing people Roller Skating with Discmans hooked to their waist.

I can't comment on sound quality but since they were aimed at HiFi enthusiasts who might want to listen to a CD while stuck in a hotel during a business trip I would imagine that was their one advantage.

In the U.K. Argos is a popular retailer with hundreds of stores which is normally quick to pick up on popular trends. Within a year of the launch of the TPs-L2 they had a couple of Clonemen in their Catalogue. Wondering when they first had a Personal CD player I started looking

In 1987 they had Hi Fi Separate CD Players starting at £180
In 1988 they had their first CD boombox at £150
The first personal CD player didn't appear until 1989 and was again £150. You could have bought a very nice tape based Walkman for a fraction of that.
If you got the Discman you would have then found that CDs were significantly more expensive than LPs. For the price of two CDs you could have bought three LPs and three decent cassettes to copy them onto, and by the early 1980s most home stereos had the ability to do that.


So I reckon that is why the earlier CD Discmans are so rare. The D50 came out in 1984, but I didn't know anyone who had any kind of CD player until about 1987.

 

Both. Spaghetti of wires you expect to see in AIWA boomboxes, but here at the miniature scale. If laser is dead, there is no substitute, you have to install and align new laser diode. D-50 MkII and D-250 side by side:


I think @Longman is right - not many Discmans were produced, compared to Walkmans. Although I did read somewhere that by pricing D-5 below the production cost (at 50k Yen = $220 in Japan and $350 elsewhere) Sony had finally broke the barrier for CDs. Most probably it was intended for 'audiophile crowd', but not for me to know. Around 1982-85 I did not even know what 'audiophile' means but remember getting real excited and jealous when our neighbor bought a CD player

 

Just in case looks matter the most, then JVC XL-R10 (re-branded Technics SL-XP7) can Not be beaten:


one of those vanity things, but the only time I had to talk to our house guests about audio was a short time when I had McIntosh MCD201 SACD player in my all-NaimAudio system! Other-times my stereo was just an invisible background music. So, my-guess, looks do matter

 

As you said in your first post, back in the mid 1980s having any kind of CD player was a talking point. I have been trying to think of any current products which would have the same effect but can't think of anything. Probably flat screen TVs at the turn of the century, and smartphones ten years ago but I can't think of anything groundbreaking since then.

In 1987 I went on a Club 18-30 skiing holiday and had the misfortune to stay in a hotel with paper thin walls next to a guy whose successful chat up line must have been "Hey girls, do you want to come back to my room and see my CD player" (which was a Sanyo boombox). What's more he only seemed to have about two CDs, one of which was Jellybean "Just Visiting this Planet" which was how I worked out the date.

I just did a quick count in the 1989 Argos catalogue and there were
16 Stereo Radio Cassettes
5 CD Radio Cassettes
22 Cassette based personal stereos
and just the one (Sony D20) personal CD player
So the young lady with the stripy top would have certainly stood out from the crowd.

Back to CDs I recall going to a HiFi show in the mid 80s and some stand had a mobile (ornamental display) made from CDs and I was thinking OMG they have £500 worth of CDs hanging from the ceiling. Seeing rainbow reflections coming off a disc was a novelty itself back then and early adverts for CD players always emphasised it.

Of course in 15 years time you could have done the same for free with all the AOL CD-ROMs that came taped to magazines.

In 1983, some companies had doubts if the little silver discs would actually catch on, while Quad were championing them.

 

@ Jorge That JVC XL-R10 definitely looks good ! I am already making a wishlist. I have already a very long list of walkmans and blank cassette tapes that I want, but from those lists I already have many units. I guess I'll have to make a thread with my collection, but need to take proper pictures.
Regarding the D-50 MK II, I like seeing pictures with devices taken apart. Must admit I like the construction of it am I'm surprised to see the spindle is driven by a belt (have never seen that before). Seems a robust construction, despite the spaghetti wires. The D-250 is more tightly integrated and it stands out it's missing that big DC-DC converter can, typical to many SONY products.

@Longman Did saw the 1983 Comet catalogue, but I guess I wasn't paying that much attention to see that free DD walkman deal. The high price clearly explains why not so many units were produced. I had the suspicion this is the reason they're so rare, but initially it didn't make sense: why would SONY and other brands produce so little of a technology that they consider to be the future ? And which does sound considerably better than tape ? Now I see the answer comes down to cost and portability mainly.

This article also states what you said about skipping, that unitl 1990s, portable CD players were not popular because they didn't have anti-skip technology:
https://lowendmac.com/2014/history-of-the-compact-disc/

It also seems interesting to mee how all these companies did not see that despite all these technological advances with CD, DCC, DAT and miniDisc, eventually there would be flash-based players (and soon after that streaming services) that will leave everything behind. At least in the consumer market.

 

I'm very happy with my D-50

 

@rcpilot23, this is pretty, although the triangle part on the right does not have the sheen of the cover, which cheapens the look somewhat. Is the cover made of metal or just lacquered plastic? Interesting that Sony called it "CD compact player" not a portable or wearable. Since it cannot be carried around, what's the selling point - to be able to put it on a kitchen table instead of a component stack?

Throughout 1990s I used to listen to CDs off a computer CD-ROM drive - the sound quality was good enough after 1-bit DAC was invented. Got my portable/wearable CD in the late 1990s.

 

Since the original inspiration for the Walkman was to produce a player that would allow you to have your own choice of music on long haul flights I would imagine the idea of this was similar. Like many great products I think the Sony executives were designing products that they wanted themselves, on the basis that if they wanted one so would lots of other people.

 

There are many urban legends about the origins of the Walkman, and AFAIK none of them is proven, they are all hearsay. Do you think a Sony executive wanted dual headphone outputs to share his favorite music with a guy (or a woman) in a nearby seat? Maybe a woman These stories put a veneer of humanity on a corporation, making it and by association its products more relatable. This is just good propaganda.

 

The story of Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuku using a TC-D5 to listen to opera on long haul flights is well known.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-...onsumer-electronics-hall-of-fame-sony-walkman
As for the second headphone jack I suspect that was to fill a hole (maybe the microphone jack) in the case of the Pressman dictation machine which the TPS-L2 was based on. After all Sony only expected to sell 5000 a month of these so initially didn't want to spend a lot of money on new tooling.

 

Just because the story is well known does not mean it is true. But I am not going to argue about it, all I care is whether they make products that I want. I think the latest Sony product I have is a Bluetooth speaker that I bought about ten years ago.

 

I don't think anyone anticipated how quickly the size and price of storage would fall. In about 1997, after much research and deliberation I paid £135 for a 4GByte 3.5" hard drive for the PC I was building. Today I have just picked up another 6TB external drive for less money (and that isn't including inflation).

If you look back to just twenty years ago the Canon memory card on the left is what you typically got when you bought a new camera.
No that isn't 16GByte but 16MByte. About enough for twenty pictures. They obviously felt it worthwhile making these.

The drive on the right isn't flash memory but a real "spinning rust" hard drive using a 1" platter.
That was the only way to get high capacity at a consumer friendly price back then.
This form factor of drive is what was used in the iPod Mini and many other similar sized players.

 

Yep, 20 years ago I bought several 128 MB SmartMedia cards for $50 each. A couple of month ago I picked up a 128 GB card for $20. This is 180 CDs in full Redbook quality, shock-proof, no moving parts, no gears or belts to replace

I believe, Panasonic's 16GB P2 card was $1200 fifteen years ago. Then they made a "cheap" $600 version with MLC, not SLC chips. The card had four more-or-less standard SD cards inside, plus some orchestration electronics. But it was a professional format, Panasonic claimed a car could run over it without damaging it, but this is not a lot of pressure.

EDIT: $600 for a 4GB P2 card in 2005.

 

It was a microphone jack indeed. The mechanism of the TCM-600 is extremely similar to the TPS-L2. It's more the electronics that are different, even the case is very similar.
I remembered I read somewehere on the forum about this a while ago. This is the thread: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/tps-l2-the-missing-link.1272/

About these compact flash cards, I remember using them in cameras. Although some time later, the ones that I remember were in the range 256MB to 4GB.
I wonder, are CF cards made anymore or used in any type of device ? I have not seen cameras using them in a very long time.

Do you have more details about that 8GB Seagate hard drive ? Was it using a standard interface ?

 

The Microdrive is the same as a compact Flash card but a bit thicker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive
Back when most DSLRs used compact flash they had a wider slot so could accommodate either.

Surprisingly for Apple, it is fairly easy to remove the drive from an iPod mini, plug in a much larger Compact Flash card, do a reformat and it will work. I fitted a 32GByte card (actually an SD card in an adapter) into an iPod Mini.

To answer your question I don't follow the DSLR market enough to know if any still use them. Compact Flash are popular with Retro computer enthusiasts as the interface is simply a miniaturised version of an IDE drive so on many old computers they can be used in place of one.

p.s. to answer your question about CF it seems that both that and SDXC are on their way out for professional use these days.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explor...tions/cfexpress-the-next-serious-media-format

 

I am not surprised! I am very happy with my D-150 in white, although it is still dead and D-15 is not even my favorite model:


1st Gen Discmans in funny colors are like 'white elephants", not many had been made:
D-5 and D-50MkII in Red
D-10 in white
D-15 in white
D-25 in Silver (special edition freebie for the 1st Class air travelers?)
D-90 in Silver

Then Sony came up with Psyc range and kids could chose any color

 

D-7 and D-10 have belt-drive spindles, in my stack of 1st Gen Toshibas there is one with belt-drive mechanism also. These have very solid build, like what you see in good turntables. No worn motors or spindles for D-7/D-10!!! Spindle platter is press-fit for D-7, but in D-10 the whole mechanism can be completely disassembled to clean and re-soak sintered brass sleeve in fresh oil

Often burned! and no schematics provided for DC-DC in its ServiceManual. Not a big problem for @Valentin but for the those who, like me, cannot 'see' schematics by looking at the board, there is still a chance. Sony used the same parts for DC-DC as elsewhere on the board, so it is easy to find a substitute. If burned and blackened, then, evidently, you need one working Discman