I found my old WM-DD33 in a box and was excited to get it fixed. I bought the center gear replacement, and was able to replace the cracked gear, and get the mechanics to work. Then I noticed that the sound quality wasn't that good, so i tried to adjust the azimuth screw, and found the position which I thought gave the best sound i signal, with the clearest treble. I thought I had it fixed, and felt pretty good about it. This is after all, my own personal device, which I bought new 25 years ago or so. So what is the issue? Well, I bought another WM-DD33 for some spares (unrelated to the playback). This WM-DD33 has a cracked center gear, and playback is a bit erratic. Sometimes it stops. But boy, the sound quality when it plays is fantastic! I didn't think it could be that good. It has more clear treble, much fuller and more dynamic sound. Nice, but also disappointing considering the effort I put into my old player. The "new" doesn't look as good, and I don't know what it's been through. Now for the questions. How should I move forward? 1. Do the same center gear replacement in the "new" walkman, in the process risking to screw up the great sound quality. 2. Somehow move the tape head between the two, or maybe the whole mechanism with the head and the hinges. 3. Adjust my old Walkman. I don't see how though, because any adjustment on the azimuth makes the sound worse I have tried to spray the head with IPA, and clean it with a cotton ball. Did that do good or harm? This turned out to be a lengthy post, I hope you managed to the end.
If the new one does not look as good as your old one, I would say change the centre gear then swap the body from one to the other. I would not move or touch the head in either machine.
Yes, that is a good idea, but will be quite some work, also coming with some risk. But what could be the root cause of the sound issue? It just occurred to me that I haven't thought about demagnetising the head. Is that something that people usually do, and would it help in this case?
Yes demagnetisation may help but in my experience not to the level of what you say you are experiencing. To get to the root of your problem, I would say send it to a tech to fix it for you.
I did exactly this, thank you for the advice. I used the guts from the "new walkman" together with the center gear, case and buttons from my old one. Everything went well, and now it looks and sounds fabulous.
My first centre replacement was on a DD33 but it sounded good before and after replacing the gear. I've never changed the head azimuth either but suspect your sound quality issues relate to the PCB and connections from the playback head to the audio output section of the PCB. Anyway it sounds like you're happy with result of combining the two to make one good one.
Did you also replace the rubber ring on the capstan wheel? Note that the rubber wheel is always in contact with the motor. Over a long period of time (years) it can leave an indentation on the rubber causing sound quality issues too. But I agree with getting the head demagnetized. Also give the rubber pinch roller a clean.
Yes I did replace the capstar rubber ring. The sound quality issue was not due to vow/flutter, rather missing treble and sounding rather plain and dull. I also cleaned the pinch roller. I don't know how much effect demagnetization can have, and I was too impatient to find out. As i didn't have the equipment at home, I combined my two walkman's into one so to speak. The result was brilliant.
