Hi all, Last sunday I've been in a local flea market, where sometimes I can find interesting stuff... While I was looking at an old Sony power supply, and a led calculator, my gf told me there was a Walkman in another box I didn't look at this moment. She gave it to me, I asked the vendor how much he wanted for the lot, and paid him 6€ he asked without discussing... The WM-D6 is like new. I simply opened it to change the belt and disengage the pause button that was stuck on (just dry grease). Sound is amazing, I always wanted one, but the prices on the bay... Thank you Darling !!! And after that, at the same vendor, I found those little Aiwa amplified speaker (3€)... I think I'll go there again next sunday !!!
Nice one bugpat enjoy. You may just want to check the main drive wheel as you say the pause was stuck in, this can create a permanent dent in the wheel.
It goes to show that there is still stuff out in the wild for bargain prices. Can anyone else see the pictures. I'm not seeing them.
No to the pics also. Just getting img icon but no image when you click on it. That beats my D6 find at $38 but on eBay. Bought 3 minutes after the seller incorrectly listed that as the Buy Now price. Still the plate lock is damaged on mine and impossible to get another without buying another D6 for parts and we all know how much these go for. So I didn't feel too guilty about grabbing a bargain. The D6 is very much underrated I believe and are a way better unit than the D3. Mine has the desired "pointy" head too and is near perfect cosmetically. Even the battery caddy for the D6 is the same as the D6C and sell for $80-$100 now. You got yourself a definite bargain
Congrats! Those things are going for ridiculous prices nowadays. I own a WM-D6C and am still looking for the older green logo WM-D6, which are pretty rare here in the Netherlands. Also on the lookout for another rare bird, the Sony TC-D5 Pro, the short-lived version with the 'wrong' mic inputs, which were actually outputs. https://www.cassettedeck.org/sony/tc-d5pro
I wish I could see the photos! Great find bugpat, I'm a veteran of the thrifting wars starting in the early 80's hunting for 60's beach gear that us skateboarders thought was cool going forward to audio electronics and other goodies. I've found some really cool stuff in out-of-the way places and over time has turned into a nice collection. Keep your eyes open, always ask if they have things your looking for and have fun, you may miss something if your moving too fast or too focused.
Et voila ! Now I'm sure you can see the pictures. I tried to make some tapes, and I can't hear differences between the same I made with my TC-D5M... What a great little machine !!!
Wow, it looks brand new, nice pick up on the calculator and speakers, one of these days I'll start a small speaker thread, some of them are as nice as the players with very solid enclosures and big-magnet (little) speakers. I'm trying to figure out what that little red mini is in your last photo?
The red mini is a Sanyo M7780 (MR-U4SL in some countries). I'll soon make a post about it, funny story...
What is a "pointy" head? Am new to this whole universe of Walkmans... Having played with my D6C, I can never imagine how anyone would underrate an extreme machine like it. If it was a car, it would be an Alfa Romeo or Lamborghini, I think.
tcpip the early head design was a more pointy shape and the later ones are less pronounced. The pointy head has marginally more music resolution. If the D6C was any of those cars, the D6C would be more temperamental and less reliable.
So I guess mine is the rounded head? Ouch. I thought the D6C would be one of the more reliable Walkmans. Ah well...
You mis-read that. Italian cars have a reputation here for being temperamental and unreliable. Lancia developed such a bad reputation for falling apart (literally they stopped selling them here in the U.K. I would compare the D6C with other high performance Japanese products like the Honda (Acura) NSX or the Nissan Skyline.
There were probably 3 major revisions of the WM-D6C. Only the first revision up to Serial Numbers around 80,000 came with the V shaped amorphous head which had long lasting wear resistance and exceptional playback quality. (Note I have never seen a database of Sony SN's on the WM-D6C with precise SN ranges and specifics for that range of numbers. It would be great to have such a table if one exists.) The second version with SN up to 250,000 or there abouts had the parabolic head stamped "32711". Many of these units have the brown circuit board with many more components mounted through the holes in the board to the copper trails underneath than later SMD units with fewer individual components which are mounted directly onto the top surface of the board. They predate the mass manufacturing of SMD and wave soldering technology. Naturally they took longer to build and cost of production was higher. These are thought to sound better than later units 500,000 SN's which are nearly all SMD units with lower quality heads. Don't hold me to this because sound quality is very subjective but the WM-D6 has the PCB and head characteristics of the early version 1.0 WM-D6C's.
I have a WM-D6 and a WM-D6C, and yesterday I clicked photos of their heads. The two heads seem to have different shapes. Would you say that the head labelled "SONY" is a pointy head?
Yes looks like it. Often they just have "Japan" on the head. What is the serial number of the Walkman with the head labelled "SONY"? The other is the later "35711" parabolic head. I also have one of these. Cheers.
How do I find the serial number? Can I find it without disassembly of the Walkman? I am confused -- the head with the "35711" seems to be non-parabolic to me -- the one with just "SONY" seems to be parabolic to my eye. What am I missing?
Serial number is under the battery box, when you remove the battery box the serial number is there. D6 being the predecessor to the D6C has the pointy head. The first D6C’s had the pointy heads, it was only later on they changed the heads in the D6C’s.
Got it. It is 24547. It's a D6. Got it. The one I have with the pointy head is a D6, and the round-headed one is a D6C. Figures.
