I was curious if anyone can recall which walkman style player/recorders had RCA (out) . I would like one that I could use with my home stereo components if need be. I know the Panasonic RQ-j6 is one
Any with 3.5mm line-out and 3.5-to-RCA interconnect will do the job I am not a Walkman collector, and not sure if there is a correlation, but at least with Discmans (which I do collect!) RCA-out is not an indication of their sound quality. Discmans with RCA, with maybe one exception of Philips CD10 thru its adapter, are Not the Discmans to play into your main stereo
Great question, I have thought long and hard about this one since it's kind of a cool nitch. I have about 5 or 6, maybe all they made besides the others on this list. The Superscope 360 and 300 are pretty big but I didn't include the Technics RS 646D because it's huge but it might be the nicest and I don't have a Nak 550 to compare it to yet. The field recorders will be the nicest to use and they are also really cool looking. Panasonic RS-J3 and RQ-J6, neat portables but I've never hooked mine up to a stereo Marantz (Superscope) PMD 420 (2-head) and 430 (3-head), these might be the best choice for sonics and small size Marantz (Superscope) PMD 360 and 330, big but really cool looking, these are field recorders meaning they should have better sonics than most portables Technics RS-686D, very rare! Does anybody own one? JVC KD-2, neat unit, much bigger than the photos look, bigger than a PMD 430. Technics M1, super rare!
TEAC PC-10, also pretty rare has RCA outputs; UHER's have outstanding German Build Quality but they only have DIN outputs. Nakamichi did have some smaller portables, I've posted them before in the mega sale thread, but they were expensive in the 70's and they go for silly money now, they do show up but originally they came in a car "kit" with speakers and a case.
Duh! Mid-thread I forgot it was about a cassette player, somehow thought about a CD player. I blame Jorge
The Panasonics were sold as a replacement cassette deck component that was also portable. The field recorders were the cream of the crop portable cassette recorders that worked with component equipment to move the music or sounds to the next stage in the process which might have been something other than playback. I think the headphone jack on the Walkman was designed that way, along with the headphones, to show how small everything was. Most portables up to that point used 1/4" jacks for headphones. Having big RCA outs looked cool on boomboxes but might have taken away from the overall Walkman Design. I've never heard about one being better than the other sonically but I know the little cords for 3.5mm take a lot of abuse and have a much higher failure rate, at least mine do. Jorge, you should have at least one Walkman on your shelf, it's a moral imperitive!
Sony TC-D5M / pro very good units, solid built etc. unfortunately they became ridiculous expensive with in the last year.
I have one that has been my primary home deck for years but it has started to play slow. They are way too expensive to replace so I have begun my search for a semi-local repair. Speed control seems to be one area that is not too hard to fix. My other player/recorders are really too worn to make proper recordings so I need a stand in/back up to my TC-D5. I like the small portable recorders and will check out the ones on the list. I will let you guys know what I end up with. Thank for the input, my knowledge on the subject is limited to just the few units that I have had over the years. I have no real argument for using the 3.5mm output others than it just feels wrong.. haha. I am so used to RCA in/out, its just what I know.
I've read that Longman but can't find anything to back it up. I'm wondering if there was a portable stereo tape deck that preceded it.
Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka liked using a TC-D5 on long haul flights. By the look of it that has a mixture of 1/4" and RCA jacks. https://walkmancentral.com/products/tc-d5 Challenging the Sony engineers to come up with something smaller they came up with the TPS-L2. Even into the early 1980s it was normal for Boomboxes to use full size 1/4" jacks and for Can style headphones to have a matching plug.
I'm thinking most mono transistor radios had 3.5 mm jacks for the ear buds that came with them, it wouldn't be a stretch if there had been some stereo units around.
