SONY walkman prices

I want to start a discussion about a trend that most of you already know about: the prices of old walkmans (especially the SONY brand) has gone through the roof in the last year or so. I'm sure the opinions will vary on this subject: some of you may have thoughts similar to mine, others may consider the price increases perfectly justified.
That's ok and I don't consider a problem if we don't necessarily reach a conclusion, however I do ask you to give arguments to support your view on the topic.
Since it's a subject that I don't see discussed at all, I though to do that myself.

Let's start by stating what I think: some of these prices are disconnected from reality and not based on a supply-demand basis. After all, it's in our best interest as a community of people interested in these vintage devices to buy them at the correct prices that reflect their real maket value.
Although there are many honest sellers out there, some are not. My purpose is not to discredit any seller, but to share my view with buyers and potential buyers. It is also to be mentioned I have nothing against sellers or making high profits when there is a lot of added value.
What I am trying to describe here is there should always be a correlation between added value and profit.

I do agree the supply of these devices is limited (however limited supply does not equal shortage in my view), there is not an abundance of them as back in the day.
However, I think there are probably enough for everybody, in the sense that the demand is not higher than the supply at this point in time (in my view it will never be in the foreseeable future).
The prices on the market are not set on a supply-demand basis, as they should, but rather based on a very high perceived value of such products. I insist on the word "perceived", because the real value is usually lower, sometimes by a significant margin.
It is to be mentioned here we're talking about devices sold as-is and not about serviced or refurbished devices, which will have a significantly higher value, because a professional service will bring these units in like-new condition.
It is my belief that unless a vintage device becomes extremely rare (by that I mean so rare that you cannot find one online for sale for many many years), the price should never exceed the original retail value adjusted to inflation.
Of course, even that original retail value should only be approached or reached on a unit that is in mint condition or with original box and accesories.

Watching auctions on a regular basis revealed that most of those units listed at speculative prices do not sell easy or at all. However, many are willing to wait a very long time. Sometimes sellers will never give up until they sell (which can be both good and bad).
Many in Japan afford this mindset because they have thousands of vintage products and their profits don't depend on selling a particular unit or not.
However average sellers which do this for a living or as have a business in this field, will not have that many listings to afford such a mentality and will need to sell on a regular basis (like most small businesses do).
Individual sellers who found walkmans in their basement are also not in a hurry and can wait for years, because they believe prices can only go up (time will tell about this, I personally believe they can go down as well).

A. I want to give you an example: the SONY WM-D6C. It's considered by many the golden standard, some even saying it's better than a full-sized high end deck (at 15Khz bandwitdh, I'd say think again as many late players go to 18Khz).
Many consider this walkman to be very rare and valuable (I agree it's valuable, but not rare). What most people do not know is about 500.000 of such units were produced and given their professional use and features it's extremely likely that only a few of them went to trash.
Even if we assume 30% of them went to trash (which is probably far from the truth), there are still plenty left for sale. Obviously not all of the remaining units will be for sale, but you get the picture that we cannot call such a unit rare or very rare.

B. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I will give an example of a rare unit: the Panasonic RQ-J20X. There is one for sale on ebay at $799 that has not sold for quite some time, although it is a truly rare unit (I've seen only a handful of them for sale). Draw your own conclusions.

There are a few types of sellers types I have identified:

1. People that find old walkmans in their basements and want to earn some easy money (this type is by far the most common)
This kind of seller is well aware of the vintage hype going around these days and about the SONY brand in particular. They know which models are very popular and watch a lot of other listings to know the average listing value.
Most of them DO NOT want to sell, but are just taking their chances of earning $1000 without doing anything. Of course that wouldn't be an issue if their products were indeed worth $1000 (arbitrary example).
This seller is willing to wait as long as it is needed to get that money, being not in a hurry at all. So it's likely you will see such listings on ebay for months or even years.
I have seen some for more than a year, so keep in mind these sellers are very perseverent and won't ever give up, UNLESS there is a change in market trend, like no one paying a particular sum of money for a particular unit.
Those are the kind that will try to frame the listing as to seem the unit is in perfect condition, even seem it was recently serviced in order to dupe you.
And if a long enough time passes, they may eventually dupe someone.

2. People who give a minimal service and want to earn a lot from that
This kind of seller usually lacks the skills and knowledge to do a proper service. Many times, these can be identified by not putting screws where they belong (can be seen in pictures) or by missing parts like springs (you will notice this when receieving the unit).
Missing screws, in general, are a very bad sign, indicating someone with lack of skill opened the unit and was unable to put it back together as it was originally.
If the description of the service is very ambiguous, you need to ask questions about what exactly the seller means by "serviced"/"refurbished", as most won't give specific details. Pay attention to how specific the seller is: if he/she know what they're doing,
there will be a lot of specific details, like "all rotating/moving parts were lubricated, motor was lubricated, rubber replaced, pinch roller replaced, tape speed adjusted, etc.". A generic description of "lubricated" or "mechanism lubricated" is not to be trusted,
as it's likely false (the seller is vague in the description when he/she does not know what exactly needs to be lubricated).
This kind of seller usually does want to sell, but is not in a hurry and willing to wait months to get that high price on the unit.

3. People/companies which service the units professionally, but also want to earn many times more than the initial value
While there is usually nothing wrong with the servicing itself (although there can always be exceptions), the really high price is not always justified (most of the time it is though). From all 3 types of sellers, clearly this is the preffered one.
Even if you really want a unit and are willing to spend a lot, it's prefferable to get a serviced one for that money (there's still not a clear boundry between serviced/working in terms of price).
When a seller has many refurbished items for sale, it is clear that he/she does that on a regular basis and very likely the quality of the service is professional. A detailed description of what was done is always to be preffered to none or vague description (like "belt replaced, lubricated, head demagnetized").

What I'm trying to do with this thread ? Persuade you not to pay on these units more than they're worth. Of course, at the end of the day, I can't decide on my own what the market value of these units is or should be,
but I invite you to think critically and decide that for yourself based on this information.
The unfortunate part is most sellers out there are in the first 2 categories. Many sellers that do good mechanical service won't do Dolby ajustements for example. This isn't an inherent problem, but they should state it.

Let's think a little bit from the seller's perspective: if he/she could get only a single sell at that high price (even if it took a month to get the customer), the seller will be even more encouraged to continue this practice.
This will create a feedback loop that, if enough sellers experience it, will drive the whole market price up. It's something which has already happened, but it can be reversed if people refuse buying at speculative prices.

A HUGE problem that I've seen is this: there's very little distinction between a working unit and a fully serviced/refurbished unit. And unfortunately most of the time, even serviced ones have either none or very vague description of what was done.
Depending on the unit itself, a full service may be needed. For example, a D6C will be very noisy with old hardened rubber and Dolby will NOT work correctly without a calibration (keep in mind most serviced units will lack a calibration).

Some regular sellers in this field always try to create a perceived high value by framing the product as working perfectly, hardly used, like new even when that's not the case at all. Those certainly have marketing skills and they use those skills to dupe buyers.
Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with marketing, however it must be based on real facts, not on lies.
The fact is there are serious and honest sellers out there, including members of this forum which may get less credit than they deserve because of those which do not put any effort buy are very perseverent in getting that high price.
Seller "tunosau" mentioned in the "Buyers and sellers feedback" is still selling that JVC unit at the exact same price. He did made some changes on his description after reading my thread, but not on the price.

Last, but not least, we must remember that although most if not all of us are enthusiasts when it comes to these vintage devices, when we put them in a broader context, especially in today's society where every device gets replaced with a new version every few years (this is happening in the audio field as well),
we must realise their value is overstated. Yes, they're vintage, they're collectible, but at the end of the day their value should never exceed the original retail cost adjusted to inflation (maybe with the exception where only a handful of units are still available worldwide).

I invite you to give your own views and arguments about this topic ! I'm curious to find out other perspectives.

 

Firstly a unit is worth what people are willing to pay.

People complain about high prices when they want to buy, but I bet they will not complain when they are selling if it goes for a high price. It works both ways.
Personally when I want something I have a price I am willing to pay, anything above that price I just ignore as I don’t fall for the hype.
Also the problem with people complaining is they want everything going out there. Me it’s all about sound quality, so I only buy what I am going to use that sound good. I don’t want things to look at on a shelf or brag about, it’s a waste of money. If you only buy what you need and are going to use, then the high price will not be too much of an issue.

Yes people can ask whatever price they want and wait for years, no one has to pay it. The people that pay it must think it’s worth it else they will not pay the cash.
If people buy something and it turns out the seller had lied about the condition, easy solution send it back as not as described and get your money back. I will never put up with substandard service and no one should either.

Your argument that a Sony WM-D6C can’t be as good or better than a mediocre full size deck because it only goes up to 15 KHz is short sighted, it does not matter how high it goes it’s more to do with how well it does what it does in its given range. Besides a lot of people can't hear that high anyway.

 

Indeed, people can ask whatever they want on a product. But what I was trying to point out is this: if enough people ask X on a certain product, over a long enough period of time, the market will adopt that X value as being one with the real value.
Of course, it depends if people are willing to pay that price, but it also depends how many people are willing to pay X. If only a handful are willing, that's not a signal for the market prices to increase.
True about buying and selling: I don't go for high prices even when selling because want to sell quickly and not wait for a month or more to find a customer. To me, the fact that a product sells quickly means the selling price is good and close to what it should be.

In regard to the D6C, I didn't say it can't be as good or better than a mediocre full size deck, but cannot be as good as a high end one rather. But even then, we must define what a "mediocre" deck is. For example, a Technics RS-BX646 would be considered mediocre ? (the wow&flutter is higher than on D6C, but does have auto calibration)
What's good about that unit is the very low wow&flutter, Dolby B and Dolby C capability (which I have an impression not many people use) and of course the fact that it can produce good quality recordings and playbacks if one is to consider its shortcomings.
It's a unit that I use and like, but it is what it is: a portable unit with some compromises that had to be made to make it so small.

There are a couple of fundamental limitations that the D6C has:
- using the same play/record head, the gap cannot be perfect for both playback and recording, it's always a compromise (it can be a very good compromise, but it's still a compromise).
That's why 3-head decks were designed, to solve this problem by having different head gaps for record and playback.
- bias frequency of only ~64Khz: this limits the frequency response of the recordings considerably. Most decks have a bias frequency of ~85Khz, the better ones going at 105Khz or even higher.
Frequency response is obviously not the sole indicator of sound quality, but I would argue it's a parameter that does matter.
- lack of separate rec level/bias adjustment for different tape types: given there is only one adjustment, it's impossible to set the record frequnecy response and levels (which affect Dolby encoding) perfect for all 3 tape types.
Many high end decks usually have a separate adjustement for each tape type, allowing for an almost perfect adjustment.
- does not have HX Pro, which increases the SOL significantly. On most decent decks this is a standard feature and it's useful to get the best dynamic range that a particular tape can give.

In regard to frequency response, I can very clearly hear the difference between a player that only goes to 15Khz to one that goes to 18Khz or even 20Khz. I'm not saying 15Khz is bad, rather saying 18kHz is better if all the other parameters remain the same.

But to me, the biggest limitation is the third one with lack of independent rec level/bias for different tape type. I like to collect cassettes as well and record on them, so to me it is important to have the flexibility to record on any tape type, not just the one that the unit was calibrated on.
Can the D6C do that ? From my experience I say yes it can, but not as good as a deck with at least different internal adjustements for the 3 tape types. Auto-calibration or test tones for manual adjustement is an even better option for making perfect recordings.

 

I agree with the arguments @Valentin in the first post.
As a happy WM-D6C owner - since you have restored and re-calibrated it - I can say it does a mighty good job.
Very crisp and clear, really and good performer.
However, my Technics RS-BX646, not an expensive deck back in the day and certainly not when I bought it this year, I find better at recording across the board.
First of all, the auto adjustment feature is great. It might not come close to high-end decks, but for playback on D3, D6C, EX618, etc. it is excellent, especially when mixing tape types.
As most of us, I do have several different types (and quality) of tapes, the auto calibration feature helps to get the best out of any tape.
Many of the later Walkmans do go indeed beyond the 15kHz; 18 being the norm, with up to 19kHz and 20kHz occasionally - only on type IV metal though.
We might not be able to hear all, but it does make a difference when one cuts off that range by filtering above these frequencies. The sound is not as full or complete, at least that is what I have noticed.
In terms of W&F, although given my preference for pop and rock music it is not that relevant when under 0.25-0.30%, it is a steady performer too.
This is most likely due to the type of belt and the weightier flywheel, bigger than one can fit in a portable unit.
Very hard to beat for such a low price (100 Euros), unless you go up in price for ES decks, Naks, what not.
Properly working portable disc drive units I have yet to find for this price, let me know

 

There is another aspect that should be mentioned, with the risk of opening up another debade: headphones. Not all headphones perform equally, many not being able to reproduce treble as they should.

Let's take for example the Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. It's a reference studio headphone for mixing and mastering and many agree on that. https://europe.beyerdynamic.com/dt-990-pro.html
If we look at the bottom of the page, we can observe that the frequency response is 5Hz - 35Khz. One might wonder why that is, since we cannot hear above 20kHz. This is because its frequency response will have a rolloff, as any headphone does.
In order to get a "flat" (by flat I mean something like Harman curve) frequency response up to 20Khz, you need to move that rolloff point further away in the frequency band. Otherwise, the upper part of the frequency range will be attenuated too much.
Another example, more known to the audiophile community is the Senheiser HD600: 12Hz - 40.5Khz frequency response. https://en-us.sennheiser.com/best-audio-headphones-high-end-stereo-hifi-hd-600

That's also the thing with HiRes audio certified headphones, their frequency response goes to 40Khz, in this way assuring a more flatter frequency response in the audible band (of course note that not all HiRes audio certified headphone are necessarily good ones).
Same thing with HiRes audio files: the higher sample rate is not used in order to produce more spectrum (which won't be audible anyway), but rather to move the Nyquist frequency from 22.05Khz (where a filter that passes 20Khz with no attenuation, but completely blocks above 22.05Khz would be necessary)
to 48kHz or higer, so a slow roll-off reconstruction filter can be used, which reduces the reconstruction artifacts.

 

I gathered a database of sold units (collectible walkman units only) to get the idea of price range. I did it for several years. Now I see myself as an expert when it comes to the real value of a specific walkman. but I strongly believe what @TooCooL4 mentioned: "Firstly a unit is worth what people are willing to pay."
There was a time that I didn't have a boxed DD100 and I was looking for a mint one so bad that I was willing to pay 10K for it, So does it mean the actual value of DD100 was 10k (7 years go), Obviously not.

But I guess this is still a great idea to talk about walkman prices since I am very much interested to see what other member appraise a specific unit. So @Valentin lets go on with the topic and lets have some opinion from different members.

 

It is simple economics : supply and demand.

My first car back in 1981 was a Ford Escort. Nothing special about that as it was one of Ford's best sellers. I paid £900 and ended up selling it three years later for £400.
Like most cars from that era it was turning into a rust bucket by then.

Today that body-style is so much in demand replicas are being made
https://www.motorsport-tools.com/ford-escort-parts-mk1-mk2/body-shell.html
You could buy a complete new Ford Focus (the equivalent model in the Ford range today) for less than that.

A colleague (who himself likes 1970s and 1980s stuff) described it as a "Nostalgia Wave".
It probably has a couple of decades left to roll but it won't continue indefinitely.
When we have gone the people in their 40s and 60s will be hankering after Focus STs and Playstation 4s.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some cassettes in a local charity shop. The young man on the till, who looked to be about 18 and who was probably doing work experience, had to ask the manager what they were and which category they should be rung up as.

On a similar note Techmoan has had more than one person contact him asking if was interested in an extremely rare obscure audio cassette format

The items they pictured were typewriter ribbons cartridges

 

You can talk about prices till you are blue in the face, it will not change anything. I see these debates all the time and it goes nowhere.
After all these items are not essential for life, so if you don’t have one you will not die.

D6C is a good unit, how good a recorder it is I don’t know. I have never used one as a recorder, it’s a playback only device for me. Why would I use a D6C for recording when I have a Nakamichi CR-7.

 

If people think Walkmans are going for silly prices check this out
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/super-mario-sells-record-video-game-most-expensive-ever-180978183/#:~:text=Heritage Auctions,-14.8K subscribers&text=Watch a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 sell for $1.56 million!

Of course that is small change compared to Art which I believe @TooCooL4 knows more about than most of us.

I was about to comment about having some boxed, hardly played N64 cartridges in the loft.
It seems like I might have done better by buying them (new) than leaving the money in the Bank
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185052477899?hash=item2b15fcb9cb:g:~esAAOSwNJBhQiTS

 

I don’t think I know more about art than you do, I work for a big high end art gallery but in the IT dept. Yes, I have seen many art go for crazy prices.

 

People who did know what a WM D6 was probably then bought a WM22 and were happy with it. The higher end units were the 1980s equivalent to an iPhone 13 Pro Max today. When talking about original prices you have to remember about inflation. The bottom of the range WM22 was still the equivalent of £100 in todays money. If you bought pre-recorded tapes or LPs they were the equivalent of over £10 each. I recently looked at some forums trying to determine the price of a 7" single. The consensus was that during the 1970s and early 1980s it was the same as a Gallon of petrol here in the U.K.
It isn't surprising that the radio, and taping songs from it, were so popular back then. People should think themselves lucky that they don't have to pay those prices to listen to music they want to today.

 

It's not my intention to necessarily change anything, rather to see what other people's opinion is about the subject and also to express my own. Having a discussion that reveals how the community thinks about the subject can't hurt in my opinion. People reading will draw their own conclusions.

Why you would use a D6C for recording ? Just for fun, that's why we use cassettes in the first place. Objectively speaking, there's not necesarilly a good reason to use cassettes, but we use them because we like the experience.
But to me, there is a limit in what I'm willing to spend on such experiences: on some devices that I really want of course will be willing to spend more if it's very rare (not really the case with most SONY units), as @Boodokhan gave the example with the DD100.
My experience is almost all devices can be found cheaper if one is patient enough. Of course wanting a device now naturally adds to the price, as the fast delivery does represent added value.

@Longman I know about the Super Mario 64 sold at $1.56 milion, but that's the only unopned copy in the world, which kind of explains why it sold at that price. Plus there was a huge demand for a sealead copy of that game,
demand which to me doesn't seem to be nearly as high on walkmans, otherwise all of the ebay listings would sell the day they were started. SONYs clearly sell a lot better than other brands, that's true because there's sense of luxury in regard to it (their DMP-Z1 DAP is the best example for that).

@Mister X There's a vast amount of units sitting in people's drawers for sure, as SONY alone produced about 200 milion walkmans in total. Even if we were to assume 80% of them went to trash (which I don't think is the case), there are still about 40 milion units left.
If we were to assume further that only 10% of these units are going to ever be available for sale, there are still 4 milion units left, which is likely more than enough.

Another aspect is this: if last year one would search "DD9" on ebay, there were only a handful of units for sale. Same with WM-3, D6Cs etc. The fact that as time passed, more units became available for sale only proves how many there still are in people's drawers or basements.

 

When it costs 10 times more than what it was back in the day it's not worth buying imho, I'm lucky though i have had all the high end boxes walkmans etc

just because it's rare doesn't mean it's valuable imho, low end walkmans etc are worth nothing to me, i wouldn't buy them then and i wouldn't buy them now, crap in crap out

 

I disagree with that when it comes to playback. I wonder how many people have cassettes from their youth that they would like to play again. Of course you only really need one decent working cassette deck to do that so I will agree that the collecting is simply for fun.

Thinking about myself, between 1983 and about 2010 I only bought three personal stereo cassette players and none was a Sony which always seemed poor value compared with the ones I bought (two Sanyos then a very cheap but good Aiwa). Looking back to 1983 then I was collecting Valve / Tube radios. In 1983 spent almost as much as I spent on my first Sanyo on a Radio. Those have definitely fallen down the other side of the nostalgia wave and almost certainly hasn't kept up with inflation.

The thing that started me collecting Walkmans was ten years ago when I went into Argos (large U.K. retailer) to buy a new one to go with a mixtape for a friend who was in hospital and they didn't have any in stock (I did get one of the Chinese players of the type usually derided by Techmoan which at least played the tape for her).
http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/the-last-tape-walkman-s.5362/
At that point I realised that Cassette Players were going the same way as Tube Radios (which took up too much space anyway) and started looking around for bargains.

The silly thing with that is that you could get a pristine opened copy of Mario 64 with all the leaflets etc for $156 or 1/10000th of the price. If the buyer ever opens it to play, it will lose nearly all its value. I was discussing this with my sister and she compared it to vintage bottles of wine and Champagne which will probably turn out to be vinegar if opened. The Nintendo Playstation was probably a far better buy. If they ever get that playing a game it will probably go up in value. Any of these items make more sense to me than Non Fungible Tokens although I guess who wouldn't have to put those on your house insurance

Back to N64 games I actually have an (unboxed) copy of Conkers Bad Fur Day, which I myself have never played. About twelve years ago I read about it in an article on N64 games, thought "I must have one of those" and bought one for about £20 on eBay.

A final thought on Walkmans I expect people have heard of "The Techmoan Effect". Mat does a review on some old equipment, says he likes it and it doubles in price. Being one of his Patreons I can let you know that you have one week left to buy the Mitsubishi Boombox with a built in cassette changer

 

@Longman I agree about playback specific music that was only released on cassettes: I have about 10-15 of those with Romanian music from late 90s - early 2000s.
But even those I recorded digitally for safety, as many of the tapes are shedding oxide and may need to be replaced with new tape. The shells have screws, so that is something relatively easy to do.

I remember seeing a SONY walkman sports model (can't remember which one, it was yellow) that was listed on ebay for $60K. The seller was pretending that it was the only sealed unit in the world. At the time I watched the listing for some time, but it didn't sell.

 

The subject of collecting reminds me of a discussion about Smurfs (that at one point were given away with petrol). https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115022323674?hash=item1ac7dd5fda:g:55QAAOSwjUNhV1yE
A Radio DJ claimed that they were worth £100 each. Cue dozens of callers ringing in to say that they had dozens of Smurfs. After a while the DJ had to correct himself to say that they only one worth £100 was a special gold coloured limited edition one of which only a very limited quantity was made.

Regarding the Mario 64 cartridge I would find it very funny if someone discovered a load in an old ToysRUs building. The same with the Walkman Sports you mention. At least with items like the Apple 1 computer they know exactly how many were made.

 

When I am thinking of fun, cassettes is the last thing that comes to my mind but I guess everyone is different.
I don’t use cassettes for fun, I use them because I have units that still work and sounds good. Since I have the units no need to go and buy anything else like digital players etc.

Since I record from high end setup to metal cassettes, the sound quality rivals and exceed some digital players.

 

a few years ago people were selling tps l2 walkmans with fake boxes as new, only the experts knew it was fake, i bet dozens were sold, i wouldn't pay £50 then and i wouldn't now

i agree with tocool no point in having this gear if it's not used, hence i gave most of my boxes away, only have the ones i use left

it seems to me people only get exited when things are worth money, me i couldn't care less

all i care about is whether it is good quality or not

 

I am with you Radio Raheem, I don’t care about the money. I just want to enjoy these things, I have no intention in selling them anyway. Too many people are thinking how much they can sell something for, that just makes it boring to me. That's why I say some people know the price of everything but the value of none.