I've bought 3 S60 (all broken durning reparation), SX 5 (repaired by technican) and SX5V (repaired by me but not working), 3 SX33 (1 repaired by technican, 1 by me- working, 1 repaired by me but broken when tried to change rollers) and yesterday SX60, which after repair was working but few minutes later just eat a tape and stoped playing/winding. When they work, they are nice sounding, but I think I won't buy another (even though I'm better at repairing them now).
I share your thoughts. These players look very nice, but are finicky to repair. I still have a few, amongst them is the SX10 which I posted about a while back. I have meanwhile tried to recreate the clutch spring, and still need to order the brass retainer. The little washer that is supposed to keep it together I will try to create from thin plastic scraps.
I had more luck with other Walkmans though Today I spent a bit of time on a WM-B603, the WM-EX49C in some markets. The battery cover was missing, clutch gear was cracked but I had bought a spare WM-B602 with a relatively new belt. So I swapped the belt and clutch gear, resoldered the negative battery terminal, took the battery cover from its non Dolby C capable brother and at least it works now. W&F and speed stability are not great yet - a new belt and clutch gear (and pinch roller?) will hopefully improve this in a couple of weeks.
I think I may found sweet spon on S series, still those aren't easy to repair. About B603 (and all derivatives from WM-150) I've read that even when new those had W&F close to 0,3, I think now that would be even more.
Would you happen to have a link for the W&F findings? Sony did not provide the numbers in catalogs or service manuals.
That wasn't in the manual as Sony didn't provide numbers (most of the time). There was discusion on TH about WM550C which someone changed belt and tried everything possible to make W&F lower (he was listening to symphonic music) and that was pretty much just slightly less than 0,3* with higher peaks from time to time. The consensus was that mechanics of those Walkmans was cheapened and there isn't much more that can be done. *My bad, when he did all possible, relubing, greasing etc he got it to 0,2 rms. Sorry for my mistake. 0,2 is quite nice
