GMYW's "Good Cassette Walkmans List" and Guide

this post is crap such crap that i have to ask what was the op's motivation? trying to sell the worst of his collection for top dollar?

the op obviously has not serviced these himself, and obviously knows little about sound reproduction.

ignore his comments about 10mw... this is enough to ruin your hearing with modern iems that have sensitivity over 100db/mw

by 2002 no major manufacturer was shipping more than 5mw per channel in any portable and pana md units were 2,5mw



i have owned at least two of every full logic model from sony, aiwa, panasonic, hitachi, and kenwood... plus many many more.
right now i am the highest rated (on ebay ) walkman restorer.


i think i only agree about the 701's (terrible to work on) & the pc20 (too big for a pocket) being amazing.


ok, in order of how much i am offended by this nonsense

aiwa px models- from 93-96 they are excellent except the 3/480 top loaders which i would say avoid. specifically, the px610 is a jx3000 mech with no bs to go wrong. no frills hifi. the 540/550 are true reference hifi sound and the 830 uses a 7 min force sensing servo motor. the 530 is almost as good as the 540/550 but has a plastic shell and cheaper buttons.

panas-
the entire pana rq-s series suffer from the self deforming mech that means unless it was stored with the door open (and this still leaves the roller mount under some stress) the fwd roller contact patch is non-planar with the head and the waf is horrible.
other sx panas suffer from bad plastic chemistry with uneven shrinkage causing myriad problems.
then there are the irreplaceable capstand tires (like o-rings on the capstand) that aren't repalceable and can't be cleaned with alc.
panasonics are practically self destructing and 24db of bass boost is a bit much even for a bass head


i have never seen any pana s or sx that didnt use the twin rotor motors; some just wren't 'marketed' as such. OP obviously has not serviced them himself


sony

Sony bought aiwa bc aiwa sounded better. period. that's why in 1995 aiwa had to drop "DSL" and could only have a basic bass boost

the best sounding sonys aren't even on this guys list. the eq3 beans sounds so much better than you'd think it should. sony's rv setting is like BBE but aiwa lets you use dsl and bbe at the same time

dd9- so overrated. it really doesn't even sound that great. it sounds dry and unemotional. even new. the aiwa j10 is much better.
the dd9's tech was abandoned for a reason, cd and md came to be the majors agreed 0.25 din waf was "good enough" and that is why they stopped publishing waf in ad copy.

by the time of the 1994 wm-ex1 waf wasnt even mentioned- "if you care about waf go buy minidisc- it has none, guranteed! the sales reps were trained to tell folks.

by 1994 all the slimline full logic units were using chip amps and no aec's

the lowest waf spec'd on a portable was the ex2000... but it's crap too otherwise.. mega surround is a gimmick... the gx788 has the same mech but sounds better. i think the ex2000 ofc head looks cool but doesn't sound as good as they claim.
like really, you have NO gripes with the ex2000? it requires the remote for most functions. and it has the volume switch. it's sound... it uses the same chip amp as the others in it's series and it sounds like it has a bottleneck in the sound. like it's compressed. any aiwa with bbe will sound better if they are in similar condition.




sharp... they all sound crap. but the jc-k99 sounds absolute crap. just so mid. like they cut weight even from the amp (and it's a toshiba chip)



ok, enough. in closing i just want to say there is no "best walkman" there might be models with the best freq response, or the best battery life, or th ebest appeance, or the lightest weight...

but sound and functionality are subjective experiences... if you're reading this and you want one of the best, it's going to be aiwa

 

oh right but yes after 96 aiwa mechs switched to a friction switching system that was horrible and unreliable.. if it has a sony style remote port it's crap