Sony wm-501 with TV band Mechanical lock for the buttons. One silver wheel and this one needs a belt. This not only came with a nc-6wmb still sealed. 1.2 volt 600 milliamp rechargeable nickel cadmium battery brand new still in the package. And also I'm trying to show you the AA plastic case that slides on to the bottom of the hard case which then allows you to drop in your player and then also operated on the AA battery. Or you can use the hard case without the AA battery attached to the hard case and just run it on the gump stick battery. This item you insert into the Gump stick slot and allows you to power the unit with an AC adapter which I would never use but here it is as you can. See you would insert your barrel DC adapter into the little round hole and then once this is inserted into the player you could then power this unit that way course I'd never do that. decentman4you2007@gmail.com yeah if you're interested in it send me an email I got upside down somehow but that's a picture of the case over this unit with the aa battery attachment attached.
It's cool indeed to have many walkmans of similar color at one place. Same for blue. I had roughly 30 blue ones lying next to each other the other day, sorted from the lightest blue till the deepest purple - I'll try to find the picture and post, it's beautiful. And I think you're right that they weren't so much focussed on color matching back then, each batch could have a slightly different tint. Also, I think that some paint may slightly change over time. Like the paint on old red cars, that wears down too.
Nice one, a F501 with the box and in this light color. I like it. Thanks for showing the DC plug "Power Adaptor" that I was referring too, I do have those accessories but not at home (I keep the majority of the collection elsewhere, not at home).
Ok, one more for today. The Toshiba KT-GS3. No, not the KT-S3, which is also nice with its tuner pack - will post later - but the GS3. Not much information about this interesting player on the web, it seems to be quite rare. I could only find a black one (which I do not yet have). But I have a white one, which is a beautiful color in combination with the black sides & key area. That key area with the shape of the logic keys is very lovely if you ask me.
Super nice design of the controls! The OPEN button to eject the tape is interesting, it's a slider on the side sliding downwards. And again... can't get enough of the nice buttons on this one. Just in case you haven't read on the cover that it has auto-reverse and a remote control, it tells you again inside. Can't remember that other brands were doing it this way. All in all this walkman (/Walky) has quite a unique look & feel to it. The lid and the back are metal, but it gives a very different feeling. I assume (not sure) that it's steel rather than aluminium, which sets it apart from most Sony's. Except maybe the WM-EX20 and some other special models. I wouldn't say that this Toshiba is better or worse compared to the high end Sony models, it's just different and that's what makes it cool.
The battery box concept is similar to Sony models like the WM-109, the WM-R202, the WM-101 etc The contacts look similar and the size is the same. However, I tried attaching the Sony battery boxes and it doesn't fit. The WM-109 mechanical attachment looks the same by the naked eye, but has the contacts on the opposite side! The KT-GS3 and the WM-109, both white, both the same concept, but a very different look & feel. Trying a WM-R202 battery box on the Toshiba... no luck. The WM-109 on top, then the KT-GS3 and the WM-R202. The clip on the right side in this picture is more or less the same. On the left side, the WM-R202 has 2 small clips at the edges, whereas the other two have a clip in the middle. However, Toshiba and Sony decided to put the (quite similar) contacts at the opposite sides. Unfortunately no universal standard for this great concept of using a detachable battery compartment. Ending with a side view... as much as I like the WM-109 and the unusual FF/REW control, I have to admit that Toshiba nailed it even better when it comes to the controls this time.
The WM-109... a beautiful walkman, probably the 2nd model from Sony with a remote control after the WM-7. It was a high end model, positioned as a top notch player with all the features in a super small metal housing. Even though this part is plastic, it looks very nice and has unusual controls, as well as a switch to choose remote or local control. And the remote is WM-7 style: No additional connector, just the 3 pin 3.5" connector sensing parallel resistors/shorts. With the drawback that it is sensitive to the headphone impedance, and limited to a few buttons on the remote (in this case 2). The FF/REW control is pretty unusual too, if I'd be Doug Demuro and this would be a car, I'd be drooling over this Quirk. Two silver wheels in the WM-109... I still do not know why some Sony walkmans from this era have one silver wheel, while others have two (or four) - If somebody knows, please post it here. I guess most people know, but the texture on the wheel and the 4 Sony logos per wheel are just so nice...
Now that I was reaching for the white ones, let's take another in the category "small, white and metal": The Panasonic RQ-S1.
The top part is nice... I opened this one and it's incredibly thin and well designed, while looking and feeling so robust from the outside. It was one of the smallest players at that time.
From the surface it looks like a pretty standard high end model, but it really isn't, everything is so nice about it in real life.
My white RQ-S1 has some wear unfortunately, I'll be looking for more RQ-S1s in better shape and other colors.
My white Aiwa HS-P3X is also in pretty bad shape. I like my walkmans in optically 9/10 or 10/10 state, but for rare models like this one, it's not so easy. The good thing is that somebody has used it a lot and most likely had fun listening on the go... on headphones or radio in this case. On radio? I don't see a built in tuner? How does this work...
So first let's push PLAY on the top panel. With pretty unusual controls by the way - mechanical FF/REW slider, and a green button integrated into the PLAY button allowing you to choose unlimited auto-reverse. Which switches off again mechanically when the PLAY button is released - No clue why you'd want this. Another weird quirk: It has both an "OPEN" slider and an "EJECT" function, which is not very intuitive.
And then move the magic "ON AIR" switch for a small miracle - The HS-P3X has this pretty unique button which... enables the radio transmitter, so you can listen to your tape on any radio! Remember the car transmitters that allowed you to "stream" any audio device on your car radio? This nice Aiwa has that built-in. It's the only model in my collection that has an FM transmitter integrated, and I'm not aware of any other model with this functionality - do you? The label looks pretty bad, but it still tells us that the FM transmitter is working in the 76-90MHz band, with potentiometer to finetune frequency. I actually think this was a pretty good idea and I wonder why it didn't make it on more models.
I must have skipped class when they introduced streaming to your car radio. I've never heard of that. I do have or have had car radios that had a line input and or a 3.5 mm Jack either on the front or on a cable off to the side of the front of the radio. It'll allow you to plug in your stereo input source of whatever other than what the radio provide by itself that I know about. I don't like Bluetooth because it uses radio frequencies which limits the frequency. Response of what your music gets from your source to your speakers. I prefer analog all the way. No digital intervention needed.
