Hi all Won a blue WM-20 on Ebay some years ago. Original box and unopened. The seller was a house clearance guy who had cleared out the attic of a deceased person and this was still wrapped in Xmas paper when he found it. I guess the person never got round to giving this as a gift at the time back in '84 but I was pleased to become its owner in time. NOT a bargain, but a dream machine so I couldn't resist bidding on it. Anyway, I opened it immediately, put a battery in it and it worked fine (I know, probably lost half its value in an instant). Used it while strolling about and got home and gave the missus a demo at which point it stopped all of a sudden. Bit gutted coz of the amount it cost but hey ho. So I ended up leaving it back in its box again for another five years until last week when I decided to tackle it as I had ordered a new belt a year ago or so. The belt was just turning to oil so wasn't too difficult to clean up and replace and now it works amazing again. So that's my little Walkman story. Slight change of subject now. I'm totally smitten with the thing and have been using almost every day since I got it fixed but I think it seems to sound better the longer I use it. It starts off being quite bright and then after half an hour or more, it begins to soften up nicely and become really nicely balanced in bass and treble frequencies. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this sort of thing with their machines? Any Walkman really?
Nice, it looks amazing. Enjoy it. With regards to sound changing with use, I guess with most electronics they improve once you have got past the break in period. It will start to sound good from pretty much when you put it on, rather than after a short time of it being on.
Providing they haven't dried out, electrolytic capacitors will actually improve with use (look up capacitor reforming) so there could be a scientific theory behind this, especially as better capacitors will let more bass through. A shame we will never know the story behind the wrapping paper. Maybe there was a similar story to this famous Christmas song also from 1984 However, it is great that is now with someone who appreciates it.
I know. I've always wondered about the story of this machine. I can't stop looking at it. I wouldn't be so amazed if it was a mid 90's design, but this was only a few years after the first Walkman. I look at them like a manual wrist watch with all those little moving parts inside a small case.
