Hello everyone.  I couldn't find a dedicated place to introduce myself so I'll do it here.  If you need to move this, that's fine.  I have actually visited this site several times to research specific brands of walkmans that came to my possession recently - namely a completely restored Aiwa HS-JX 707 I got from eBay from Retrodos. 

I am in my mid 30s and I used to get Walkmans by the boatload when I was younger, but it was always the cheap stuff - namely the ones with no fast forward or rewind buttons.  I did have a relatively pricey Aiwa walkman at one time but it was stolen.  Anyway that was when I had no money, I was still in school.

Now, I have a pretty steady job and I just thought that I should make up for lost time.  Everybody talks about how digital is so much better, and when I hear them say that I agree... But then I immediately think, 'what happens when the internet goes out or the hard drive craps out?'  I have about over 15 years of cassettes in one place and haven't moved them at all.  I'm not ashamed to say that once in a while I pull one out.  In fact the other day I did just that and went to bed with the HS-JX707 I got.  It was like I was 15 again!

I recently found an HS-JX 505 and it's not in ideal shape, so after communicating with Retrodos and reading about his other restoration projects, I'm going to let him hopefully work a miracle on it.  These Walkmans are beautiful, especially when they work.  So, I guess I'm here to revisit that world and hopefully learn a lot more about them.  And yes, I am indeed a chick, hence the name.

I know that there are a couple of walkman repair/restore guys here, but I think Retrodos is the closest to me, I live in the east coast of the US.  It's nice to meet you all and I really am glad that this community exists.

a big welcome from Manchester England, i,m sure you,le find everything you need here and find the members very helpfull.

you are not the only girl here btw so don't worry about that

stick around and enjoy

Hello and welcome to the forum.

The AIWA JX505 and JX707 walkman are a couple of interesting models to start off a collection.

What sort of walkman do you see yourself wanting to collect featurewise?

Hello, and welcome to the forum TapeChick.

welcome to the site tapechick.

Well, that's an interesting question, Plop.  For a while I could remember what BBE was, then I forgot, then when I researched the AIWA walkmans I remembered, haha.  As far as features, I suppose those two had all the ones I prefer - the bass boost, auto reverse, noise reduction, recording - plus some awesome ones I never thought I would see in a walkman, like an alarm and sleep timer.

I suppose that I would like to get my hands on the high-end recording walkmen I never even dreamed that I could afford back in the day.  Can't list particular ones, though the two I have are a good start, I think.

Welcome aboard Tapechick..!

Welcome to the forum.

Analog better as it is reproduction, then compression MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, it isnt till you get to FLAC lossless, or uncompressed PCM, that sample at 192khz 24bits that digital sounds pretty good, then you have to worry about having a good DAC "digital to analog converter", with a good design and PSU, to get the most out of digital format.

The JX707 and JX505 is consider to be aiwa's best efforts, their some others they made that are great, but always need capacitors and belts replaced, then they are great unit. The next walkman would recommend getting, if you plan on collecting some is the standard D6c, no one sure be without that model, is one of the best recorders as far walkmans goes, then you have the DC2, or a dd9 as far as sound goes, but they don't record, but smaller then the D6c.

If you have alot of tapes, like I do, because I grow up with when tapes were around, get a good three head dual capston deck, like a Nakamichi, you have the dragon and ZX-9 or CR-7a, which are consider to be the worlds best! But know most people don't have that kind of money to spend on those, as they go for over $700 and up and they need repairs done, as people assume they will work forever without restoration, but that not the case. Would go with a BX-300, LX-5, CR-3a, can be found cheap and great decks, or look at thrift store, you will be shock at what you can find for under $15 bucks. Found a couple directdrive decks one time. Depends alot on area to. 

yeah....big hello from sunny Blackpool  UK........welcome to the madness

and hello and welcome from shitty manchester

Welcome tapechick,

I think I started to collect also with the JX707 and JX505. Well, to be exact the JX2000 and JX3000 (golden versions of those).

But I realized that sound quality is not as good as I expected on this nice, advanced and compact players.

What I learned bit by bit in the past few years is that if you want quality, choose walkmans that doesn't have many features but focus on only one.

I mean: if you want a walkman that do records with excellent quality, forget JX505 or JX707 and choose a good recorder (without radio, autoreverse, LCD, remote, timer, etc...). For example: the SONY D3 or the D6C.

If you want excellent sound playing, pick a SONY DD series unit, like the DD30, the DC2 or the legendary DD9. Or the D3 and D6C, of course.

But if you don't care about really good sound quality, then enjoy with many other models like those AIWA ;-)

It's interesting that you bring that up because the truth is I'm not quite as uptight about sound quality as many people seem to be (not including you in the 'uptight' category of course..). With the budget that I have I suppose that I can't really get into the hardcore audiophile mode. I do however want to have something that can last but doesn't feel cheap (build or sound quality wise), which is probably why I found myself with those two models.

One of the main reasons why I like Walkmans so much is that is is a highly engineered, mechanical, living machine. Unlike modern DAPs or MP3 players, which are born a solid state "perfect" device with "perfect" digital sound.

It's like a Digital watch vs a mechanical one- A good digital watch can keep time better, always in sync with an atomic clock's signal, etc. The mechanical one however, has "soul". 

In my opinion, my D6C, JX505, etc has a sound that my modern digital player (ZVM) can not reproduce. Sure, the ZVM has a near perfect flat frequency response and excellent Signal to Noise ratio. Tapes, as an analog medium, color the sound, introduce hiss, dropouts, alignment issues.

(Digital has bit rate and compression issues as well, but high bitrates or flac files can be used. External headphone amps help with players that have weak amps that cannot drive larger headphones.)

That said, I'd also recommend a clean aligned D6C. It blows away almost all other portables, analog or digital. Makes fantastic recordings. Other DD machines less the DD9 have cracked gear issues which require expertise to fix.

Welcome to S2G I should convince you to fall in love with the wm10 series ...cute/tiny/simple/compact and above all moderately easy to service

Well, I always paid attention to sound quality, but I think I'm not "uptight" with it. As English is not my mother languaje, I'm not sure about the proper translation, but I think I got it
:-)

Let me correct: I'm not saying that those AIWAs sound bad. Not at all. In fact they sound very good; maybe I prefer the JX505 to the JX707. And maybe the rare PX410 to both.

Precisely yesterday I was doing some experiments, sound tests and measurements with my modded SONY D6C (which sounds and records absolutely fantastic). I wanted to know how "bad" does sound a budget walkman and how it compares to an excellent one. So I picked up an AIWA HS-TA323 (a cheap plastic "egg" unit) that I got in a lot and the fantastic D5 Pro. I put the same Sony UXPro tape with an excellent recording and connected my Sennheiser HD280 and... well... the AIWA doesn't sound so bad. It doesn't sound good, but it also doesn't sound so bad.

So I was surprised by the fact that with an excellent recording and excellent headphones, even a budget walkman doesn't sound bad. But I didn't remember this kind of cheap plastic players to sound quite acceptable... (yeah, I wasn't using a good tape with and excellent recording and headphones).

So I realized that probably the most important factor in the whole set (player, tape, recording and headphones) is, by far, the tape and the recording, followed by the headphones.

If I connect a budget headphones and put a standard tape and record to an excellent player, it doesn't sound good (in fact it can sound bad), but if I put and excellent tape and headphones in a budget player, it sounds pretty acceptable.

so maybe I was a bit strict saying that those AIWA doesn't sound so well because I still didn't test them with an excellent recorded tape (as I could have it a few months ago only).

So if I have to recommend you anything to enjoy your walkmans, then I'll say:

1st: a SONY D6C, to make excellent recordings (about 160 euros). And some good tapes, like the Maxell XLII or the TDK SA (latest version)

2nd: A Good pair of headphones, like the Sennheiser HD280 Pro (not really expensive, about 130 euros). There are many others, of course, like Beyerdynamic, BOSE...

Welcome Tapechick!

Hello from Athens!

Completely agree with you.

Although there are some modern digital players that sound excellent, normally they are not the cheapest or the most popular. Apple's family of players have a good design but lacks a decent equalization. They even haven't a simple "bass & treble" amplification. For me they sound so plain, although it seems to me that the base sound has high quality (high fidelity, low distortion, etc..)

If you like to enjoy both your digital music as well as your analog music, I'd recommend you a good Cowon player. It's a korean brand very respected in audiophile circles. Many of their players have a lot of possibilities in equalization, like bass amplification, 5-band eq, spacialization or BBE. Compared to apple's devices, they simply blow them out.

In a recent subjective audio quality comparison in an interesting french website, apple's devices scored bad, while Samsung, Cowon, iRiver (and one sony) scored the best.

BTW, what is "ZVM"?

Yes, both the JX505 and JX707 were AIWA's flagship full featured units during the period of 1990-93.

However as Hurodal as already mentioned, all those additional features come at a cost to sound quality at least when recording. I would rate recording ability only fair to good. Fine for dictation or recording a radio program whilst out and about, but not good enough for longer term listening.

Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like the JX505. It was one of AIWA's better efforts before the quality took a downward slide following their acquisition by Sony. It has a strong digital tuner and a pleasing sound profile. Clean examples are hard to find as you've discovered, but after restoration you might find it your favorite of the two. The JX707 is a tough one for me to like (I was initially wooed by all the features), even though I've had one from new and well over half a dozen second hand examples from eBay. The build quality is just not there. Poor tape alignment and questionable DSL circuitry along with supposed 'amorphous heads' that wear badly let down what is on a paper a potentially great little walkman.

As to portable walkman sized recorders... that accolade certainly goes to the Sony WM-D6C. I use mine for near enough all my taping needs owing to its smallish size. It saves me from having to connect up a full sized deck to record from a laptop. It has Dolby noise reduction (if you like that sort of thing), a quartz crystal stabilised motor for accurate tape speed, the ability to set tape recording bias and adjustable recording levels. Nothing you'd see on any small AIWA recorder.

Although there are some modern digital players that sound excellent, normally they are not the cheapest or the most popular. Apple's family of players have a good design but lacks a decent equalization. They even haven't a simple "bass & treble" amplification. For me they sound so plain, although it seems to me that the base sound has high quality (high fidelity, low distortion, etc..)

 

If you like to enjoy both your digital music as well as your analog music, I'd recommend you a good Cowon player. It's a korean brand very respected in audiophile circles. Many of their players have a lot of possibilities in equalization, like bass amplification, 5-band eq, spacialization or BBE. Compared to apple's devices, they simply blow them out.

 

In a recent subjective audio quality comparison in an interesting french website, apple's devices scored bad, while Samsung, Cowon, iRiver (and one sony) scored the best.

Ah yes, the Cowon D2. I'm looking to get one myself, although Cowon software tends to be on the somewhat barely functional side. The newer Cowons are hit and miss. The number of different software audio filters is crazy.

ZVM is Creative Zen Vision M, the predecessor to the Creative ZEN seen in that graph. I have both and the ZEN is no match for the ZVM.

I remember reading a "scientific" comparison test between the ZVM and the Cowon iAudio x5, another famous Cowon. The ZVM performed better in flat frequency response and SNR. The ZVM has a 5 band EQ as well. It was a favorite between many DAP users for its time- good format and feature support, great sound quality and competitive price. Plus, the ZVM has a line-out that bypasses the headphone amp- great for using it with the D6C.

Sadly, the ZVM has a flaw in the sense it has no over-voltage protection (*ahem* D6C), leading to my ZVM's mainboard getting fried a couple of times. Fixing it was very easy- buy some broken ZVMs with broken screens/hard disks for cheap and swap out to the good board. As a result of this, I have my own ZVM parts bin and 3 fully working ZVMs.

The other flaw is that it is large and quite heavy- heavier than some of my slim cassette Walkmans. This is due to a 30gb hard disk and magnesium casing. Battery life is poor by today's standards.

I never record an any Walkman recorder other than my D6C, for reasons already mentioned above.

I'm learning an awful lot from you guys already!  I do in fact own a Cowon player.  I still have a really early model - the H120 - I bought about 7 years ago.  At the time the sound quality was considered to be top of the game.  In 2010, because my musical demands were increasing I bought a Cowon X7.  It had the added feature of video and it currently serves my purpose pretty nicely, but I wish that I didn't have to pay extra for a USB cable with the proprietary port - they could've just stuck with the standard USB port like in the H120.

Fortunately, the JX707 I own was in fact restored by Retrodos, and the tape I had playing in it sounded really good - there was a moment I thought I still just had the radio on!  He listed it on eBay a couple of weeks ago and from what I remember, he put in new Japanese Capacitors and new belts.  So far, it's working really well, so any improvements he can make (hopefully) on the JX505 I have will be welcome.  For a machine over 20 years old, the 505 is really sexy, I must say!

A simple mod that can be made to the JX505 is to exchange the two 220uF 2V DC blocking capacitors on the audio output with 470uF 2V capacitors. This will extend the bass range lower before the capacitors cut in. It does not amplfy the bass (DSL takes care of that), it merely enhances the sound profile for a more fuller bass, especially noticeable on earphones with low impedance.

Ha, finally more members from the stronger gender

Be welcome here and enjoy lots of walkmans and stuff

Oh, so you already know them. Those are pretty good players.

Yeah, you're lucky to have those JX707 and 505 working. so you only left a good recorder and a pair of headphones and you will enjoy a lot with them.

oh yeah. the interface needs definitely improvements (at least in my D2 and C2) but the sound quality and the number of enhancements is impressive.

Aha, I remember it. One of the first players with color screen and decent support for video files, right?

I have both the original Creative Jukebox and the third version, which includes even 'live' effects (very well done, BTW) but the base sound quality was not so good to me, although I don't know if this ZVM performs much better...

I can only reaffirm that it's the best recorder I ever seen. simply impressive...

A belated welcome from me TapeChick  

You got tapes, you like walkmen... you've arrived at just the right place here...  

Hello TapeChick and welcome to the forum! I think you will find many thigs to like here. Honestly, I can't remember the last time someone spoke so openly  and gave a little insight into their life. So yeah, it's definitely good to have you onboard!

It's interesting what you say about going to bed listening to music on a cassette player... It really does bring memories back. 

I had a couple of those non-rewind walkmans haha. In order to rewind the tape, you had to flip it over and press fast forward. Then flip it back again and press play. Oh the suffering! 

Anyway, make yourself at home and regards from Croatia.

Welcome, havent been on for awhile but still collecting, have managed to repair the majority of my walkmans

A late welcome to the forum from Minnesota.

Been collecting for a few years now. I've been on a hiatus for a few months. At one point I had about 500 Walkmans, working and non working ones. I didn't know what I had and didn't. So I sold most of them on ebay and now I am down to a selection of about a 100 that I really like. 99% of them are working and I am happy with what I have now.  

The members on this forum are awesome. I have learned so much. You will love it for sure.