Hey everyone this is my first post that isn't about needing or wanting something.  HAHA.  But no seriously, I have only been collecting Walkmans now for the past 6 months, sold my sports car and immediately started looking for something else to collect.  And then I found them, the most prized possession I used to own in my youth;  The portable cassette player.  Right away I went for the units I could remember actually having.  Toshiba KT-4066.  Loved this unit as a kid, but now not so much (Poor design with FF RW) , then an Aiwa and then a Sony.  Then as many as I could get my hands on 3 JVC Walkmans that are by far the most 80's in design.  Found a great Sharp JC-77  few Kenwood, a few more Aiwa's  I was hooked looking at the beautiful designs and such intelligent engineering.  Nothing made today will still be working 25 years down the line!  My iphone will never make it, but some of these Units were made to last forever with of course some up keep and care, but thats the fun, right?  So now I have about 30 walkman or so all brands,  some new in the box, mostly used that needed repair, because of course I started too late and no one is going to get rid of a boxed Aiwa HS-JX PX anything, well if you do you got my number.  No I said this post wasn't about that.  Out of all the units I have I have to say the sound from my WM-EX20 in the surround mode is fantastic.  Am I the only one?  I have not had the pleasure of hearing the "Grail" DD walkmans or the Boodo or even the JX1000.  So I can only compare it to my Aiwa HS-PX505 JX505 JX707, Sony Wm-100-202.  What REALLY is the best sounding walkman.  I know sound is going to be different from one to another, but what do you think about this WM-EX20?  Thanks for reading, love this site and the help you all have given me!

Marty McFly

I don't know my Aiwa HS-JX505 Sounds pretty good, wow!!!  The beauty of new caps and a belt!

This is a matter that has already been discussed here; you may do a quick search to find the old posts related.

The EX20 doesn't sound bad at all, but it can't compare with some of the best players, like the PX101-303-505 or some of the best DDs (DDII, Boodo Khan, DC2, DD30&33, DD9, D6C...).

I have all them and the Ex20 is definitely not at the same level...

Regarding the surround mode, I'm not a fan of those 'spatial sound' modes. I find all them very artificial (surround, SRS, spatializer...). I prefer just a good base sound and a pair of good headphones with good soundstage, like my BOSE AE2.

I concur 100% with Hugo Walkman Archive. I have had two ( still have boxed mint one) and although a very good sounding player and certainly built solid as granite the clarity and freq. response of sound is just not there as to the very finest players that Hugo mentioned).   I found the surround a novelty at best.  At low listening volume with some types of music it added to the the listening experience but most of time for me and ESPECIALLY at any volume above half it also added a muddiness or loss of clarity.  

I would have to add that of my two EX20's one the surround sounded better than other. And on the loss of clarity and added muddiness of the sound was less on better sounding one yet still there.   Always we have to contend when talking of the best etc now the problem is very few players perform as they did when made even if nothing wrong with them time degrades caps and pcb boards can have electrical loss from corrosion caused by many things including air especially if near oceans.  Maybe your surround circuits unlike units I have had or Hugo are working as intended when made but I am sure that a player such as the DD9, DC2 PX101 and few others truly have a sonic superiority over the EX20 especially with metal tape made on a top end deck with dolby c encoding.  Now there is  Walkman nirvana ;-) and definitely a recent model higher end head phone/ear bud.