The Sony Walkman DD9 has a cult following in some circles, some say it’s the best sounding Walkman Sony ever created.

Since I’ve never had one, I had no way of knowing if the reputation was true. My Walkman collections consist of WM-DD33, WM-DC2 and WM-D6C.

I was curious to hear what the fuss was all about so I set out to try and find a good example of a WM-DD9 without paying an arm and a leg that they are going for.

After a while bidding and losing on eBay I finally manage to get one from Agentorange. I anticipated it arriving so I can hear if the hype was true / justified.

When I did get it the first thing I did was to clean and demagnetise the head. I then sat down to have a listen to it using music recorded on TDK MA-XG from Nakamichi CR-7 and headphones was Etymotic ER-4S.

Wow what a disappointment, so to me it was all hype. I switched to a Bang & Olufsen A8, it sounded better as the ER-4S is a difficult load and can be a miss matched for most players. The DD9 sounded better than the DD33 but that is not difficult, the DD9 was a long way behind the DC2 and D6C.

I was rather disappointed about the whole affair, needless to say I hardly used the unit.

This is where dottor walkman comes in. He had being saying how good this unit was and how he can make it sound better then my D6C.

Anyway e-mails back and forth with him I finally agreed to let him have a go at it, the way I saw it was I have nothing to lose as I don’t use it much.

I sent it to him along with the test tones he requested I make on the Nakamichi CR-7 and the lengthy restoration / modification process began.

Every step of the way he sent me photos of what he was doing to the unit. 

dottor walkman did an amazing job of modifying the unit, I can not describe in words the job he did. I will include link to photos of the job as they tell a better story.

As you can see from the oscilloscope images (below) when he got it and also the finished result, what a difference. Also as you can see dottor walkman is a perfectionist he even changed the main flywheels to make the forward and reverse direction have the same identical weight.

The door hinge was also broken, he re-fabricated a new door hinge for me how cool is that.

Before Mod Left & Right channel balance

After Mod Left & Right balance

Anyway after a while I got the DD9 back along with a new carrying case dottor walkman gave me.

I then went back to do a comparison with the DC2 and D6C.

Before the DD9 went away for the mod, I had described the DD9 as being thin in sound, lacking in detail and the bottom end being confused to my ears. The whole sound was a little bit anaemic.  

Okay now I dug out some good recordings to test the upgraded DD9, the recording ranged from female, male vocals, electronic, acoustic etc.

One of the first things I noticed was a much cleaner sounding unit, before it went away the REV side sounded better than the Forward side. Now this particular anomaly has gone, the Forward and REV side sounded equally as good as each other.  

I find trying all the tracks I selected the player was giving a better rendition of the tracks, much better than it did before the upgrade. The sound was more beefed up not so anaemic. It had gained in body and the notes had better definition, all my old complaints had gone.

Now what was it like compared to the DC2? Well to my ears it had better definition and more gravitas and certainly reached higher than the DC2. The midrange was worth paying attention to as the female vocals sounded very believable, more so than on the DC2. So to me it was doing a better job than the DC2.

Now was it better than the D6C, the answer to that question is no. Even though the DD9 did an amazing job and can reach higher in the frequency range. At first listen you may get the wow factor, as the DD9 appear to be doing things the D6C could not do. But when connected to a revealing setup you begin to see the DD9 is a pretender to the throne and it does not have what it takes to un-seat the king D6C.

The overall sound from the D6C is fatter better and more coherent. Let’s take the bottom end. The DD9 punch’s and jabs the D6C thumps with authority and if you think you can fix this by switching on the bass boost on the DD9, I would say don’t as this just destroys everything the DD9 can do. The difference with the 2 units is the DD9 gives you bass you can hear but the D6C not only let you hear it but let’s you feel it too. The instrument separation on the D6C is far superior too. Comparing the 2 units is like comparing Pavarotti to the Bee Gees, while they are singing the same song. You do not need to see Pavarotti to know that the song is coming from a big man.

By the way I am not saying the DD9 is a bad unit, but I am saying it not as good as D6C. Most people will not notice the gap between the D6C and the DD9 if they are not using a highly revealing setup and good recordings.

I must also add that I have 2 D6C’s and the DD9 kills one of them, but I think that D6C needs to goto dottor Walkman for a tune-up. That D6C is only just better then my DC2.

For this test I used TDK MA-XG tapes, Bang & Olufsen A8, Beyerdynamic T70, Etymotic ER-4S headphones and Ray Samuels P-51 Mustang headphone amp.

The headphone amp was necessary, as without it the DD9 did not stand a chance the amp in the DD9 is not capable of driving much.

Anyway what I am trying to say is if you have a walkman that is not performing at it’s best, I would highly recommend that you send it to dottor walkman and let him work his magic on it.

The money I spent to get the DD9 working better was worth it and I will be sending some more of my units to him for a tune-up. Dottor walkman did a far better job then Sony engineers did on my units, the difference here is dottor walkman has a passion for these units. 

 link to his website and more photos on the work on my DD9

http://doctorwalkman.blogspot....uiti-sul-dd9_15.html

A link to the work on YouTube as a slide show accompanied by music from Kate Bush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwwee4cUIEc

Neat,systematic and logical methodology ! Great run through -step by step pics too!

toocool,

did you also fix a dc2?

love to know the differences between those 2.

No not yet 19lexicon78. We have talked about what I would like done to the DC2 which I think may improve the sound quality.

Just added this link to the end of this review, the link is to YouTube showing the work as a slide show accompanied by the music of Kate Bush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwwee4cUIEc

Just had a look at the YT vid...quite something. Clever bloke that Doctor WM.