Hello there,

Last year, I picked up a second-hand Sony WM-EX5. It worked flawlessly for a few months but has now developed a problem.

Upon pressing play, I get a couple of mechanical sounds, followed by a brief whirring/clicking sound (all repeated twice, as if it's having two tries at playing the tape), and then I get the four beeps in the headphones. Pressing FF to try and encourage it to play just results in a whirring/clicking (for about 1.5 seconds).

It will, however, occasionally play, but it takes a lot of coaxing and is entirely unpredictable.

Having Googled the problem, it appears to be similar to this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R9986oW0jw

Would any of you be able to help diagnose the problem, please? Is it a stretched belt, as the guy in the video suggests in his comment?

Many thanks,

Tristero.

Thanks, Minty, that's great.

I've tried looking for the belt diameter in the manual and online, but I can't find it.

Before I open it up and take a measurement, does anyone know it here?

That sounds more like the belt, have them in stock and do fix them. It's $30 installed assuming no other issues with walkman.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...ageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Thanks for the reply, but I'm in the UK, and I think I can probably manage to do it myself, anyway (assuming I can get the part).