Hello s2g members. I want to share with you more walkmans of my collection, this time is about the famous SONY DD line.

These walkmans are well known as some of the best sounding players, not for the EQ mainly, but for the low wow&flutter.

The Walkman II (or WM-2)

This milestone walkman was the second walkman after the legendary TPS-L2 (more info here at my webpage) and set the base design for all the DD line, even that it hasn't the DD system:

The special placing of the main buttons has become a sign of identity of all the line. The Wm-II was a huge improvement over the TPS-L2, specially in terms of size, as it was the world's smallest walkman at the time. My unit has been serviced but it has a severe problem on the motor, but I managed to achieve the necessary parts to fix it.

WM-DD

Later came the real first DD walkman, with the DD system, with stands for "Disc Drive", and allows a low sound distortion, wow&flutter. This caused that every DD walkman is known for having a very good sound quality, even without EQ.

I find this walkman to be one of the most clean design that lasts over time. A true classic, like good Leica M cameras.

I have two models: silver and red, and both still work and sound pretty good!

The WM-DDII: arrival of Dolby

Later came the sucessor DDII, with Dolby B system, which was the main lacking of the previous model. Externally there were very few changes (like the plastic volume control), but internally there were some, as you can read in this article at Walkman Central.

SONY released the same DDII in various flavours, but I have only the red one:

It's curious that I found this funny sticker when I bought my unit on UK:

Considering that the unit has about 27 years, I didn't take care of removing it ;-)

The WM-DD30: DD with Megabass

The next significant improvement came with DD30, that has MegaBass. In fact, there were some models between DDII and this DD30: the DD100, aka Boodo Khan with its DOL system, the father of MegaBass, and DD3, with the same external design that is found on DD30 but without any bass amplification system. So I focus on DD30 (Boodo Khan is a very special model that I think it has to be considered apart, and you can find many info on this excellent post from John Edward).

So I consider this model the real improvement over the DDII. This is one of my favorite walkmans of all, specially for its sound, because I find the megabass excellent on the mid position: the newer models have a weak 'mid' position and excesive 'max' position.

There were also red and black models, each one of them very beautiful:

WM-DD33: modern design, same features

After the DD30 came the DD33, which has almost the same features but a new design that conserves the main lines but with curved design:

SONY released also two other models in silver and blue color, but not in black one, and I like every one of them so much, specially the blue one:

So I joined three members of the DD line together and this is how they look:

Beauuutiful!!

WM-DD9: The 'holy grail' of all walkmans:

On 1989 SONY released the DD9, a very special DD walkman: the only one with two motors and auto-reverse. It also has a special amorphous head and many other improvements, like the absence of the famous 'click' that afects almost the entire DD line:

It's known for having the best sound quality of all walkmans, not in terms of EQ but for distortion, wow&flutter, etc...

It's very heavy and it's powered with only one AA battery, and you can feel the high quality on every corner. This thing feels like a good hi-fi.

So this is my view of the DD line. I know I omitted some important models, like D3, DC2, D6C and DD100, but I intentionally did it as I prefer to focus on them on another post.

Hope you enjoy my post!

I use these Two all the time

Rarely are they Together like in this picture

http://i56.tinypic.com/zj8aom.jpg

Beautiful !!!

Thanks for showing !!! 

Thanks James, Corry & Mark,

Actually I have my DD9 and D6C being upgraded by Dottore Walkman to improve their sound quality. As soon as I receive them back, I'll update this with new photos...

BTW: I received a very rare unit: a golden DD Walkman. Yes, golden version of the very first DD walkman. It's very nice!

I've always meant to get hold of a DD9
they've gone up in price - and rightly so as they represent the nadir of cassette based walkmans

one turns up for the right price in the wild - i'm getting it!

The only thing bad about the WM-DD9 is that it can't go as loud as the other DD series, I know is because it only uses 1 AA battery. Still it is louder than modern walkmans from the 2000 that uses 1 AA battery.

This is where I got:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~an4t-tkns/taro/walkman/walkman.htm&ei=DOloT9rbF9Do8QPXnJyPCQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~an4t-tkns/taro/walkman/walkman.htm%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D603%26prmd%3Dimvns

It is in Japanese but I give you all translated by google translate. Compare a WM-DD9 (1989-1991) to most modern ones like (1999-2003). Some even in the 1980's and 1990's also uses 1 AA battery, compare them as well.

I've just added a new article about SONY DD walkmans in my website, based on this post. (gallery > SONY)

Hope you like it.

A most informative comprehensive work on the DD line Hugo.  And as always your photography is simple and superb.  Your profession with a camera shows great accomplishment.  I too find the DD line excellent to listen too.  Interesting that the bass boost clarity, amount of boost and parameters of freq. differ so much on diff. models.  I def. agree some models got it right and others its poorly exicuted and useful only at lower vol.   We all really do appreciate your time and effort to be our WIKIWALKMAN in depth topic resource of details on lines of Walkman. 

ps - appreciate the kind inclusion of my DD-100 post as reference.

I did not see an example photo of a DDIII which I have in red (sold today ) that would be good reference to include.  OF note  from the owner manual the headphone amp has excellent power at 20mW + 20mW (at 10% harmonic distortion which is unacceptable but with taking it only to 16mW output is probably less than 1%)  which allows good clean louder listening levels without pushing amp into clipping/higher distortion.   Sad its missing a good mega bass feature.  On comparison the DD-100 Boodo Khan from owner manual of one am selling shows 12mW + 12mW headphone output.  Interesting the DD-100 is rated at 63 ohms while the DDIII is at 32 ohms probably due to the full size DR-S100 headphones. The DD-100 also neglects to say at what distortion level 12mW is produced.

DDIII

DD-100  on left         DDIII   on right

Thanks John! Well, I really enjoy doing all this, and I hope you too.

Regarding the DDIII, I find less interesting this model, because the DD30 has the same design and a very nice megabass, so for me the DDIII falls behind the interesting DDII and the excellent DD30. That's why I don't have any DDIII.

Regards,

Holy thread revival batman!

Really?

I'd be very surprised.  Which parts?

It's worth noting that internally the WM-5 is identical to the WM-2.  The DD's were very different in that they used a Direct Drive mechanism without the belt of the earlier WM-2 & WM-5.  Don't be fooled by the aesthetic similarities.  Find me a WM-2 with a cracked wheel.

Well, yes, I omitted it. I have not included the DDIII because I find that it's just a small improvement over the DDII, but you're right.

I preferred to focus on big changes.

Thanks Budy for show and share your Walkmans is a very nice 

@Walkman Archive: More like WM-5 instead of WM-2 as former have Metal CrO2 whereas latter only have Metal.

Small improvement? It has 'Quartz Lock' resulting in an extremely accurate speed.

OK, but where are the inaccuracies?

Yes. Disc drive does the big job; quartz locked IC perfects it. In my opinion, quartz lock is not that important as the former.

I have the Boodo Khan that does not have quartz lock and it really sounds great with it, thanks to the DD. The quartz adds a small improvement.

@AO: (a two position tone switch was fitted, which allowed chrome tapes or music cassettes encoded with Dolby NR to be played back without excessive treble.)

Tone is different from Dolby and Tape.

Sony WM DD33 - Is this model 'rare' or is it a common model?

Common in Europe, as I think its a Europe only model. Some do pop up om ebay USA, that's where I got mine.

DD33 is very common, I have a lot of them that I have cannibalized for the center gear to use in the DC2.