Buying a cassette Walkman, like... now!

connect_icut

connect_icut

Well-known member
I want to buy a (preferably) new cassette Walkman and I'm looking for advice.

My wife has this cool, compact stereo set-up on her office desk where she plugs her computer, an iPod, a Numark portable record player, and an old Walkman into a nice pair of monitor speakers. The advantage of the Walkman she has is that it works with a power supply, so she isn't constantly running batteries down (she likes lo-fi indie/garage rock, so she listens to a lot of tapes). The disadvantage is that the sound quality is shitty.

Anyone got any ideas where I can buy a Walkman with decent sound quality and a power supply input? It's definitely possible to buy new portable tape players via Amazon and eBay but I don't know where to start in terms of what model to get. Anyone got any clues?

I'm in Canada, if that makes a difference.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I looked into it a couple of years ago and they were still selling them in Argos, then. I don't know if you have Argos in Canada.
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
I bought a Walkman WM-EX510 in 1996 or something and it was just amazing: top of the line and sounded great. Plus you could fast forward to the next gap which was great for official album tapes. One went on eBay the other week for 4 quid or something: insane. I'm a get another one.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
connect_icut said:
Cheers, there were a couple I missed there. Will be watching carefully. £400 seems to be the going buy-it-now rate for a really minty, boxed one but I should be able to get a decent one for a fraction of that, fingers crossed.
Click to expand...

They last forever and are (virtually) indestructible so I wouldn't worry too much about getting a mint one.
 
connect_icut

connect_icut

Well-known member
Got up at 6am this morning to bid on three more of these and didn't get them. Basically, impossible to get for less than $300.
 
O

oblioblioblio

Wild Horses
worth googling.. there are a few tape forums with contributions from really knowledgeable people (e.g. tapeheads.net ). The thing that you really want to know is the parts availability for the future and whether the design is built with that in mind.

Pinch rollers, belts and tape heads will wear out (and maybe on a second hand unit this might need to be done straight away, and if so the unit might be advertised as not working and you can grab it for silly cheap and do a simple repair). The higher end reel to reel companies like Studer and Otari were the kings of this, and their machines were designed to be ran 24/7 for 100 years near enough, so the designs were totally modular and the companies made more spare parts than they made functioning units.

If you can find something like that in a walkman you're set. Chances are if the WM is designed with those criteria in mind the sonics will be awesome.
 
connect_icut

connect_icut

Well-known member
Just got the WM-D3 I bought. The sound quality is phenomenal but the play and stop buttons are a bit finicky. I also bought a D6 (sadly not a D6C). If that shows up before Christmas, I'll give them both to her and she can use whichever one she likes best.
 
O

oblioblioblio

Wild Horses
may be possible to take apart simply and remove dust with sharp gusts of air from your mouth, or canned air if you have that.

if there are metal connectors contact cleaning fluid and cotton buds will help.
 
yyaldrin

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
Woebot said:
the one you want is this:

http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-d6c

it has a DC IN 6V

best sounding walkman evah
Click to expand...

So I'm able to buy this from a dude for quite cheap but I asked him to test it for me and now it turns out that it's mechanics seem to be in order and working except when listening on headphones the volume is quite low (too low).

He's dropping the price even more so I'm thinking of taking the risk but I'd like to ask you guys anyway: is this a common problem and can I fix this? Cleaning it? Replacing it? Adjusting something? Is it easy to open? Etc.
 
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