My daily driver Walkman?

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What hassle-free cassette Walkman do I use the most often?

UPDATE - I have been informed that I need to remove the battery door in order to get into my EX672…so now I know what to do if I ever fancy replacing the belt in that one too.

NOTE: The players shown in the video took me *years* to assemble (one of them took me three attempts - for a total of around £280) - the odds of just popping on ebay today and immediately picking one of these up for next to nothing is almost nil…so don’t be shocked when that’s the case.

00:00 Start
03:05 Current faves
08:07 My new player
13:10 A broken one
17:32 Back to the working one
22:43 Audio demo 1
23:18 W&F tests
27:36 The inevitable belt swap
28:41 W&F test revisited
29:28 Audio demo 2
29:56 I needed to remove the battery cover
30:26 Lessons learned
37:51 Patreon credits

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Regularly asked question
Q) Why are there comments from days ago when this video has just gone live today?
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As time goes on, my appreciation of the engineers who were able to shrink cassette mechanisms to this size vastly grows. Everything now seems so simple with digital media - you don't really comprehend how it works, it just does. Seeing the tiny belt, how the unit is so thin a AA battery won't fit, yet you get a 35-hour lifespan is just wonderful.

Jingleboy
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Well there is one advantage to having the AA battery caddy on the bottom of the unit. At least if you accidentally leave a battery in it you only wreck the caddy and not the whole unit.

David-lrvi
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this is the most comforting channel on YouTube. I'm surprised he's not sponsored, but that makes me like this channel even more. Techmoan is an honest, funny, smart cool guy.

ryanaccount
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I'm glad to see Sony have always named thier products by letting a cat walk across a keyboard.

The_Original_Cujo
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I've serviced a lot of Sony cassette devices. I think that the wow and flutter are caused by the pinch rollers. From 1992 and onwards the part of the pinch rollers where the rubber strip have been vulcanised at the two ends becomes slightly harder than the rest. The older it gets the worse it becomes. I believe 20 odd years of being sat in a box is long enough time to start showing some signs of rubber degradation. Perhaps some rubber renew applied in a very thin layer and running it for a while will help softening the rollers and will improve it a bit

dimitarlazarov
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On the WM-EX672 to remove the back, you will need the remove the plastic gum stick battery cover/clip and then lift the cover from the case battery side cover side first in a dorr opening action, because the case fits under the headphone/remote connector. New pinch rollers for these will also improve your W&F and they are an easy change.

Retro-Technical
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Oh my gosh! That black seal is a Dixon's /Currys security seal! I put so many thousand of those on things in the late 90's early 00s :)

For reference, if you ever see one, "return to 7800" was the internal returns sticker for customer returns. Mostly it was all fine though :)

bethaltair
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The broken walkman has a switch on the other side of the motherboard, that is connected to the tape mechanism to detect the position of the cogs. I had the same problem with the autorevers switching back and forth and cleaning that switch with IPA fixed it.

Miichal-fsjr
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Thank you Matt, you just inspired me to replace the belt in my EX672 which was struggling to rewind or even play in one direction. There's a small metal tab on the battery door contact that latches onto the plastic door cover.

Annoyingly enough, it's more difficult to replace the belt inside as the contact for the AA holder is in the middle of the belt path... The service manual says it needs to be desoldered but lifting it slightly and squeezing the belt underneath works fine.

Still sounds like I got a ton of wow and flutter though...

kamnxt
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It's Saturday morning here in Sunny Yorkshire, its my well deserved stay in bed till after lunch day, what better to do than watch Techmoan videos, fantastic, the subject matter doesn't bother me, they are just so easy viewing, oh and very informative. Thanks fella.

robstammers
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Really enjoyed this vid thanks Mat. You're a bad influence though, I seem to have started collecting old tech myself now but without the skills or enthusiasm to get any of it working properly!

StupStups
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I have the S2 Walkman (WM-FS566) and I love it. Got it from a thrift store in like new condition with the manual, belt clip, DC adapter, and arm band for $6.99.

Also runs on a single AA internally, and it's weather resistant with auto-reverse and an integrated radio.

DJSekuHusky
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Vinegar works wonders on battery residue. I used it on the battery contacts in my Sanyo M4440 cassette player. It fizzled for a few seconds, and they came out spotless.

Hadcrash
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To adjust the speed, there is a variable resistor on the circuit board.

imnotangry
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I am impressed with the 35 hour runtime, especially for a mechanical device.

Fifury
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i still believe that sound quality testings are worth it, not much to see the quality of the product itself but because i love watching old movements at work and see how they perform, and why they perform like that, with all the goods and the bads of it. and it's also interesting to see troubleshooting to try and improve it, even if it's just a belt swap

lordmuaddib
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Brings back happy memories. When I was at college at the start of the eighties and had one of the first Walkman models which at the time being the first truly portable audio brought me so much happiness especially on my daily train ride into college in Devon and my bus rides to visit my brothers in Hampshire and then later I did a series of interview documentary shows capturing old stories and the dying Devon dialect and used one of the Walkman Pro models which recorded beautifully and being small did not intimidate the interviewees. Marvellous machines but you are right, far too bulky to carry around every day!

ianmedium
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I love these videos. I think after the decades of fast-moving pictures, fast cuts, annoying jumps, it's nice to have you talking and explaining a casette mechanism, the belts et cetera with a fixed camera angle for 1-2 minutes straight. It makes a good immersion and I can focus better on the matter instead of just "Here is the device *flip back and forth* There you go *Cut to next scene*"
I sometimes pondered why these 40 minutes fly by so fast, but ironically, it's because of the slower pace of the videos. As a person who enjoys going into detail more instead of just scraping the superficial, I appreciate that! Clicking on a Techmoan video is like "Video to me and I get a drink, snack or ice cream because I know I won't move from the screen for a while. Also, I enjoy British people more and more^^

Zedek
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Mat, i have had a few whiskeys after work and just clicked on your video, can a just take this oppertunity to say i love your channel buddy, it inspired me to fill my house with tech from yester year and i love it. My family and freinds think.i am stuck in the past but what they dont realise is the joy of finding that thing you always wanted when ypu were 15 but couldnt afford (i am 42 now) so here i am, watching auf weidersein pet on vhs while listening to my duran duran album on cassette in my sony walkman with back to the future on laser disc to watch tonight. Life is so much easier when you just enjoy forgotten media rather than chasing the latest and new tech. Long live techmoan, back to the whiskey 🤣🤣🤣🤣 love u mat x

godzilla
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I still occasionally use my WM-FX403 that my sister bought me in the late 80s. Similar features to the FX models you feature but all analogue switching on the tape mechanism and bulkier with 2 AA batteries. The auto reverse has not triggered at the end of a tape for many years. I put this down to motor strength fading but you've inspired me to try a new belt. This thing did thousands of miles with me in the 80s and 90s, cassette playing mostly with some radio listening, and I've never changed the belt.

Endominius