[Gojira]

For Discmen, I now have a D-515 and a D-321 with 3 second uncompressed ESP as well as a D-311 and D-211 without ESP. I have a D-777 with 10 second ESP and a D-E905 with ESP2. Of these discmen, the only truly portable ones, at least for walking around, are the D-777 and D-E905

I also have the WMD-DT1, TCD-D8, and TCD-D100 digital tape walkmen. You can run with these, jump up and down, whirl them around without having to go through a memory buffer. They are very portable and sound pretty good---much better than any newer PCDP and better than most of the lower end old ones as well.

I do not currently own any analog tape walkmen at all. I believe the last one that I owned was the yellow, water resistant, Solar Walkman back in the 80s. Neither do I own a decent analog tape deck for recording (although I do have a digital tape deck).

I have been thinking about the problem with digital formats for portable players and what I am wondering about is this. Will a type IV metal tape on a WM-DD9 recorded from an excellent home CDP like a CD25, 963SA, or Jolida JD100A on a good Nakamichi or Denon home analog deck sound better than any other portable including the D-515 or D-311? I am wondering if the analog tape would be able to capture some of the sound quality from the excellent home components.

The problem with digital is that it requires the portable player to go through at least one extra step before getting the audio to your ears: the very important digital to analog conversion. Would it not be better to do this conversion on a good home unit like, say, a MMF-CD25?

The WM-DD9 has Dolby B and C which should reduce the potentially annoying tape hiss problem to manageable levels, although it may also take some of the life of the music along with it. The rest really depends on what this player can deliver sonically, which I just don't know. I have heard that it compares quite well to the D-777, but I have never heard a comparison between the DD9 and the top '91 - '93 players like the D-311, D-515, D-303, D-211, or (IMO) D-321. Such a comparison interests me greatly. Perhaps at some point I will be able to pick up a DD9 along with a good Nakamichi or Denon tape deck and some metal tapes and do some real testing to see what the best sounding portable really is. Does anyone think a DD9 could win this contest?

 

[Duncan]

No... I don't think that (analog) cassette could win...

...I had my share of tape walkmen through the years, and none of them captviated me properly... potentially tonally yes, I think it could, but from a pure fidelity point of view, with drop-outs and such... no, I don't think so at all

 

[Pappucho]

Hello Gojira, I have an incoming DD9 and D-515 (the one in Duncan's review) which I plan on comparing. I was planning on strictly basing the DD9's sound quality in a pure analog chain (LP-Tape-DD9). My problem is that I have yet to get a hold of a decent turntable (skinny wallet syndrome.) I just got in my Nakamichi RX-202 which should be able of making decent recordings. I can post impressions of such a comparison, but it could be awhile before I get that turntable. I wasn't planning on making a cd to tape copy because of the expected degradation in sound quality but if I don't get a turntable soon I may do just that.

By the way, I have an incoming Solar Walkman that I finally was able to get on ebay...

 

[krayzie]

Well I haven't got money for a turntable yet so I can't really explore the ultimate capability of analog tape recording... But so far (call me crazy but) I would still prefer dubbing the CD onto metal tape (Sony SMM and TDK MA-XG)... my setup is just an old top-of-the-line Sharp mini Hi-Fi (CD-X17 that has 16bit dual DAC and 8X multisampling) outputting the CD onto an even older mid-end cassette deck (H/K CD291 that can do 20-21,000Hz freq. response with 2 heads, 1.3 micron gap sendust head) and the sound is quite immense playing it back on the Sony WM-DD9 (0.6 micron gap laseramorphous head, 20-20,000Hz freq. response, 2 motor disc drive) using Aiwa HP-V9 earphones that claims to do 15-40,000Hz (my other Walkmans are warmer but don't have such great detail)... what I mean by that is how the vocals would be right in your face at the front, while you can still hear the tinniest bit of detail at the back... I still have yet to experience this with a Discman... maybe a D-515 or D-555 would change my mind but I doubt it...

You wouldn't need any Dolby noise reduction as tape hiss is hardly noticable with metal tapes and demagnetized heads on your equipment... You can still hear it but only slightly at the blanks in-between songs... I still think Dolby kills highs (B and C), I have yet to try S...

I just won a H/K HK400XM 3 head deck this morning on eBay that can do 15-24,000Hz freq. response with metal tapes... I've heard over and over on the Internet (Google old usenet threads) that a tape made from a Nakamichi can only sound good on a Nakamichi due to some non-standard tuning that this brand uses on their machines... This same tape would sound piss poor on just about any other brand of equipment... That's why I went with Harman Kardon as their top of the line stuff from the early 80's is comparable with the Naks (HK400XM - 1980, CD401 - 1982, CD491 - 1984 - still the best tape deck by them ever I heard) without the non-standard tuning... A Tascam 122mk3 should do wonders too, professional level right? The Nak 1000ZXL can go all the way upto 27,000Hz!!!! with like WRMS below 0.02% or something...

For me, I think the most important thing with a tape deck is that it must be single, with defeatable functions like Dolby HX / B / C (mind you that Dolby HX Pro developed by Dolby and B&O is not defeatable), 3 heads, no auto-reverse, bias and other calibration functions... be sure to turn off MPX filter when recording cuz it kills frequency at and above 19,000Hz for radio recording (I think all new radio stations have built-in MPX filters tho)... would be great to have 2 capstans, 2 - 3 motors, and belt-less disc drive...

The bias setting will take some time and paitence to fine tune on most decks, but it does make a noticable difference in sound once you've found the sweet spot... So far I've found only the Sony SMM to be able to record at really really high rec. levels, peaking well into the red zone of 5 - 6db without any signs of saturation... the MA-XG would give you bass distortions at 6db, where 5db is a hit and miss thing... Nakamichi used to show off its stuff with even the Dragon not equiping the Dolby HX Pro and still be able to record well into the red zone, amazing!

Anyhow I've wrote too much crap, but be sure to give us an review of any new cassette equipment you guys will receive soon... I'll do the same hehe

 

[Gojira]

@Pappucho:

Wow, that's excellent news. I'm actually quite a bit less interested in the turntable results than test recordings from a CDP. The problem with vinyl for me is that, like SACD, hardly anything is available on it. So even if vinyl really is better than CD, it doesn't help much with newer recordings. So I hope you will do some testing from CDP. What do yo have for a home CDP?

I can't believe you found one of those solar walkmen. If you ever want to sell it you know who to pm

. It really is cool. I loved the thing. I probably only threw it away because it broke and I figured I would just buy a new one. I remember being shocked to find that it was discontinued so quickly. I think I was hoping to buy an even better version of it the following year. It also happens to be one of the most water resistant cassette players that Sony ever made (but less so than the one with the pivot clamp that I used to windsurf with). Actually I think I am just remembering now that its demise had something to do with water. I probably submersed the thing one too many times. I don't remember the sound quality though. There wasn't much for me to compare it against in those days. I did have a Sony D-10 by that time (around '87 I think). I must have bought the 107 for running. This player, along with other cool products like AIBO, represent the best of Sony to me. Who else would make products like that?

 

[krayzie]

Just one question that I always wanted to ask... can you actually go swimming with that? like submerge the whole Walkman under water for a long time! Like can the earphones be submerged too?

 

[Canman]

Krayzie:
The human ear can generally only hear to 20,000. In the CD (redbook) compression scheme, only the 20 to 20 khz range is represented. So transferring a CD to a tape will give you 20-20kHz bandwidth at the most.

And Gojira, I agree with you, I like the audio chain to be as simple as possible. But Transferring CD to tape just puts more steps in the signal path and the truth is, there is no analog tape deck out there that will make a near perfect analog copy of the music on your disc. Further, Many sessions (starting in the 1980's) are recorded straight to digital, so buying that session in an analog format such as tape or LP has already been through digital conversion (granted possibly at with less compression). So that takes away the benefits of analog from many modern recordings.

To boot, magnetic tape doesn't age well and just like an LP, after a few plays it gets stretched out and starts to sound like crap.

 

[Gojira]

Quote:

Just one question that I always wanted to ask... can you actually go swimming with that?

No. Not really. Unfortunately, even though I bought it with the intention, I never had the chance to windsurf with the F107. It only worked for less than a year and I think they were discontinued the very next year. It may have been good enough for the plunge, air dry in the sun and wind, plunge, of windsurfing, but I'll never know unless I can get another one someday.

A couple of walkmen that I had I did use while windsurfing and they saw quite a bit of underwater time. One was a Sony SRF-6, which was just a radio, but spent a great deal of time in salt water without breaking (although it eventually died from water damage). It was just a great radio and I would buy one if I could find one again.

I can't remember what the model number of sports cassette walkman I had, but I think I was already windsurfing with it by the summer of '83. So maybe it was the WM-F5 I saw on that Japanese walkman site. IIRC, it had an active clamping mechanism to seal the o-ring. It was one of those offset lever kind of things that you see today in certain containers and bottles. I don't think any of the later cassette sports walkmen could create a proper seal because there was just a kind of clasp to close the thing so it would never generate quite enough pressure to seal out water when fully submersed.

Note that the included earbuds would not play properly when wet. They would continue to play sort of but it would be all treble until they dried out again (which took at least 5 to 10 minutes I think).

I do know that at one time there was a company who specifically sold a walkman for swimming. It was completely sealed and used rubber earplugs (kind of like the ety white ones) for headphones. I think it was just a radio though and it was pretty big and ugly. I doubt it sounded very good.

I also tried encasing an SRF-M70 sports walkman entirely in clear silicone sealant. That would have been completely waterproof except that it sealed up the battery compartment too

.

 

[Gojira]

Quote:

I still have yet to experience this with a Discman... maybe a D-515 or D-555 would change my mind but I doubt it...

Keep in mind that the D-777 is not even close to the sound quality of the '91 to '93 units. At least not IMO. However, I think you've just convinced me to get the next DD9 that pops up. It sounds like you are saying that the DD9 does indeed sound better than the D-777 (actually I think my TCD-D100 and TCD-D8 do too). I suspected that this might be the case. It's not really fair to compare the DD9 against the '91 - '93 models because they are not truly portable. 3 second ESP is just not enough, at least for me. It's important to make the distinction I think between transportable, slightly portable, and truly portable. Tape is, I think, the most portable format next to solid state memory.

 

[krayzie]

Well just don't try to use your tape player in the morning rush hour where you have to run for the bus and walk really fast for the next subway train... no anti-rolling mechanism is perfect, and they all give you that annoying jitterish sound with big rapid movement... I think keeping it in the bag is fine but once in your pants pocket, beware! hehe

Yeah I know that generally we can only hear upto 20,000Hz but I still think the extra range that some equipment provides you with do change the dynamics of the audible spectrum somewhat... I mean, a typical DAT deck can do 2-22,000Hz but why the extra range if we can't hear it anywayz... I think it's pretty much like the same argument with MD compression, in theory it kills off all the frequencies that we can't hear, but you do hear a difference between it and CDs...

So is DAT better sounding than those '91-'93 Discmans?

I personally hate the sound of CDs, too clear to the point of coldness in the overall sound... yeah maybe the ultimate truth is that the tape recording of CD makes it crappy but not to my ears for some reason, it's a lot warmer and more welcoming...

BTW, if you use top notch quality tapes, repeat recording and playback would not make it sound crappy... Provided that your deck is kept cleaned and demagnetized...

 

[mEtal]

When are the discussions about VCR cassettes being more enjoyable than DVD's going to start popping up?

 

[Gojira]

When are the discussions about VCR cassettes being more enjoyable than DVD's going to start popping up?

Didn't you mean to say laserdiscs? I still like my laserdiscs more than my DVDs. They are a lot more impressive and they last longer. Also laserdiscs don't have blocky compression artifacts

. I am willing to admit however that DVDs do tend to have a slightly clearer picture in a digital sort of way.

There was another format that a friend of mine had called a "videodisc", a format made only by RCA I think. They were pretty weird, particularly how they were fed into the player. It was large like a laserdisc but I don't think it used a laser reader. Maybe it was magnetic. I think he may still have that player.

 

[Gojira]

Quote:

So is DAT better sounding than those '91-'93 Discmans?

The jury is still out on this one. I think I am going to wait until I build myself an amp to do this comparison because I have a feeling the line out on the TCD-D100 may be truly excellent. The '92 players will be tough to beat though. At the moment (pending more detailed tests) I am tentatively handing the prize to the D-515 and D-311. With second place going to the D-211 and D-321, and a close third place going to the TCD-D100 and TCD-D8. I need to make a good recording from my NAD 512 home CDP and compare the line out jacks though. I am thinking that the WMD-DT1 (which lacks a line out jack) may tie with the D-777. I think that would be a close race, especially with the ESP turned off.

 

[krayzie]

Hey I thought Laserdisc never caught on in North America... I mean I've never seen them in Blockbusters ever!

So which is better, SVHS or Laserdisc? hehe or maybe Beta?

I wonder if Sony would make that new optical discs for the Playstation Portable into some hi-density audio format to replace MDs... or maybe even CDs?

I love tapes argh! >.<

 

[Pappucho]

I probably have around 500+ movies in my LD collection. Many purchased at ridiculously low prices during inventory closeouts in many Video store chains. For those still collecting, you can pick up LD Lots on Ebay for around a buck a movie. Yes, DVD is better, but LD does a fine job and cost little too build a decent movie collection. Big movie buff here...