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DD line: SONY's best sounding walkmans

Discussion in 'Best Threads' started by walkman archive, Dec 5, 2016.

  1. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    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)

    SONY Walkman WM-II Silver 02 1.jpg

    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.

    SONY Walkman WM-DD Silver 02.jpg

    SONY Walkman WM-DD Silver 03.jpg

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

    SONY Walkman WM-DD Silver 01.jpg

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

    SONY Walkman WM-DD Series 01.jpg

    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 Walkman WM-DD II 01.jpg

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

    SONY Walkman WM-DDII Red 03.jpg

    SONY Walkman WM-DDII Red 04.jpg

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

    SONY Walkman WM-DDII Red 02.jpg

    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).

    SONY Walkman WM-DD30 Silver Bad 02.jpg

    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:

    SONY WM-DD30 Series 04.jpg

    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 Walkman WM-DD33 Silver 01.jpg

    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:

    SONY WM-DD33 Series 01.jpg

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

    SONY Walkman WM-DD Series 03.jpg

    SONY WM-DD Series 01.jpg

    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:

    SONY Walkman WM-DD9 04.jpg

    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.

    SONY Walkman WM-DD9 2.jpg

    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!
     

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