Nowadays cassette Walkmans are all the rage, but back in the mid-2000s it was all about Discmans. There was a very popular thread on head-fi discussing the best sounding models, and having just arrived in Japan (before any of the Yahoo Auction overseas forwarding services existed!) I was in the perfect place to pick a few up. The D-350 is not actually on that list of best sounding Walkmans, but I came across this example on Yahoo and couldn't pass it up. I thought you guys might get a kick out of an un-boxing of a 25 year old gadget! This is the Japanese version, so you can see the descriptions on the back of the box are all in Japanese. Nice Styrofoam inner box The protective case is on the right, with the AC adapter and external battery case on the left The headphones are packed under the AC adaptor Finally we get to the actual Discman, under another protective foam layer Here's everything! This was before they made the removable headphone remotes, so this is a package deal The protective case lets you see the screen but that's about it Here she is! Once again, this is the Japanese model so we have DBB instead of MegaBass This model used a dry cell to maintain the program settings when the main battery died Way more functions than you'd ever need on a Discman Timer playback supported! (why not!) Here's the original NiCad batter pack. No longer works unfortunately. This unit still works perfectly with the AC adapter or external batter pack. The build quality is amazing, all metal (including the battery cover!). The design is pretty polarizing, but I think it's awesome. Certainly a very unique design among Discmans! As for sound quality it's maybe not up to the all time greats, but it's still quite good. This guy supports the plug in IR remote receiver as well so you could use it to replace a home unit. Hope you enjoyed the pics!
That looks to be a top of the range discman. Lets see what Argos was selling twenty five years ago I think you are right about "replacing a home unit" although in 1992 some people might have still been looking to buy their first CD player. How good were any of the early players regarding skipping? About 20 years ago work organised a Line Dancing class (which was all the rage back then). The Teacher was using a Goodmans personal CD player that skipped so badly with the vibrations from the floor and his speakers that someone had to hold it in the air whenever it was playing. p.s I just noticed the note in bold about CD Players not being suitable for "Active Situations". I guess that should have included Line Dancing lessons
@Jorge, did you repair that unit? I heard that once the lasers wear out these are basically impossible to service @Longman this was definitely a higher end model. Growing up in Canada our catalogs looked just like the one you posted! Lots of fat, plastic Discmans at more affordable prices. I know this model was available in the US and Europe, but I get the impression the market in Japan was much higher end in general at that time. None of the models at this time had shock protection. This is part of the reason people like their sound quality more than later models. The shock protection used expensive memory buffers so the music was compressed to fit more time in the buffer, which really hurt the sound quality.
There was no need to do anything, I opened it to check if its laser/"eye-pattern"still solid and also if tracking/focus drifted out of specs. Good news: when laser gets weak, just send it to Kaosun and he will install new laser diode and align it. You can see how it is done at kaosuncd.com. Its a headache to register at kaosun forum, for a quick Q ask thru eBay: kaosuncd store Once I get more time I will try his technique, since I spent all my life working with microscopes and lasers, it will be fun! But for now it is cheaper to send Discmans to Kaosun. keep in mind that D-350 spindle motor (Mabuchi RF-410) will go out first and unlike Mabuchi RF-300 used in most other Discmans, RF-410 is an "unobtanium"... Kaosun claims to have a stash of RF-410, so maybe I will send my D-350 to him just to be on the safe side for another 30 years
