Great thread this....has anyone ever seen any mentioning of the Sony WA-4000? Been digging through catalogues bt it doesn't seem to appear anywhere.... As far as i can tell it uses the same mechanics as the Wm-10/20 and all graphics are in Japanese so think this was only available on the JDM. But a WM-10 with radio and recording capability.....nice, can't wait till it arrives...
I think you'll find more information on Mono2go I believe only the WA-8000 and higher are stereo. It's a nice machine to look at, but mono dictation machines usually don't get much attention here.
lol is that a subforum? No was more like this is the catalogue diggers thread so maybe some one encountered this walkman in one of the catalogues. All other WA series are in the catalogues posted but not the WA4000. Wanna know from which year it is or any info is welcome. And maybe not see them as 'dictating' machines but more like mono field recorders, portable radio and cassette player.....to bad they don't get the attention they deserve....i love the looks
Back in 1976 Sony expected the users of these "dictating machines" to be wearing ties, and reading The Financial Times (the U.K.s daily newspaper aimed at City Finance Types). The inclusion of the pocket calculator in the photo amused me. In the early days of the sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine" one of the women often told people she hoped her son (who was in his twenties) would become "A young executive with a pocket calculator".
1986-5 Catalog Interesting player with classic Walkman Styling, there's not many mono's with an antenna and I wouldn't turn one down.
There are many desirable mono boomboxes. So the mono2go joke was pretty common. I have quite a few myself. The Sony WA range are small boomboxes based on Walkman technology. The 8000 and 8800 are particularly cool. The other interesting range is the ZX range. Also based on Walkman technology, but bigger and more powerful. In the past, they were discussed a lot in the boombox section. But these players seem to have disappeared. I hardly see them for sale anywhere anymore.
Yeah those are also nice walkmans...bit of a crossbread between walkman, boombox and recorder.... But ZX range are more boomboxes imho, you can't put them in your pocket like a walkman......but they do appear from time to time, last week a ZX7 was sold for nearly €200,- on JDirect..... @Mister X thanks for the catalogue page(and translation)! Contains lots of info! And i couldn't turn it down either for the €12,- i paid for it.....
You have to be careful with the ZX-7. It has a DD mech, and a lot of them run too fast. Not an easy fix. I hardly ever look in Japan anymore. Actually, not since the IP block. But I think it's gotten quite expensive there! I also didn't allow any JDM devices in my collection. That's another issue.
yeah i know, read about it but tbh i'm not in the market for a ZX7. Although if one crosses my path for a reasonable price i'll probably get it anyways depending on availability of funds And my collection has to consist of junk and i don't buy equipment that works, what's the fun in that. But i'm getting some sweet deals from Japan and why not allow JDM machines? It's where they came from in the first place and Sony had some funky colors for the JDM.
I had to set strict boundaries. My space isn't unlimited. Excluding JDM stuff was the easiest step. My days of actively collecting are also long gone. I'm already at the stage where I have to repair things for the third time or more, lol
The ZX-7 is a little oddball, no handle but it's a heavy one, and very expensive when new. I think of back-room designers running around Akihabara, around 1983, looking at the Marantz CH-53 and Sansui FX-700R and saying WE (Sony) want a small, "thick," boombox that goes for silly money. These three all seem to have full-throw speakers or, at least, huge magnets on their mini-drivers. There's probably others I don't know of but these three are 2-3x thicker than most mini's.
Perhaps it was intended as a device to be positioned between the regular CFS mini boxes and the FH series? The thickness is indeed noticeable.
Over on yahoo.jp but SOLD, I thought it would be good to save for future historians. The 1987 8th anniversary Walkman Catalog. The manual gumstick charger and solar charger, it was a good time for gadgets. I've posted the charger on here somewhere, I thought it was a promotion but might be wrong.
I posted this in the Formats of Sony Walkman Thread, not sure where I found the information. https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/formats-of-sony-walkman.5032/page-2 Only 2,000, good luck finding one today but I bet you could buy one of those cheap radios, take out the internals and 3D print the rest. That photo of the guy and girl with him squeezing the charger brings up a lot of thoughts!
Hmmmm only 2000...think most them are already shot....will be blind luck finding one eidt: that's a nice thread, was looking where to drop my walkman branded goodies
@Michiel Well last week received this WA-4000 and waddayano it's a stereo player and a stereo recorder! So i'm in the right place.... Ofcourse it's nowhere mentioned that this is a stereo player/recorder and nobody knew untill now i guess..... Got it fully working and the recordings are half decent but it does record on left and right.....i was suprised myself when i listened back the recording on my Nak....recorded 15 minutes from the classical channel...orchestra sounded fine in the lower end but bells and flutes make a cat cry....but it receives rather well on both AM and FM even with those TV bands i can still receive multiple channels and the little speaker actually has a pleasent sound to it....nice little radio to have in the background....only thing left is to fix tape output volume, it's way to soft...think some caps on the input or outpt line need to be changed.....but very happy with my WA-4000. edit: just looked back in this thread and message #46 has the catalogue and there it says monaural listening capability.....i've requested service docs from Sony Japan, hope they respond.
That's wild! Is it marked stereo on it anywhere? I've got a WA-5000 and there's no stereo markings on it, I wonder why and if it was cost, how much more stereo added to the build costs. The "brick" series is so unconvential compared with the rest of Sony's Offerings.
nope nowhere any stereo marking, just says cassette-corder but TCM and TCS models also have that.....wonder if the mono signal is duplicated inside to achieve pseudo stereo...will have to take a good look at the head but not going to take it apart again, need to order caps first
