KVR Audio

tobeto · Post by **tobeto** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 11:45 am

Hey there. So I have found two pretty old walkmans and I was wondering if they have any value. Your experience and knowledge is much appreciated!

stratum · Post by **stratum** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:30 am

They might become valuable when your children's children discover grandpa's cassette collection.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:34 am

I heard the cassette walkman is back in fashion (and production).

The Elbow looks canny ...

Amazon & Argos have walkmans for as little as £14.99, so I doubt older models will have much resale value.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:55 am

thecontrolcentre wrote:I doubt older models will have much resale value.

Sorry, you're wrong:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/Personal-Casse ... Brand=Sony

sfxsound3 · Post by **sfxsound3** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:00 am

Auction them at Christie's and you'll find out exactly how much they're worth.

AsPeeXXXVIII · Post by **AsPeeXXXVIII** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:40 pm

If you put them up for auction on eBay, chances are some crazy rich SOB will pay well over $1,000 a piece for them.

gaf_thit · Post by **gaf_thit** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:46 pm

AsPeeXXXVIII wrote:If you put them up for auction on eBay, chances are some crazy rich SOB will pay well over $1,000 a piece for them.

«Walkman as seen in Hollywood blockbuster movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It could be yours for as little as $999,99.
No cassettes included»

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:56 pm

Walkman is tradmark, so only one of those qualifies ;

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:52 pm

BertKoor wrote:
thecontrolcentre wrote:I doubt older models will have much resale value.
Sorry, you're wrong:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/Personal-Casse ... Brand=Sony

Wow. Do they actually sell at those prices? Why would anyone pay $2000 for a cassette player ...

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 4:11 pm

thecontrolcentre wrote:
BertKoor wrote:
thecontrolcentre wrote:I doubt older models will have much resale value.
Sorry, you're wrong:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/Personal-Casse ... Brand=Sony
Wow. Do they actually sell at those prices? Why would anyone pay $2000 for a cassette player ...

I think those prices are typical ebay chancers trying their luck. If you filter by 'completed listings' you'll see most of them are unsold though there are a significant number sold in the $400-500 dollar range (mainly the "guardians of the galaxy" model or the iconic WM2 model).

Maybe we're in that weird area where you'll still see them being virtually given away in charity shops and at boot fairs but people are also starting to collect them seriously... I know what I'm doing Sunday.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Fri Dec 22, 2017 11:05 pm

gaf_thit wrote:
AsPeeXXXVIII wrote:If you put them up for auction on eBay, chances are some crazy rich SOB will pay well over $1,000 a piece for them.
«Walkman as seen in Hollywood blockbuster movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It could be yours for as little as $999,99.
No cassettes included»

throw in a cool mixtape for me tree to boogie to and im in!

gaf_thit · Post by **gaf_thit** » Sat Dec 23, 2017 12:08 pm

vurt wrote:
gaf_thit wrote:
AsPeeXXXVIII wrote:If you put them up for auction on eBay, chances are some crazy rich SOB will pay well over $1,000 a piece for them.
«Walkman as seen in Hollywood blockbuster movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It could be yours for as little as $999,99.
No cassettes included»
throw in a cool mixtape for me tree to boogie to and im in!

One of a kind offer, magnet-remixed cassette of He-man Master of the Universe, but without the illustrated booklet that came with it. Lots of different sounds. Amazing.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Dec 23, 2017 12:27 pm

Do you have any Walk-womans?

codec_spurt · Post by **codec_spurt** » Mon Dec 25, 2017 1:36 am

tobeto wrote:Hey there. So I have found two pretty old walkmans and I was wondering if they have any value. Your experience and knowledge is much appreciated!

The first one I don't recognise, but the second one is very similar to this one in the Walkman database: http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-ex615

It's supposed to be from 2003, so fairly modern for a walkman.
The other one close to it is http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-ex618 and that is supposed to be from the year 1995. So not chronological order wrt the branding.

It says this about the 618:
This super-slim cassette-only Walkman may have been small, but it included many advanced features that one may only expect to find fitted to large cassette decks. Most of these features were made possible because the mechanism was logic controlled, so its functions could be sequenced automatically by electronics rather than manually by the user

There's an 8 year gap between those model numbers, so who knows when yours was made.

I found this link that might give you more info:
Sony WM-EX Walkman range (Some good, some not so good) UK http://ebay.to/2g5yanC

It was in the video I link to below.

This is another great site: http://walkman-archive.com/gadgets/index.html

I own the legendary WM-D6C which is up there with Nakamichi wrt quality. It has Metal and Dolby C. It has a laser amorphous head as well and the sound is phenomenal for a cassette deck. It has a visceral power that is very exciting to listen to. I have Peter Gabriel So.. recorded off a CD back in the day. The basses boom and crunch, Copeland's hi-hats shimmer and shine.

Subjective guff I know - I'm not in to that audiophile bs at all, but I'd say it's pretty excellent to listen to. It's certainly got that analog warmth. I figured out just how much to push it in to the red to get that sweet analog compression and saturation, just before it breaks up. I love the sound of cassette as a playback medium. Metal can give almost CD quality playback for certain program material. Not the same dynamic range of course because of the signal to noise ratio, but even on a fairly dynamic album like So.. you can tolerate a little hiss.

Metal tape was much more expensive than Chrome Dioxide, so I never got to experiment that much. I don't think you can even buy them today except for silly prices. For me, Chrome or 'type II' as opposed to 'type IV' is a more than good enough compromise. You don't get the brittleness of Metal (on most program material - it can be tricky to get right) and you don't get the boominess of standard Ferric 'type 1' cassettes. You kind of get the best of both worlds, especially with Dolby B and C. A lot of the time I would record with C and play back with B for some extra sparkle. Try that with dbx NR.

The WM-D6Cs go for about 3-400 quid now in the UK. Sometimes more if mint. Then again you can get them for much less if you keep an eye out.

The holy grail of walkmans is the DD9 apparently, and this even surpasses the WM-D6C. In terms of distortion and wow and flutter anyway, but not equalisation. It also has an amorphous head.

I got that info from the links if you want to look yourself.

Bit of a coincidence finding this thread. I only got a random video popping up in my youtube feed last night where I spent an hour or two researching, so I thought I'd share my findings.

http://walkman-archive.com/gadgets/seri ... _line.html

I'm holding on to my WM-D6C. It was actually given to me by Sony themselves and has sentimental value. It makes superb recordings as well. Which is the whole point. It was the machine for making bootlegs at concerts, as digital was not around when these very first came out. I'm about to have it serviced for the 3rd time in its 1/3 of a century lifetime. How time flies...

The microphone they gave me with it only packed up a year or two ago. A decent enough SM58 type dynamic. Of particular note is the extremely high quality of the original headphones that came with this unit. Mine busted after a couple of years, and I wasn't the only one to complain that they stopped making the exact same version and only provided an inferior replacement.

OP:
Check out ebay for comparable machines and if it is in good/great condition and you are patient, you might get a good price for it. Those links I gave you can give you more information. Failing that, get in touch with Dr. Walkman - http://doctorwalkman.blogspot.com.es/ - he might even offer to buy it off you himself. If it's not in great condition, it might be worth getting serviced anyway, if you can, to get the best price.

EDIT:
It seems to have AMS, so I think it's closer to the older model the 618 (which may make it more valuable). It seems to have the shape of an older type model as well.

Electronic controls allowed AMS (automatic music search) to be included. This allowed the machine to automatically skip forwards or backwards one track at a time, just like a CD player. Furthermore, by holding down the play key one could enter a “repeat” mode, where one song would be played over and over again. Finally, there was the “blank skip” mode, where long passages of empty tape were automatically fast forwarded, with play resuming once some programme material was found. The blank skip function was controlled by a slide switch inside the cassette compartment which also controlled the auto-reverse mode (once only/continuous play), so blank skip was only available in continuous play mode.

Retro Walkmans