This baby's got Dolby B, Auto-reverse and Mega Bass. And plenty of nostalgia.
I still remember the moment my mum bought one of these home for me from a table top sale, actually it was the FM radio version WM-AF57, but close enough. I was probably about 10. It was the most technologically advanced Walkman I'd ever had, though that wasn't hard to beat as up to then I'd been rolling with an Alba that didn't even have rewind.
I got this as spares/repairs from eBay for £14, plus another £5 for a new belt to get it going again.
This Walkman needed some work. A new belt for starters. To get it apart, there are no screws, just plastic tabs that need to be prised apart in a certain order. The service manual shows you how. Several plastic spudgers are needed for the task. Using a screwdriver is sure to chew up the plastic case.
That tab in the middle of the case, next to the take up reel, is hard work. I chewed it up trying to unhitch it, but thankfully it's in a place that's hidden most of the time.
Once open the belt is easy to replace. There were a couple of other issues though that needed dealing with...
First problem: the Walkman would play a tape fine in the Forward direction, but when flipped into reverse to play the other side, it would play the audio backwards. That brought back memories - my AF-57 developed the same problem back in the day.
The issue was the little microswitch labelled "DIR" on the circuit board and shown above on the other side of the board. A little bit of plastic should push this switch when the FWD/REV lever is flipped, changing the part of the head that is reading the tape. The microswitch just needed bending a bit.
Once I got it all back together another problem developed: the sound went very low in level in one channel. I traced it back to this connector, where the audio goes off to the Mega Bass circuit and back again. The pins of the connector needed cleaning and bending up a little bit to make better connection with the ribbon cable.
These slider switches need to be handled with care. The plastic tabs break very easily. I had to superglue a tab back on and very carefully clip it back into position.
It's a decent sounding player. You can hear a bit of motor noise when the music is low, but with a chrome tape recorded with Dolby B, it sounds pretty good.
Comments