Sony Walkman Professional WM-D6C Cassette Recorder Review PART 1

A review of the infamous, highly regarded walkman proffesional.

The Walkman Pro was as mentioned introduced into the UK back in 1982 at a RRP of about £220-a considerable amount back in those days to almost universal acclaim. Hifi enthusiasts, videographers and even pro sound recordists raved on about it and it proved to be an instant hit. There is a good chance that any of you out there listening to 'bootleg' concerts recorded in the early to mid eighties. And that in my opinion says it all.
So what was so good about it?

Well firstly it was the only Walkman which had been designed and built with the sort of features only found on full size cassette decks of the time. Such things as a Direct Drive where the cassette drive spindle is connected up to the drive motor without using a belt(making for more accurate tape speed and therefore better sound), Bias selection for types of cassettes used( Standard Ferric, Cr02 and Metal), Dolby B and (the superior) C Noise Reduction, the ability to record onto a cassette either via a microphone for live sound or via a line input for copying records(!) CD's and even other tapes

TYPE IV or Metal tapes.

Utilising pure metal alloy particles in the formulation, metal tapes wete the absolute ultimate in Cassette tape formulation. With a recording energy far in excess of a standard tape, metal tapes were the premium choice for live recordings, copying from CD's and Vinyl and even archiving radio broadcasts. When used properly metal tapes could provide a near perfect copy of a CD,had virtually no background noise such as hiss and in my experience have proved to be exceptionally fade free and durable.
Those were the days,,,,,,,,,,,,

So how did it perform?
In a word Magnificently!

I asked a friend to copy some Pink Floyd CD's onto a couple of premium quality Sony Super Metal Master tapes I purchased from James Beattie Plc in Wolverhampton (£11.99 each!) and the reproduction was awesome-in fact it was impossible for me to tell that I wasn't listening to the CD's it was that good. I have played a fair number of different cassettes through it and granted the cheaper ferric tapes aren't so good they sound considerably better through this than most full size decks. The battery consumption proved to be good as well, getting several hours use out of a set of Duracell's and the supplied headphones were excellent. The quality of Recordings done via the Line Input was also excellent, but again this is going to be determined by which tape is being used and the correct settings of the recording levels.

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Closed Caption:

hello and welcome to my review of the
sony walkman professional WM d6c as you
can see it they're prepared this is a
review which have been wanting to do for
a very long time and i would have liked
for there to have been a review already
so when I was purchasing this item could
have added bit more of an in detailed
look at it but I don't regret buying
this at all bought this from country for
about 220 pounds which is about three
hundred dollars and it's a it's a
beautiful piece of kit and a real
collector's item or if you're an
audiophile all of you genuinely want to
hear what the set was capable of and to
some extent to this and buy one of these
wmd succeeds because they are fantastic
absolutely pretty okay and in this
review i'll show you how it record to
have it plays back and the different
settings that has many different types
of the set i can take the first things
first I'm going to give you a quick look
at the the power sources for the WBC
over here what we have is a battery
compartment where you put in your double
a batteries
and then you there's slot inside the
recorder for either an occupant back
which is one of these which is basically
a battery pack or the battery converter
or you can also like 16 volt power
source I'm just going to put in the year
battery compartment there click it down
there and give you a quick visual you
get with the recorder well in most of
the cases you should get a level case
very nice thick leather case and very
very sturdy ok and the Walkman itself
weighs about 700 grams so it's a pretty
heavy piece of kit i have the front here
we have this record which is in pristine
condition you have here
sure you can you can see there you have
settings you have different by settings
normal which is there you have cro to
which is chrome concept and your metal
because it and then you have a zombie
noise reduction which is see Toby type
and no no introduction
you have account there and this is the
electronic vu meter which is quite
interesting
they're just powered it on shows the
battery level manuals have a peek
indicated there as well
all electronic and infrared . okay
on this side of the recorder you can see
that there's a headphone volume control
there and over here we have the stop
eject pause play and Q and provide
butters will be taking on this idea
what's interesting what this recorder is
the fact that it's not adjustable record
levels and where you can see there on
the on the right-hand side there and
meet you there for adjusting recording
levels and there's the record button you
see that the green headphone jack and
you see a red microphone input jack and
it's also i'm not sure if you can focus
on to apologize with this there's an
attenuation switch their 20 decibels 20
decibels so in the good old days where
they used to bootleg concerts they would
use the attenuation switch so that they
could reduce the sensitivity of the
microphone now the back we have a
line-in lineout I really cool feature
here speed tune feature and where you
can adjust the speed of the playback
depending on the type of Cazzette that
is so for some cheaper recorders the
cassettes it so I'm going on here is all
because you can adjust the settings and
there's your power source
on the inside you see that there is a
rather nice interesting little cassette
deck there
this was actually one of the best of the
highest quality recordings ever made and
when it came I think it was about 360
pounds and if it's setting today around
200-250 me it's pretty good news and
it's certainly held this value ok i just
want to tell you a bit about the
different types of the set that they
used to be over here what you're looking
at now is 80 km a 110 type for metal
bias cassette these were the highest
quality cassettes excuse and they did
sound absolutely amazing and to some
extent in my view they could be compared
to cd-quality audio if recorded with the
high-quality cassette and and those high
quality recorder which is the WMD sixy
or nakamichi perhaps this is an MA 1 10
medium quality concept would have been
about six pounds seven pounds perhaps
and so it's not one of that the highest
level cassettes I do have a ma XG which
is think considered to be on the top
sets and then over here we have 80 k SF
cassette this is a chrome cassette and
this is Type three and and this is this
isn't this is one of the higher-end
quota sex here in SF 90 and finally
whatever type one cassette one a
standard TKD cassettes these were ferric
relatively cheap and relatively flimsy
to so with the wfe you want to be
wanting to use the metal cassettes
because they were the highest quality
and they only had the best reproduction
to inside right now is a cheap fabric
type 1 gazette i'm going to select the
device and set it to more and then we're
going to put the dolby noise reduction
to off
because there isn't any ok let's play
that whoops think that's the year
sure
yeah
ok so you could hear their some world
music is recorded on the web percent for
some reason for that to one side now
before the chrome set just going to put
that in and it going to set this one to
crow co2 and type B noise reduction
because it has to be noisy empty side
yeah
yeah
and the day you listening to at the
moment was actually recorded in 1987 and
$YEAR and it's still working and it
sounds pretty good for its age on the
WMD sexy and i'll show you how they
record just after sex
I'm going to play the tkam a110 metal
cassette now i'm going to set this to
metal and dolby xenos is an option on