Sony WM-D3: A Recorder Walkman

I recently purchased this walkman. This is my first recording walkman. It is a professional model of the legendary DD series. DD walkmans run on the special disc-drive mechanism, which offers very low wow & flutter. The professional models of this series are equipped with amorphous heads, which are very durable (very important for vintage collection!) and supposedly sound better than the head from a regular DD. I am not sure about the "sound better" part, but my D3 certainly has more treble than my DDII. The D3 is slightly bulkier than the DDII due to the extra recording circuitry.

My particularly D3 was refurnished by the seller with a complete overhaul and light lubrication. The electrolytic capacitors were replaced with high-end Nichicon capacitors (electrolytic capacitors do age over time). The seller did miss one thing though: the overwrite-protection mechanism was stuck due to slight corrosion. A bit deoxit freed it up easily, so no problem.

This thing is as good as a basic full-size two-head deck. It can record on either a microphone or line-in. It has a five-LED level meter, which is important for keeping the record level as high as the distortion allows. The indicator can be switched off or switched to a battery level indication mode.

For mic recording, I also bought the Sony ECM-939LT microphone (stereo) for the walkman. The recording sounds very realistic, particularly over my Elegia headphones (the headphones have amazing imaging). The line-in recording sounds great too, even though it does not have a bias knob. Both line-in and mic-in use 3.5mm aux jack, which is fine if the device is kept stationary. In practice, the aux jack can be easily moved and any slight twist of the connector can result in a loud popping sound.

The professional models include the D3, D6C, and DC2 (playback only), The latter two feature Dolby C noise reduction (D3 only has Dolby B), making them very desirable (and expensive) for collectors.

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