Hi Colin I have been working with numerous sony WM-2091 walkmans, which suffer with this issue, after the belt has been replaced. I found the solution to the problem, it's motor noise, and you can take the motor apart and re-grease it, and the noise goes away, and you only hear it for a split second now, when the auto reverse engages, and the motor is put under a heavier load.... i think yours can still be fixed... hope you manage it... Thanks again

First rule of eBay: most of the time, "untested" means "definitely very broken".

When you gamble, the house always wins.

Sony in the 90s: "this lever is really easy to miss. Let's make a slot in the pcb to make it easier to adjust it for servicing." Sony in the post PlayStation era: "you even open this, we're suing you and pressing charges!"

These repair videos are really interresting. You can see inside these awesome pieces of engineering from the past. Colin, you're doing it really well. Love the repairs, keep up.

10:59 that 4v 22uF cap is electrolytic and leaking. it is NOT a tantulum. that is likely the power filter cap for the toshiba chip. same caps were used in Sega game gears.

I fixed my Aiwa and Sony walkmans. The Aiwa sounded like yours. I replaced all the caps and it works great again. The Sony also needs a recap but is much more complex to do. The belt change on both drives was also done.

God I love your channel. You always do different stuff so we don't get bored, other channels are good but there's only so many C64 or Apple II videos you can watch. Your filming is fantastic and narration always so relaxing. It's nice to see you share your failures as well as your successes. Thank you for all your content.

was expecting a '93 cassette walkman with "megabass" them was a dream for me back then 😂

I use double-sided tape on a piece of cardboard and place the screws and bits in the general area they were in the device. Drawing marks on the cardboard where needed. If the job is delayed I just take plastic wrap and put it on the tape freezing all the parts in place. Then it's a blister pack when you retrieve the parts.

8:22 - Ugh! I can relate. 😕 I can't recall any project ever actually going smoothly, they're _always_ frustrating with all kinds of problems and obstacles, and often dead-ends. It gets pretty annoying to see KZfaq videos where everything (seems to) go perfectly with no problems because it makes me (and probably others) feel like we're just bad at fixing stuff, so it's comforting to see others having problems too.

I just love these close ups Awesome video like always!

3:19 First lesson: Never put batteries and press play before open and check the belt. Belts melted can be spread around the pulleys and can dirty all the mechanics.

"It's a Sony" I remember when that meant quality and not junk.

Hi Colin, try to remove the head cable and the poke inside the connector on the board something like a metal needle. See if you can hear a crackling or buzzing in the phones output. If it's the case, your audio preamp is ok and the head cable might be the issue.

Thanks, so much for sharing this video! I've fixed a few WM-EX series Walkman like the 606 (eg 610, 622, 677) and the leaking battery can play havoc with your board. Hopefully, just cleaning the PCB around the controls and vol dial with Isopropyl might help. Also, thanks for showing how to remove the ribbon from the connector. I've wondered how it worked and now I know how! Good luck on getting the sound sorted.

8:21 I can relate.

Great to see another Colin (my namesake) trying to fix another Walkman, even using the same belt supplier as I did. I had that sound at one point when I was repairing my MW-EX610. I don't know what fixed it, but I put it down to a suspect battery or contacts. It's working now though. Try another battery. Failing that, might be worth putting IPA down the volume slider and working it in well. Can't hurt to try.

You can build up material on that broken stem by using superglue and baking soda. Then a jewellers file to shape it.

Pretty funny seeing a ebay item you sold in your suggested youtube videos list. I picked up this unit up a few years ago at a goodwill center where you pick through bins of junk and pay by the pound. Once I was home and got to really looking at it I realized that it took the gum stick battery so I tossed it into a box of electronics that needed more attention. Over the years more items got added to that box and none ever got any attention. Then 2020 came and the covid purge occurred at my house, I was faced with what to do with this box of stuff. Most of it went out with the trash, but I saved this and, another sony to sell on ebay because of their build quality, collectability and potential as parts donors. The whole video I was really rooting for this thing to work after hanging on to it for so long. So yea, this youtube suggested video hit freakishly close to home and this channel now has another subscriber. Also just for the record, I never turned a screw on the thing and that $12.00 sold price included the USPS Priority mail shipping.

great video Collin and very timely : I just acquired a Walkman as a cassette player I can tuck away. mine also has a problem, it's an WM-1 and like all units of that model, it's got a plastic latch that breaks and then you can't forward and rewind. Thankfully someone of tapeheads forum made a 3d printed replacement and shared the file. It's a great sounding player though! one of the few older consumer models to reach 16kHz

Your video made me digging through my stuff and getting my WM-EX615 out of his box again, nearly 20 years after the last time I used it (I switched to CD players, then NetMD and hiMD then PMP until nowadays). And gosh the damn thing is still working like if I left it the last month, it came at life with just one AA battery (I don't checked the Ni-Cd gumstick but since it was out of the main unit, I assume it would go ok again, but not lasting long). Even the remote control is still operational and the sound is good. Now I'm good to listen again to my old collection of cassettes, that I hope gone through time as good as my good old Walkman

9:13 Colin -"And I got this" 9:16 ME - "What the fuck!!!"

Great video! It’s unfortunate that it wasn’t as simple as a belt replacement but even in its used condition, it still looks really nice!

Love these old SONY Walkmans :)

Well, on the bright side, if you get another of THIS model that works, you have a parts unit in case something other than the chip goes bad: and it's relatively rare for low-power chips to go bad

The b roll is amazing in this video Colin!

This video saved my old companion, thank you!!

Star-Lord would be impressed with the effort, despite not turning out as you intended

The joys of buying "untested' Biggest pro is it's cheap. Con? Everything else. I do like that you post the videos where you don't succeed. It hopefully gives rookies a bit of encouragement that at times it's not the user but the device it self that doesn't work.

"I love watching mechanisms like this work"..... My sentiments exactly! 👍

its goin' pretty damn well, Colin, thanks for asking!

I would try to re-flow the chip... You have nothing to lose..

I would bet that the chip is a common failure point for those models. Just be glad you didn't buy that teal one and have it break 6 months later.

PSA for auto-reverse Dolby B walkmans - from someone who owned a 1995 Panasonic (with Dolby chip buzzing and doing shenanigans with speed) and a 1989 Akai (that... had nothing BUT the buzzing and made weird synth noises) - ...just get a simple single-sided no-Dolby walkman and keep the Dolby stuff to normal-sized tape decks. My 1993 Phillips walkman AQ6421 still works after repairing completely corroded traces. And my 1987 JVC TD-X202 full-sized deck, with all the Dolby bells and whistles, still works without issues.

Lot of good memories with Sony Walkman👍🏼

Great video, as always. I completely understand your feelings about this walkman, but I would go down the blackhole of chinese suppliers and I would try to swap the chip, because why not? It's better than throwing it to the trash. Thanks again!

Great work!

While it may have not been a successful repair, it sounds like you gained a lot of experience from the process. Not at all a waste! In fact, I enjoyed watching it quite a lot :)

Man it's crazy seeing how the engineers or at least the company made sure their products were reparable. Nowadays the company will get mad at you trying to do your own repairs.

When I buy stuff I can't fix, I say the same thing. At least I didn't spend to much on it. Great video.

You can use baking soda with super glue to get a stronger bond when trying to repair switches. Just do some testing to get an idea of how the two substances interact. I’ve managed to fix some broken plastic switches that seemed unfixable otherwise.

This is really good info, thanks for posting it. I'm trying to get a cool looking yellow Sony Sports radio to not eat the tape when I push play, sometimes both spindles will spin but one will stop, there is something I need to lube but I can't figure out what. Until then the radio is a decoration.

There's a great video at Akbkuku's Tech Tangents channel about recreating broken plastic stems using superglue and baking soda. You may try it with the Walkman.

when i was a kid, my first walkman was a very generic one, very cheap and came with thos earphones that everyone hates, the orange foam with the wire....it stopped working after 2 days, so i opened it up and to my shock , i found out that the gears spin over a rubber band, there was a rubber band, a household rubber band that spins the head for the cassette , i was so sad that i went out and got me that yellow sony one, it was lovely.

Is it possible that the broken switch wasn't fully engaged to either option?

i work on walkmans a lot and usually if you have audio issues and its not a capacitor it boils down to motor noise the walkmans i work on usually are the flat motors so they never have this issue but the ones with the large motors like this model do seem to have this issue just re-lubricate the motor and the noise should go away

A transparent case would be so cool for these!

_Tries to fix an unfixable Walkman™._ 🎧 *Gets excellent shots of it almost working.* 🎥✨🏆

I have a later WM-FX193FP and it plays AM just fine but when I put it on FM or play a tape, the audio goes in and out and you can fix it by wiggling the mode selector switch. I opened it up and found nothing alarming. The capacitors aren't bulging and there's no dried liquid coming from them. The cassette belt is loose and I can replace that. I'm just wondering what the problem is. I noticed there's a clearish dried liquid or glue covering around some of the solder points, but maybe only a third of the unit. It looks like they deliberately put glue around the solder points to relieve stress or to insulate them? I'm getting ready to just buy another of the same model and just replace the whole board cause this unit is sentimental to me but I want to know if I'm missing something simple. I'm pretty handy and want to fix it if it will save me some money.

Somehow, I do miss the old technologies from the 90s ranging from PS1, Walkman, floppy disk, etc.

An interesting Video. In the UK the even cheaper WM-EX194 was being sold at the same time.

I bought the same model as well as the ex-608. None of them worked, as i got no power in it. I ended up selling both of them to someone else at a loss because even after getting a Ni-MH and AA battery pack and cleaning off corrosion, it still didn’t work. I wish i could have seen this video as i wish i knew how i could possibly fix it. It is weird though that i found little to no signs of corrosion on the 606, although the 608 had leaked terminals, and they still both refused to work. I’ve found that the cheaper 90s models are more likely to have mechanical problems, while the more upscaled ones like this have electrical ones. It’s a bit of a shame.

I believe the volume potentiometer is dirty, use dielectric cleaner to wash it up , also the headphones jack and all the switches. Great video, cheers!

Sony WM - F series are manufactured in 80s . They are all made in Japan. All electronic components are larger than in 90s model and easy to work with. They are like 80s Toyota. Just need new drive belts.

find and try to repair old machine is interesting .

Now that’s what I’m talking about

Really weird that the buttons are on the flex ribbon versus mounted directly to the board. Why would don’t do this extra step?

Good job! 👏

Had similar issue with another model. Turned out to be coroded vias due to leaked caps/batteries. Before giving up still recommend to remove the caps (including the black one near the chip), inspect the board for corosion, clean it and give it one more try. Also bad cap in power supply may lead to oscillations that ruin your audio. Don't be frustrated with one particular walkman - they are still fun to repair.

Still fascinating. I have a similar walkman. It works properly, but it's a bit hissing regardless of the volume. I think you explained me why. 🙂

0:54 good choice to use an Energizer Lithium battery for theoretical 20 years last.

if your worried about the plastics caddy get it scanned and 3D printed, it been done before and it works

I have two same generation sonys similar electronics like yours. In my case there is no movement at all, just the red battery light on for 3 seconds. I don't know how to get those small caps, they don't sell them here

Born in the 70's, grew up in the 80's. I can honestly say I do not miss cassette tapes.

When I saw that corrosion at 5:00 I realized I'd better learn how to "rechrome" those battery terminals. Well, only if there's an inexpensive way because the machines I've priced ain't cheap.

My fist walkman was an AIWA, i bought it in 1997, loved to make mix tapes to listen ok my way to school and back

You had an ambiant noise walkman player!

Brother my Sony Walkman nwz s545 charging cable was missing. It's not available in my local store. Now what can i do, please make a special video for me. Please it's very special to me.

9:14 wow took me back to my walkman days xD

Just my 2 cents, back in the Walkman days, buzzing meant low battery. Maybe try an external power supply just to be sure.

Recently bought a WM-EX655 which is a rare Japanese model. It has some issues and I believe the seller didn't use the right belt size for it so it's also a bit of a repair object for it. But since I use my walkman daily I want it in as good condition as possible.

I had a similar problem this week. I've got a Walkman from "Universum". That was the brand of a german shopping catalog. They were rebranding a lot of consumer technologies, Toshiba, Sony and many other manufacturers built for them. The model is made all of a plastic-metal-mixture, features two headphone jacks and a huge door. Let's just say, it feels a bit high quality like one of the Sony Walkman professional recorders, despite being oriented to a standard consumer, not HiFi. Basically, the belt gone bad. After way too many hours and weird screws placements and interesting door mechanics, i put it back. The play speed stays constant even if i shake it really hard now. However, it now plays about 1-2 percent too fast. And no matter who i asked and where i looked, there was no real clue to be found on how to handle it. Changing that thingy in the motor itself didn't help and unlike with some Sony Walkmans, there is no easy way included in the mainboard design. No Service Manual available. Soldering in a different resistance might work, but which one and where, there are no schematics available, no clue who built that peticular model. And in addition, the volume knobs do crackle in the left channel and i couldn't fix it with a de-oxidation spray. Now add some corrosion in the middle of the PCB to it. And during playback, a buzzing sound is audible, but one could away with it with louder music to compensate for it. Quiet parts suffer the most. I could try a different pack of belts, maybe others fit slightly better and will cause the mechanism to spin more slowly. I've got get the weird feeling, that the device will work better in about ten years, when the belts are starting to get more slippery. In short: 20€ spent for a beautiful looking walkman in a good condition with a good sound. Now i just wish that i could have the time and interest trying to fix it, about ten hours weren't enough and working full time, i don't want to invest more time in it. I tried to use my Sony EX model again, but the motor stopped spinning after about two hours. The batteries were fresh and the speed was ok, that one has something else going wrong badly with the power board. And my third walkman from Sony has still an extreme wow and flutter, despite having new belts. It kind of works and sounds decent, unless you take it with you. And some cassettes produced click sounds, appearing every few seconds. In short, having three partly-working Walkmans and spending way too much time and yet still don't managing to have at least ONE in good shape just isn't fun. My next Ebay purchase will be functional hopefully.

I wish I didn't sell mine last year, I would have sent it to you. It didn't have Dolby, but it sounded really good.

9:30 Wow that new Death Grips single slaps.

Hi, recently repaired a wm-2091 with the same noise problem symptom (and only a hint of the music on vol. 10) . I changed all the electrolytic capacitors, they were leaking (they smell fish when desoldered) including power supply related and problem solved, now it sounds better and cleaner than lot of digital players of today. You should try to change them.

nice repair i have too another walkman but it has glue in the external botons so when i find special screwdrivers i will repair it too

You can find this and many other very good models of walkmans at the Japanese Yahoo auction.

It sucks when things like that happen. Well, not everyday you can have a chicken dinner. Now I'm looking for a cheapo Discman haha. Cool vid!

Oh my goooood. That was such a downer.

I've buy so many walkman which were known to work and broke them because they ran to slow or the audio has some problem ! Buying this kind of equipement today is dicee ! Thankfull i was able to make work a wm b47 which i hab broken will triing to adjust it !

Sandpaper + Spudger = Nail file from the beauty dept of any drugstore. Under a buck, and a myriad of choices. I keep a couple in my mug of must used tools on my desk.

nice experience

I'd bet that the problem is actually battery leakage eroding traces on the PCB. That amplifier won't work properly if its power rails are wrong. You might be able to fix it up.

Try cleaning pcb with IPA and brush, those old smd electrolythic caps often leak their electrolyte and cause all kinds of weird problems. I had simmilar problem in old sony discman, after cleaning the board problem was solved, but those caps still need to be replaced.

Gotta start using the metholadid spirits! 😉

Usually anything cassette related from the '90s that was made by Sony is a big pain in the butt

I doubt the seller knew about the audio problem. The corroded power terminals was likely his/her stumbling block, maybe the belts if they tried an external battery pack.

Sadly this sort of problem is all too common these days. I purchased a rare Grundig CR-590 a few days ago and it was supposed to be fully working. On arrival i tested it and found that only one channel worked properly. It has a 'stereo wide' mode which made the other channel (right) come to life, but after opening it up to investigate i now have no right channel at all! Oh well...

By now you probably junked the walkman, but I'd try to disconnect Q305 and related components where it says "level control" as they couple directly to the volume control and can inject the noise you heard even with the volume all the way down.

1:16 I had that one, but in blue!

Try: Contact cleaner on phone plugue, volume capacitor. Wash the entire pcb without contact cleaner and a brush. Azimuth allingment and demagnetize the head.

I have purchased two things "untested" from eBay as well. They were broken.

That's too bad. I would have like to see you repair it.

The only way to replace the battery holder..is to 3D make one...it would be hard I know..but worth it...thanks for you videos....

Plastic gets brittle but we have 3D printers and marine grade epoxy and glue.

I thought it might have been the header that was reading the cassette tape

Amazing little device , I have an APM-090 perfect for this little boy . Edit: I like to comment while I watch the video lol , don’t worry you will find another one .

Replace that cap next to the volume pot, its leaking, also clean the volume pot and the position slider for the mechanisme with some contact cleaner

I feel your pain!!