It’s become an accepted truth amongst tapeheads that there’s no point looking at new hardware, because there’s only one tape mechanism being made anywhere in the world anymore, and that it sucks. [VWestlife] may enjoy German automobiles, based on the name, but he’s also a tapehead– and he took the time to demonstrate on YouTube that the accepted truth just ain’t so.
The supposed One Mechanism to Rule Them All in Lo-Fi is designed or made by Chinese company Tanishin. Certainly Tanishin does make a tape mechanism, but as [VWestlife] demonstrates with a few teardowns, there’s absolutely more than one on the market. That doesn’t mean any of the new offerings will out-compete your vintage Sony Walkman, but it does mean there are differences worth considering if you were to buy new.
Note that it is handhelds like the Walkman being talked about– it must be, since there are both slot-loading and flip-loading decks still being made, and even if you’re not a tapehead you should be able to tell that those won’t share the same part on the BOM.
With a few teardowns, he finds three separate mechanisms, followed by a deep-dive into the Tanishin. If you’re looking to buy a new walkman– or perhaps use its guts to build a mass storage device-– you might want to watch the whole thing to help you pick. On the other hand, the mechanism doesn’t matter that much, as he points out. It brings the tape over the head, but that’s not difficult. Everything else– from the motor that needs to draw the tape out evenly, to the pickup and the preamps and amplifiers–is where noise and poor quality sound tends to creep in, especially when something’s built to a budget.
Overall, [VWestlife] takes pains to point out that these ‘crappy’ new players aren’t any worse than the original Sony Walkman– we’ve just been spoiled by decades of better media than the humble compact cassette. That’s no slight against the cassette– people are still pushing its limits to this day, like this insanely fast vacuum-driven mechanism we featured.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip!
Tanishin was Japanese company which used to make tape mechanisms. That supposed only one mechanism was mistakenly identified as copy of Tanishin mechanism made in china. In video information is correct, but in this summary isn’t. I recommend to watch video as it’s very refreshing, that you can see some well researched and information packed ones and not just clickbait.
The main tape mechanism is the one that makes backups so expensive.
The best mechanism i ever saw was the Walkman 10.
It ran on a single AA battery and could fit into my tape case.
Nothing ever topped that item.
Yep. That thing was genius. From the wafer style motors, to the way they boosted the battery voltage on a flexible PCB wrapped around itself to save space. And fully featured with auto stop in all modes, Dolby B, Chrome/Metal. But incredibly tough to repair. Ask me how I know.
Still the pinnacle of design in my book. I keep a couple just to admire them.
The one i have the dread on having to fix is my MZ-R70 mini disk…
Everything is tiny on that thing.
Walkman WM-DD is probably the best. Or maybe in just different category.
I have a WM-D6C and, frankly, it rivals CDs if you use the right tape and noise reduction. The assertion that these are at parity with a high-quality Sony is just silly; some Sonys, sure, but not all.
The assertion was parity with the original TPS-L2 Walkman, not the later high-end offerings like the WM series.