stevans (12/28/82)
The biggest problem with Walkman type players is not hiss or frequency response, but wow and flutter. I bought a Sony Walkman II for $99 last month after listening to it in the store playing a favorite tape of mine. The reproduction sounded fine then, because the music was changing rapidly, but when I used it at home playing another tape where there were some guitar solo passages, there was a very disturbing quavering in the sound. I made up a test tape from a Crown equalization test record, where there was a 1KHz sine wave. Playing it on my home deck (A JVC KD-A5), it sounded smooth, but on the Walkman II there was a constant rhythmic wow (speed variation) of about 3%. I took it back to the store and demonstrated this. I tried the test tape on others of the same model -- with the same performance. Then I tried the tape on an Aiwa KS-225(?) auto-reverse model. The Aiwa had almost no audible speed variations. I paid only $30 more to exchange for it, and it has worked great ever since. I recommend Aiwa micro players over Sony's by far.