Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
…but I've settled on my favorite combination for deskside CD playback.
I never really intended to jump back into the portable CD lifestyle after abandoning it with the advent of iPods and later iPhones, but yet here I am. I'm currently listening to the complete Koyaanisqatsi score at angelic volume and truth be told, I'm loving it.
Nowhere near close to replacing everything from my previous life (I'll probably need another shelf if I ever get to that point), but still respectable. There aren't enough hours in the day to listen to what I do have, so there's also that…
This was the first second portable CD player I owned shortly after the format showed up, back in the mid 80s. (The first was a Sony D-7, and I had nothing but issues with the headphone jack on that unit so I'm in no hurry to get another one.) Of the four players I now own, this one, hands-down, produces the best sound. Even though it's been fully serviced, I was still surprised how much noise the laser sled assembly makes when searching for tracks or when returning to its rest position at the end of play. It's also extremely sensitive to shock and vibration, something I have no memory of from back in the day. I know I used to drag it between my apartment and office downtown, tucked away in my backpack while I walked to and from MUNI stations and while riding the train but I certainly don't remember it being as skip-prone as this particular example is. Or maybe it's just like I wrote before: we didn't expect perfection and just lived with it. It's a question I suppose I'll never have a definitive answer for. Nostalgia notwithstanding, I also think it's among the best looking players that Sony ever produced. An all-metal enclosure, and a (in the case of this particular unit, a rebuilt, modernized) battery pack that clips on the bottom spoke to Sony's attention to quality and design.
This was supposedly the direct descendant of the D-10. It's marked by some design changes and improvements internally as well as externally. It also sports the addition of LED illumination in the display window (when the player is plugged into mains at least) and an internal battery pack. The sound from the D-15 is very close to the D-10, so much so that I'm hard pressed to find any huge real differences. Like the D-10, the case is solid aluminum, giving it a nice heft. The mechanism in this—also fully serviced—unit is much quieter than the D-10. And even though neither units possess anything resembling Sony's later "G-Protection" shock technology, I've found this player to be still more resistant to bumps and other jostles than its predecessor, and when bumped seems to recover a tad more quickly. In addition to the built-in battery pack, like the D-10, it can use the same external clip-on-the-bottom-of-the-unit BP-100 battery pack, although the guy whom I bought the D-10 from warned me not to charge the rebuilt BP-100 through the D-15 because of some voltage differences required by the newer battery formulation he used in the rebuilt unit and had compensated for in the D-10. So better safe than sorry since he obviously knows more about electronics than I do. I can power it from the BP-100, but I can't charge the BP-100 through the D-15.
As mentioned, the D-15 does have a provision for an internal rechargeable battery pack, but of course Sony no longer makes them. Thankfully there are third-party replacements available that can be recharged through the player itself or via a standard USB-C charger. I have one on order…
The one thing both the D-10 and the D-15 suffer from is an extreme sensitivity to dirty or scratched discs. Whereas the two later players (below) will handle most everything without a hiccup, the tiniest speck or scratch will cause these two to lose their minds, sometimes never recovering. I'll put a disc in and halfway through will start stuttering. I will pull the disc out and look at it under bright light, and yeah, sure enough, there's a partial fingerprint or a tiny speck of schmutz that I didn't see before. So I'm trying to get in the habit of wiping down each disc beforehand that I play in these units.
This is my old workhorse, purchased new in 1998 and put in storage at some indeterminate date. I pulled it out when I really started getting back into CDs (after remembering I still had it) and have enjoyed using it again. Obviously a decade had passed between the D-25 and the D-171, and in those intervening years Sony really got the design of these machines down to a fine art. Gone are the multi-level circuit boards and dozens of snaking wires. All the circuitry is now on one board. The D-171 is all plastic, but has held up amazingly well over the years. Still no skip-protection circuitry, but it does handle jostling better than either of the two earlier models, recovering almost instantly if it receives a direct hit. It also has something called "Mega Bass" that offers two increases in bass frequencies, neither of which are particularly welcome to my ears. When doing a direct comparison, the overall sound quality is rather muddy and a little "thin" in comparison to either the D-15 or the D-10 through my Grado over-the-ear cans, but certainly okay when listening through a pair of Skull Candy earbuds (dating from 2016 or thereabouts) while falling asleep. It also has the advantage of being powered by standard Double-A batteries (including the Duracell/Energizer rechargeable variety) when not plugged into the mains. Supposedly there was a rechargeable battery pack available that charged through the D-171 itself and slipped into the standard Double-A slots, but I never owned one back in the day and while there are replacements available online, I honestly don't see the need. The laser sled is still quite audible when searching or returning to its rest, but it's neither louder or quieter than the D-15. And as I discovered last week, the D-171 also has the advantage of being extremely easy to get into for repairs.
Tuesday night as I was getting ready for bed, I popped a CD in and pressed play and saw the disc try to spin up and then stop, giving me the dreaded "No Disc" error on the display. Wondering if it was the disc itself, I tried another one with the same results. With it being too close to midnight for me to investigate further, I put it aside until the next day.
It turned out that one of the ball bearings that hold the disc in place on the spindle had popped out of its holder and was rolling around inside the player. Five screws and some gentle prying later, I had the unit apart and located the culprit, pushed it back into place, and everything worked normally again.
The one downside to my old player (other than the general sound quality in comparison to the other players) is that it produces a loud, annoying beep through the headphones when in pause mode—and there's no way of turning it off.
This was one of those impulse, totally unnecessary "because it looks cool" purchases, and has become my go-to player for my daily commute and use at work. The sound quality still isn't as good as either the D-10 or D-15, but it is better than the D-171, and it's perfectly fine for 8 hours at the office. And it has shock protection! Since it's continually reading data into memory before passing it to the amplifer and on to your headphones, all but the worst upset is ignored. Like the D-171, the D-EJ100 is all plastic, but the particular unit I bought was either generally unused or taken very good care of by its previous owner as there's nary a scratch on it (except for the bottom, which was to be expected). The laser sled makes about the same amount of noise when it's slewing as the D-171, which is to say it's audible, but not annoyingly so.
It has a few other features beyond "G-Protection" as Sony calls it. Like the D-171 it has a two step bass boost, but also has a wired remote that connects between your headphones and the player if needed) so you can change tracks and volume when the player is sequestered in your bag or backpack. (This unit came with one, but I've yet to use it.) Also like the D-171 it arrives out of the box with a loud, annoying beep when paused, but this can now be turned off!
Have I mentioned the batteries? When not plugged into the mains, it's powered by standard (or rechargeable) Double-As, and battery life on this unit is amazing. It's rated at 50 hours, and I'm here to confirm that if anything, that's a lowball estimate. It may not have been running for a solid 8 hours a day—more like 5-6—at work, but it took nearly three weeks for the fresh set of batteries it arrived with to run out.. Yeah, I know with iPhones and other modern media players, that probably doesn't sound like much since our new devices get recharged on the daily, but I think it's outstanding for a twenty year old piece of tech.
I love this shit…but then, you knew that.
I went on kind of a Madonna buying binge last week:
I ordered these from a single seller off Discogs, a website that has—up until this point at least—been a reliable source for buying used media. But I guess there are bad apples in any bunch.
The seller described the CDs themselves as MINT or NEAR MINT. The cases were also uniformly rated VERY GOOD+.
The low prices probably should've thrown up a red flag: $5 apiece, with only two being priced at $10 (one of which was described as STILL SEALED), but it still seemed reasonable considering it was Madonna and there were dozens of copies of each title available on the site—especially since all of them were described as LOOKS UNPLAYED with one (Bedtime Stories) being hyperbolically described as "LOOKS UNPLAYED – WAS BOUGHT FROM A REAL MADONNA FAN NEXT TO THE LAUNDROMAT IN STAR CITY." Okay, whatever.
I checked the seller's customer satisfaction rating and it was 98.9%. Not perfect, but not horrible.
The disks arrived taped together in a package made of solid-color bubblewrap. My heart sank before I even got them unwrapped, fully expecting the center retaining clips of each case to be snapped off and all the hinges broken.
It turned out that was the least of the problems. (I have spare cases on hand, just for this eventuality so it was no big deal.)
First off, I found it odd that there were more discs than I'd ordered. For some reason she'd also included American Life (sans case, but with the front booklet), I'm Breathless, Something to Remember (both complete and in good condition) and The Power of Goodbye CD single.
Even without the breakage, none of the jewel cases could be described as VERY GOOD+.
And then I discovered that Ray of Light—something I did order and wanted—was just an empty case—with a $1.99 Goodwill price sticker on it, no less—that contained no CD at all!
What the actual fuck?!
I think what happened is that she realized that she was missing the disc for Ray of Light and instead of being an upstanding seller and actually contacting me before shipment and asking what I wanted to do*, just threw a few extra CDs in to apparently make up for it.
To her credit, the discs are in decent shape. There's only one that has some light scratches that plays okay in every player I own except that temperamental D-10. (I'm making my way through the stack as I type.) But c'mon girl. If you didn't have something I ordered you should've contacted me, not just thrown in some consolation prizes because. It's just common courtesy.
Needless to say, the feedback I left will further contribute to her sub-99% approval rating. And I just ordered a MINT copy of Ray of Light from a seller with a 100% approval rating for $2.99 so there's that…
*I had just this scenario happen earlier this morning with a different seller who realized the item he was selling and that I bought didn't match the "official" photos of that particular release. As it turned out, it wasn't the version I wanted and told him to cancel the order and just refund me the purchase price. That is a responsible seller!
Isn't technology grand?
Of the lot, the D-171 is my favorite just because I've had it for so long and its reliability after all these years, but I have an real affection for the D-10. While not being the original Discman model I owned, it was the player that—somehow, considering how much it skips if you sneeze in its general direction—got me through years of commutes in San Francisco; an undeniable nostalgia factor. The sound quality itself is also so much better than the other two there's just no comparison and for that reason alone it's the one I listen to the most. I just wish it played all disks as reliably as the other two. I'm not even talking about CDRs (surprisingly all three will play them even though CDRs weren't even a thing when the D-10 was in production). For example, the D-10 absolutely refuses to play all the way through Revolver, the last track on disk 1 of Madonna's Celebration (an absolutely pristine commercial disk, btw) and no amount of cajoling can convince it to do otherwise. (The disk plays flawlessly everywhere else.)
But admittedly I do like the quirky design of the D-EJ100. You can't see the disk spinning like with the others, but that neon lime green center circle display is an absolute chef's kiss in my opinion. Of the three, it also has the best skip protection and fits inside my headphone case like it was made for it, making it the perfect traveling companion in the already overstuffed messenger bag haul back and forth to the office. The sound quality isn't as good as the D-10, but it's good enough to get though those three days I have to be physically present at corporate HQ.
Kicking back with Miles…
The only one I ever remember owning was Pet Shop Boys' Very. (That link may give you an expired certificate warning if you visit but it appears to be a legit website.)
It startled the crap outta me the first time I played it…
I completely understand now how this could happen.
What can I say? This one is for work/commute use. Unlike my other two players, thanks to "G-Protection" it doesn't skip when you look at it funny.
I don't know if anyone out there needs this, but I was unable to locate an electronic version anywhere, so I had to buy an original paper paper copy and scan it. I uploaded a .pdf of the entire thing to hifiengine to share with the world, but not everyone has access to that site.
…and early 00's, Sony had their Discman shit down to an art. It's really too bad the whole product line died only a couple years later with the advent of the iPod because it really is amazing technology.
Yeah, the Discman cases went all plastic, but everything was now consolidated onto a single circuit board, a definite improvement in terms of serviceability. Remove four screws from the bottom and the top/tray pops right off…unlike my beloved D-10 which has two double-sided circuit boards linked by a ribbon cable, multiple wire connects, and is much more complicated:
Or this, my original D-7 from 1986 with a belt-drive spindle motor. And look at that laser transport!
Still a feat of miniaturization and engineering considering that full-size CD decks only came on the scene a few years earlier.
Remember…obsessed.
Yeah, I brought it—the one pulled out of storage a few weeks ago—to work. When my supe saw it sitting on my desk, he pointed and said, "Oh my god…is that a Discman?!" like it was some newly unearthed relic. (Which, I suppose it honestly is these days.) This of course led into a long, refreshing non-work related discussion about why I've gone back to listening to CDs, the price of vinyl, the general need for physical media in our lives, and the never-ending greed of the music industry.
He told me he'd be all over physical media again if it weren't for the fact he had small children and an even smaller house. What one had to do with the other—or in fact how either one prevented him from owning physical media, especially CDs— escaped me, but I just did what I so often do around the office: I smiled an nodded.
But I gotta tell you, when I'm plugged in and some Japanese jazz or 70s disco is spinning away, it really does wonders for my attitude. And it's even different from just playing tunes from my laptop into my AirPods. There's something about the physicality of the process that just seems more—intimate—and puts a smile on my face.
Am I obsessed? I'm a Gemini; of course I am. I get obsessed with whatever shiny object captures my attention at any given time for a while and then I move on. I expect the same thing to happen here, but it may take a while. (I mean, look at how long my vinyl obsession lasted—decades!) I dropped $35 on eBay last night for yet another model Discman; this one more contemporary to either this D-171 or my all-metal 80s era D-10. The one I bought last night has anti-skip protection—"G-Force" something or other that neither the D-171 or the D-10 had—so I suspect this will be my daily driver for in-office use going forward even though the D-10 will remain my ultimate hi-fi desk mate at home where it's much less likely to get jostled. It will at least make those three days a week when I have to physically be present at HQ much more enjoyable.
I remember that I had one jacket whose pockets were large enough to accommodate my Discman back in the day. And it was still a struggle to get it in.
That's what she said!
Was it worth it?
The Good
The sound quality of this D-10 is absolutely amazing. I can't get over how much better it sounds over my late 90s D-171 that I pulled out of storage a few weeks ago. While I can't do any direct A-B comparisons, just transferring a CD from the D-10 to the D-171 sounds as if I've stuffed cotton in my ears. I hooked the D-10 into my main stereo system last night via the line out jack on the back of the unit, and while it didn't sound as good as my modern Yamaha deck, it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.
The build quality is top-notch. As I wrote before, it sports a solid metal case throughout—which was the norm from Sony in 1987. I consider the visual design of the player itself to be one of the company's best, rivaled only by the previous D-7.
(As an aside, I owned a D-7 prior to getting the D-10 in 1987. It too was a fine player, and in fact I'm not sure why I ended up ditching it and getting the D-10, other than the allure of "new, thinner, lighter, shinier" thing. As I wrote previously one or the other of the units—perhaps both, it's been over 35 years now and my memory fails me in these details—had a notoriously wonky headphone jack that required multiple re-soldering jobs on my part to keep it working. That might've been the reason I replaced it with the D-10 if indeed the D-7 was the headphone jack culprit and not the D-10.)
The Bad
Cosmetically the player has its fair share of scuffs and scratches. Not unexpected considering it's age—and I doubt that if I somehow kept my original unit after all these years it would look any better. The scuffs and scratches tend to leap out in photos, but in real life you can't even see them unless you specifically go looking.
When the laser is slewing back and forth while manually selecting tracks (or when the disc ends and it returns to its resting position) it's loud. I don't remember if my original unit was this loud, but I suspect it was. My D-171 is nearly as noisy when performing the same tasks, so I don't think it's a matter of lubrication or anything, as I know this machine was lubed as part of it's refurb. I suspect it's because we've grown so inured to silent devices that provide instant access to our music over the last couple decades we've forgotten how things used to be—and which we were completely fine with at the time.
I've noticed the unit does struggle with certain disks, specifically the "Premium Series" remastered disco albums that I've featured in previous posts. They play, but a lot of audible distortion shows up almost immediately. The discs I have trouble with—as much as I love them—are of…questionable…pedigree, so that may explain a lot of it. With discs from reputable mainstream and indie labels, I haven't had the issue. (They occasionally skip a bit on my D-171, but they play flawlessly on my Yamaha deck.)
The Ugly
As I wrote before, there is absolutely no skip-protection on the D-10.
When this unit came out, The feature hadn't been invented yet (or the cost of implementing it was prohibitive) and it seems all you have to do is sneeze in its general direction and it will jitter and skip. I don't remember my original one being so sensitive but if it was, I wonder how I actually lugged it around San Francisco in my backpack while listening on my daily commute, unless—like the slewing noise—this was just something that was an accepted part of the new technology. But like I said, since it's going to live on my desk and not get used while moving around, this is a moot point…as long as I don't inadvertently bump it! (To its credit, it does recover almost instantly.)
Conclusion
Was it worth it? All things considered, I'm honestly torn between "meh" and "fuck yes!" The one thing that is certain is that I plan on enjoying the hell out of it for years to come, if just for the sound quality alone. I even checked with the guy I bought it from (whose advocation actually seems to be repairing these vintage Discmans) to ask if I can send it back to him for any future repairs, and he said yes. All I have to do is cover the shipping. And he's even someone who enjoys talking shop…
Nostalgia is a part of getting old, right?
The Sony D-10 was the first second portable CD player I owned. (The first was a D-7, and let me tell you that digging up that model number numerous trips to the dusty memory banks in my head, not to mention copious Google searches until I stumbled upon it.) Bought new in 1986 from Jerry's Audio (now a mere shell of it's former self) in Tucson, it went everywhere with me even though this was several years before anti-skip technology and it did tend to lose its mind when jostled too hard. Even without that tech, it still worked surprisingly well when casually walking, but anything more strenuous would send it into a tailspin. This basically relegated it to desk use at work while I was busy creating architectural drawings.
And it wasn't cheap—somewhere north of $300 ($850 in 2024 dollars) as I remember. But damn, it was awesome—and in my mind totally worth it.CDs were still relatively new and just beginning to catch on so was the tech. The unit itself was also heavy; no cheap molded plastic case here; solid metal all the way. It came with a custom rechargeable battery the size of a standard CD case that clipped on the bottom of the device and made connection via spring-loaded gold contacts. Chef's kiss.
As the years progressed, the only thing that proved problematic was the headphone jack. (Kind of an important part, when you think about it, and in all honesty I may be confusing this with the D-7.) The only thing that kept it in place was the jack's soldered electrical connection to the circuit board and with the constant jiggling of the headphones through ordinary use, they'd often crack from the strain and come loose. I don't remember how many times I removed the bottom cover to resolder those joints during ownership. I even shelled out the bucks for the optional remote control and pop-in infrared receiver since I did have it connected to my main stereo more often than not.
I don't remember the circumstances under which I finally let it go, but whenever I see one on eBay these days it brings a tear to my eye and I toy with the idea of replacing it, even with it's known limitations. Unfortunately, fully four fifths of the units up for sale at any given time are marked as "not working/parts only" and those that are working—or god forbid have been properly refurbished—are priced higher than I'm willing to pay for nostalgia's sake. So I admire them from afar and simply enjoy my much more contemporary vintage D-171 that I bought in the late 90s.
And it explains so much if you really think about it…
I've had only one friend in my life who appreciated Philip Glass as much as I do. Sadly, he exited the planet during the horrific 90s, and I still miss him to this day. Wherever you are David, I hope you're enjoying Glass' music at angelic volume.