Discman.

Hi everyone. Thought I would just pop into a charity shop the other day. Have been in so many without finding a thing. In a box tucked away in a corner I spotted a discman. It's a Philip's model AX 1100. Never had a Philip's portable of any kind before so I thought why not- only a pound. If it worked it worked. Any way I bought it. I know it's only a cheap player(made in China) but a discman to add to my small collection. 2AA's left no-no leakage a d missing battery cover. Made of plastic. It's called a rewritable compatible programmable CD player. 4.5 external supply. Got it home and connected power adaptor inserted a CD and Amazingly it worked. Not a powerful headphone amp but ok for normal listening. I would like to ask all the experts on the forum if they know anything about this Philips. Have looked on the net but have not been able to find hardly a y information on it. Specifications etc. Can a tone help please?

 

Nice find , there you go : https://elektrotanya.com/philips_ax1100_ax1101_sm.pdf/download.html

 

For £1 I would have snapped that up. In fact I am still in that mode with twentieth century calculators.

On sale in the Argos Winter 2002 catalogue. You just saved yourself £38.99.


This must have been around the time of the maximum popularity of personal CD players as there were five pages of them. A whole page of Panasonics and a whole page of Sonys, with the cheapest of each being £49.99, while the top of the range Sony is £148.89 (a strange price).

If you won the lottery you could have bought one of those new fangled MP3 players. They can't have been expecting people to have very big CD collections back then.

 

Hi Longman. Thanks for reply. Very helpful. Agree with you there but I cannot listen to mp3 and the like. Good recorded tapes sound great to me- always have done. What do you think of these Philip's discman? Any good? At the moment an listening to a classical tape I recorded back in the early nineties on tdk metal on a Sony wm-4 a d to me sounds excellent.

 

Hi Machaneus. Thanks very much for the service manual. Very helpful. Do you have any Philip's discman or any other equipment that you use? If so what are your impressions?

 

The only 21st century Philips equipment I have had was a DVD player which seemed OK while I was using it. At work we have a load of fairly old Philips LCD monitors which are actually better than the HPs that have been bought more recently.

I have several of the Sony CD players from around the same era as your Philips and think they are excellent.
I was less impressed by a Panasonic from the same era. I suspect that the anti-shock (which unlike the Sony's couldn't be turned off) used a high amount of compression.

Be aware that any consumer equipment labelled Philips made after about 2013 is just rebadged stuff from elsewhere

 

Hi longman. This is the only Philip's Walkman I have ever bought. I'm a Sony man always have been. I wish now I tried some other makes years ago judging from the comments on the various threads but I'm not paying out the crazy prices on you know where. Glad you are enjoying your equipment.

 

Hi Derek . Have two Philips CD-10's from around 1985 , the early era of the Compact Disk in general and a breakthrough model being also portable.
Difficult to compare these early models with the late 90's and 00's .

The early ones considered high-end while the later ones, although fully featured with esp's, low consumption , equalizers , bass boost etc they were somewhat handicapped by the "cheap" plastic feel and low headphone amps output but there were one or two exceptions.

Philips in collaboration with Sony invented the CD format (released 1982) based on earlier Philips work (see laservision).

Philips CD-10

 

Hi Machanaus. Thanks for reply.

Hi Machaneus. Thanks for reply. That's a nice looking Philip's. Am very familiar with the Sony models but never bought any other makes so am unable to compare. The one I picked up for 1 pound is from a out the early nineties I think. As I said made in China but at least it works. Do you have a particular favourite Walkman, discman mini-disc etc? I rotate my units every few days to keep them running Soto speak.

 

The page shown is from the 2002 Argos catalogue. I didn't see your Philips in the years before or after.

For completeness here are the other pages, although there are even more pages of CD players with built in radios and three whole pages of Mini-Disc.
Not a single item from Apple in the whole catalogue though. That would change in a couple of years.


The Sony DE330S is the Sony I was commenting on. I have several, from one bought brand new to a very scratched one that was in a bundle of three walkmans that I won on Ebay for £10. All work perfectly, track extremely well even with ESP turned off, and IMHO sound good in that mode. I also have a Sony DEJ750.

The Panasonic SLSX361S is the one I was complaining about. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

The last discman I bought was the Sony d-ej01 ( another circular design) from 1999 with the so called g-protection but have never used any of my discmans outside. This is the only one I have with any kind of esp. I do like the look of your d-10. It reminds me of the first one ( d-50). Is it all metal? Being a early model is the headphone out 15-20mw? Thanks again for all the information.

 

Rotation is the best way to achieve longer life to your collection.

If I "must" make a favorite list from my collection here is one :

Not Sony Portable CD Player
-- Denon DCP-50 (even better DCP100&DCP150)

Cassette Walkmans
--Sony WM7 (so many reasons to list!)
--Sony WM DD9 (portable perfection)
--Aiwa HS PX1o1 (portable perfection with added elegance)

Minidiscs
--Sony MZ-RH1 (unlocked and Hi-MD)
--Sony MZ1 (because it's the first ever and so big!)

 

That is a very impressive collection. NY collection consists of: Sony tape walkmans: wm-4, wm-b53

Sorry pressed wrong button. My ollection: All Sony. Wm-4, WM b-53(sports), WM ex-34(belt gone),WM d6c×2, WM d-33, wm d-c2( cracked centre gear) wm tc-d3( cracked gear but still works), WM ex-615. Discman: d-100( not working), d-z555, d-350, d-ej01. Mini disc: mz-e900, mz-g750, mz-r55, mz-r91×2. I wish I had the dd-9 but at the time I was put off by the 5mw output- big mistake. When the mini discs moved on I was always looking at the r-h1 but because I did not have a computer- another big mistake.

 

Your collection is equally impressive , definitely worth to fix the WM-DC2 , I have a sony d-t100 (tuner version) mine also doesn't work and trying to fix , one of the nicest Sony discmans.
You're right about dd-9's low 5mw output if there is a flaw in this superb walkman this is the one , probably manifested by the use of only one 1.5 v AA battery .
Unfortunately prices for the dd9 and r-h1 have ridiculously skyrocketed in recent years , maybe in the wild or local ads is the last hope to find one in a reasonable price.

 

I so want to get both the d-c2 a d the TC-d3 fixed but am unable at the moment. That's exactly what put me off the dd-9. Have never heard the Dennon but have many threads by various members a out how good it sounds. How do you rate it? Still do the odd recording on to mini disc but have only got a few discs left, so have to be choosy. When I go out I use the mz-e900 with the gum stick battery. I get a out 4 hours out of it. Not bad for a 20 year old battery. Do you use a y of your units outside? Great to chat with someone with similar interests.

 

Practically dd9's power output is a problem more on paper than in real world but rules apply , I'm using metal tapes at slightly higher recording levels at a well calibrated cassette deck , also important is the choice of headphones. I won't make suggestions on equipment as my hearing is far from the best in the world and most people I have talk with don't have problem with the 5mw output.

When I got my Denon Dcp-50 didn't know anything about it and by the looks nothing suggested anything special , been very keen how a pcdp sounds from my Sony discman collection that includes some of the top models was really impressed to caught myself saying "hey that sounds good" when first tested it.
Then a quick search on the web revealed that I wasn't the only one with that impression. Never took the time for technical comparison with other models to pinpoint what was Denon's designing approach but it certainly was successful.

Not using my portables outside anymore only around the house and mostly for testing. There is still a strong following of minidisc users and not just collectors , presumably they encountered the format at their teens, as earlier we older had met the cassette walkmans. From time to time I'm visiting the great ,now semi defunct , Minidisc.org .
There are members here in S2G with real interest in minidisc @Sly. and in discmans @Jorge for example .

 

I just like to listen to my tapes, CD's and mini-disc at home using my headphones. I too recorded all my classical music on to metal tape back in the early nineties but do not have my equipment any more. I just rotate my tapes, CD's and mini-disc at home usually now. It would be nice to listen to 1 of those Dennon units just to confirm what I read on the various threads.

 

speak of the Devil...

I started collecting/restoring Discmans with an idea of figuring how their sound quality relates to DACs and oversampling. Even put together the table of Discmans components as a "cheat sheet" for during evaluation.



Never bought D-555 because the prices, even for the beaters, are just silly! Then hunted down my DreamMachine, Loewe CD-100 and at that considered my "collecting" Mission Accomplished. Switched to Walkmans and Boomboxes
I had quite a few favorites from this batch, but somehow never got to actually doing any critical listening... LAZY!!!

A few weeks ago I got Denon DCP-100, according to its parts sheet it has a chance to be something special!!! I am going to recap it first with fresh FineGold and NOS BlackGate caps; once re-calibrated I will post my impressions here

 

Hi Jorge. That is a great collection of discmans. Have heard many praises for the Denon-150 by people on the threads. Have never had the chance to listen to one. Have always been a Sony fanatic from the early 80's. The d-z555 sounds good to my ears. I just think the caps probably need replacing. Just seems to be on the low side. Did you manage to get the d-100 fixed? I would love to get mine working again but is beyond my skills. Thanks for reply. Ps- let me know what you think of the 150.

 

According to the top Discman authority (Kaosun of kaosuncd.com), D-100 is the best Discman made by Sony! Mine had servo chip busted, I even bought a "parts-only" unit (and of course, a new middle gear off eBay) but never got to actually fixing it. One of my DCP-50 was upgraded for me to DCP-150 status by Kaosun, it was one of my favorite discmans! Only D-50 MkII (not to be confused with the original/first-ever D-50!) and Technics SL-XP5 sounded better to my ears.
You should definitely recap D-Z555, it is worth it! That is why I have high hopes for my DCP-150. DCP-150 and D-Z555 are the only Discmans with two(!!) PCM66 DACs, one for each channel