Hi! My DD-33 plays louder on left channel, regardless of which headphone jack I use. Is there any way of adjusting the balance on the DD? I tried azimuth adjustment but that did not sort it out. Volume knob is working fine without crackling. There is also a sound quality difference between headphone jack A and B. A is muffled compared to B. Do you believe I have to change capacitors after all?
Sony WM-DD30 and DD33 do not have a level adjustment as their predecessors, maybe Sony was quite confident in the design and despite components tolerances thought there was no need for balance and Dolby level adjustment. Capacitors used in DD walkman are typically of high quality and last for decades without leaks or degrades. Typical cause of channel unbalance can be a worn head: if you feel confident with a soldering iron you can swap L and R head solder joint on the PCB and if the unbalance swap than it is the head. Head can be re-lapped but that is something beyond my capabilities. Jack A and B are connected together with metal traces, there are no components between the two connectors. No idea how they could sound different; have you tried with a contact cleaner ?
Thank you for great info! Will try your tip about swapping the tape head wires. The headphone jacks might need some cleaning. Didn't know the were interconnected
If you lose the ground connection on a headphone jack you get very strange results as all you hear is the difference between the L and R channels. That had happened on a sold as faulty iPod I bought.
