If I recall correctly the DC2 was introduced 1984, do anyone know how long it was in production? The reason for asking is that I just renovated one that has something that looked like a production date inside, see picture. If that means 1989 it seems way too late for this model. I was also surprised that the Dolby levels didn't need adjustment so I'm thinking if this has been fixed before and maybe replaced parts? I couldn't see any traces of that though.
I added a catalog to Walkman.land a while back. It indicates that the DC2 was still for sale in 1987: https://walkman.land/sony/wm-dc2#pid=11 It does not guarantee obviously that units were still produced in 1987, all could have been done in a single big batch earlier, although that seems unlikely. Will check if I have digital versions of the Japanese Sony catalogs after 1987. — Edit: found a German Sony catalog ‘89-‘90. I will add it to Walkman.land.
Interesting so it actually might be that late production. I assume the mechanical parts are identical to the rest of the DD series so only the head and PCB would be unique. It somehow makes sense since the DD series didn't include any other Dolby C units until DD9 was introduced 1989.
That stamp with date I think is factory. Seen it on other DDs in a similar location, but also some have a very similar one on pulleys or flywheels. 2 examples in that regard are DX100 and DD9: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/sony-wm-dd9-mystery-part.10570/#post-86109 https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/fixing-a-rare-sony-wm-dx100.8991/ As for Dolby levels, usually later models are adjusted properly but the the possibility of levels being re-adjusted before can't be excluded either. However the 2 (levels and date stamp) are not necessarily connected. Yes mechanically the entire "classic" DD lineup (DD, DDII, DDIII, DD30, DD100, DC2) uses the same mechanism. Even models like DD33 only differ in regard to carriage and WM-D3 in regard to extra recording components. It's likely that SONY didn't want to design their Dolby C circuits around the off-the-shelf NJM2065 given they had their own CX20218. But that changed in the late 80s with DD9 and other models.
