Nostalgia In Audio Device - The Sony Discman D-9

Do you remember the first time you fall in love to the music? I am pretty sure you had it and it is always related to the audio system as well. Same with me. In my teenager life, mostly I listen to FM radio. My bed room is sharing with my big brother and I am so happy listening music from radio cassette deck with him. I also remember having a portable cassette player. I carry anywhere I go and listen the music from it, is an unforgettable experience. After the cassette era, CD audio become a holy grail in good audio system. It is booming in early 90's and this is the first portable CD player that I had. The Sony Discman D-9.

Luckily I still keep it although it is already broken since so many years ago. The almost square size but thin profile of this portable CD player is still good looking player. I guess it is still considerably good design for today standard.

The body mostly from steel. It is quite heavy tho. Only the front panel is made from plastic. You can see many scratch and break at the edges that this CD player had. So many torture in it's life and Sony is remarkable a heavy duty product.

This is an ancient 3.5 mm jack headphones connectors that still using by today device. Thanks to Sony! I just knew this stereo jack invented by Sony and copyright free, so anyone can take it to their device. This also become a standard connection for most portable audio player until now except several years ago Apple with their iPhone 7 is the first to eliminate this headphones jack on their device. Good luck for them anyway, we still love it:)

On the other side there is a remote jack. Yes, it is quite popular for many devices at that time. You should remember this player is built around 1990, the infrared remote control is very luxury at that time and adding this wired remote is an optional if you want the convinced when plug this CD player into home stereo.

Until now, I still amazed with the built quality of this Sony CD player. The disc spinner is made with high quality material. You will see the inside later on.

Perhaps I kept this device to long exposed by water, the bottom side has many corrosion. Not surprising cause they are all made from steel.

Except for the battery cover is made from plastic. Inside it is a proprietary rechargeable battery that anyone hate and love. But the clever design from Sony team made this battery pack adapter can be insert by common AA size battery.

I guess I will open this things up for you guys:)

Lot's of information at the back panel, mostly in Japanese language and I guess it is for service purpose.

The board is full across all Discman body. This board is single layer, not quite fancy like today board that utilized fiber material and about four to eight layers.

What I really like Sony product is they made their own IC. This approach is only can be accomplish by big company like Sony.

This is all the inside of the Sony Discman D-9.

This is the headphones amp circuit

I believe this is the optic adjustment section

And this is the voltage converter.

The great things about this CD transport mechanism is using the copper based plate. Copper is well known for the Eddy Current Effect also friends for audio quality device like this one.

Sony Discman D-9 is quite hi-end device at that time. I remember sound quality is remarkable on my headphones also very good when I plug into my DIY amplifier. Yes, I already make my own amp when I was teenager and this is become my hobby until today. The switching from cassette player to CD player is absolutely day and night audio experience.

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