Cleaning my basement a few weeks ago, I came across the Walkman I had in high school and college, a Sony WM-F2085 (manual) with the beloved MegaBass functionality (one of many branded bass types Sony had, apparently). Originally released in 1990, this gem of a portable personal cassette player went for $95 at Sears in 1991 (which would be about $224 today). I don’t remember when exactly I got it or how much it cost at the time, though it was probably a year or two later than that, as a gift.

A vintage Sony Walkman FM/AM radio with a digital display
The visible dust on the clock is actually under the screen. Not much I could do about it.

This thing accompanied me everywhere and got quite the workout. I’d pack it up with a few Jay-Ski mixtapes for bus rides on class trips. It went with me on family vacations, keeping me company in the back seat during the car ride.  I paired it with my (underrated) Sony MDR-7502 headphones and it was fantastic way of listening to music in the early 90s.

After college, I joined my girlfriend (later, wife) and her mother on a trip to Vietnam for a month. Of course, I packed my Walkman and a carefully selected batch of tapes (I remember J. Smooth’s Soul mixtape was one and that it got heavy rotation that month). Unfortunately, I ran into some issues with my Walkman thanks to heavy use and needed have a small repair done on it while I was there. I was ready to drop $30 or $40 on a repair but when the Walkman came back to me, good as new, the bill was a 7,000 dong.

… or 50 cents, USD.

Of course, as time went on, the ol' WM-F2085 got less and less playtime. Portable CD players, mp3 players, then phones ended up supplanting it. But, still… finding it a few weeks ago felt like bumping into an old friend.

I decided to see if it would work and wasn’t surprised when, despite the time appearing on the front face, the unit wouldn’t play a tape. I figured the belt had probably deteriorated after two decades of sitting there, untouched. I cracked the unit open and I was right: the belt had broken and partially melted onto the moving parts.

Believe it or not, you can still order a belt specifically for this unit, though it’s shipped from Slovakia. Since I was already paying shipping, I picked up a 3000 Hz test tone tape at the same time.

As I waited for the belt to arrive, I cleaned the old gunk out with a combination of toothpicks and 91% isopropyl alcohol on a Q-Tip.

Paper towel with toothpicks, Q-Tips, and bits of melted and deteriorated tape player belt
Satisfying, but kinda gross

The belt was easy to attach (after watching this thorough video) and it looked as good as new (the “after” photo doesn’t actually show the belt attached, sorry about that):

Before and after shots showing the cleaning process of the tape deck
I don't know why I didn't take the "after" photo after I'd attached the new belt.

Last, but not least, I tested the speed of the unit using the 3000 Hz tape. I followed the testing instructions from where I got the tape (using the Spectroid app on Android for testing) and the speed adjustment instructions from the above video.

Yesterday, I sat down, put on my headphones (a newer pair), and grabbed a couple of mixtapes I hadn’t digitized and hadn’t listened to in many years. I played a bit with the Dolby and tape type settings. The familiar hiss was eventually washed away by a surprisingly good bass response and relatively crisp drums for a nearly 30-year-old tape. It sounded good and I had a minor flashback to that experience of picking up where I last left off with a cassette and then staying with whatever was in the deck until the side was over. Am I going to all of a sudden start using my Walkman again? Probably not very often, honestly. But it’s nice to know that it’s there, ready to serve up any of my thousands of tapes, as needed.