Sony PS-F9 Specs and Info

Since there seems to be confusion in the English speaking community about the specs and info on the Sony PS-F9 (and since my blog post on it is one of the more popular ones), I decided to find as much as I can from the Japanese speaking community and translate it here. Hope this helps! (If you're looking for more info on the PS-F5 than I provide in my other post, go to this website. It's a great website dedicated to the PS-F5.)

I'm not going to bother repeating info I mentioned in my older blog post, in order to keep things as short as possible.

*Everything I say here is from other websites, forums, auction sites etc. I don't take any responsibility for any of the info here.*

1 - In Japan, the F9 completely outsold the F5. It's rare to see an F5 up for auction in Japan, where as the F9 comes up once in awhile. It's interesting to think that the exact opposite is true elsewhere in the world... I don't know why. So if you're looking to buy an F9, go to a Japanese auction site. Some F9/F5's are sold with the Flamingo logo on it. These one's were sold with an extended warranty of up to a year....but this makes little difference now.

2 - There's some confusion in the English community as to whether the F9 has an FM transmitter. Well according to all the auction sites I visited, and all the old brochures I saw, this seems to be a definite yes. There wasn't one single PS-F9 being sold in auctions in Japan that lacked that feature. In all the old brochures I read, they also proudly proclaimed the FM transmitting capabilities of the F9. In all the websites reviewing the product, everyone mentions the FM transmitter as well - like here, and here.

Speaking of brochures, here's a great collection of brochures that doesn't show up on English Google searches as easily - although that might change now that I linked it. Again, FM transmitter is mentioned several times as a standard feature of the F9.

However, there are some noted instances when the FM transmitter doesn't seem to work. There are a number of possibilities for this:

1. A conflict with commercial radio stations. If a commercial radio station is broadcasting in the same frequency in your region, it obviously won't work very well. Some have indicated that if you set your radio to Mono (instead of Stereo), it can alleviate this problem.
2. If you happen to have a Japanese version of the F9, it might not work as easily if you reside outside of Japan. Why? Because FM radio operates in different frequencies in Japan compared to some parts of the world, such as North America. Test on a radio made for Japan.
3. The transmitter itself is broken? But this seems to be a rare problem...

3 - If you're looking to buy a PS-F9, there's some advice on things to look for that aren't obvious:

1. A lot of them no longer come with the AC adapter
2. Taking off the cover is actually quite finicky. As such, some of them have a broken tongue/lip/plastic hook, making it look imbalanced. Not a deal breaker (since it doesn't affect the sound or operation), but something that is often broken. Here's a visualization of what to look for. In the big left picture, the line between the cover and base is straight and balanced between left and right sides. This isn't the case in the other smaller pictures to the right.

Minor, but if you're paying a lot of money for this, might be something to look for...

4 - If you don't own the instructions manual, this might not be obvious: Sometimes, the needle starts to rise during use. This is actually noted in the manual as something that happens when the batteries are dying, and not a defect in the product. Just change the batteries.

That being said, if you need to change the needle, detailed instructions are as follows, translated from here.:

1. First, turn it off and take off the front cover carefully, by pushing in the sides. Slowly slide off the cover.
2. Turn it back on, and change the settings to EP. Hold the "DISC HOLD" button and press start. A cartridge should come up. Turn off the power.
3. There's a hole/groove in the frame that is meant to hold the arm. Place the arm in the hole/groove to make it easier to pull off the cartridge (and to prevent damage to the arm). Pull out the cartridge.

The needle make number is ND144G (although some have said that you can get the same thing under N439 off of this website.  It seems to be that you can also use the needles for the Aston SP145, Jelco MC50D, as well as Kenwoods KD22,33F,40R,44R,N50,51,P7 products and it will work.

That's about it!
Hope this is helpful.

The Sony PS-F5 & F9 "Flamingo": The Portable Vinyl Player

Back in April, I posted a blog entry on Mister Disk, the portable vinyl player. Since the statistics on this blog indicate that it's the most popular entry, I thought I would post another entry on a similar, rival machine.

Sony also released a similar machine to Mr.Disk in the same year as Audio Technica - 1983. That they look eerily similar seems strange, but the Sony machine has several differences from Mr. Disk.

Known as the Sony PS-F5, Sony's machine also has the cool ability to play records upright due to its record clamping system, direct drive capability and linear tracking. This meant that you could actually mount the PS-F5 on a wall and play the record, which is pretty neat. Like Mister Disk, it has dual headphone sockets and runs on batteries as well as on external power supply - but I don't know if the batteries last as long as Mister Disk (12 hours for Mister Disk is pretty damn impressive). You could also buy rechargeable batteries, and a car battery cord (I'm not entirely sure what that means - I assume it's a car charger, used through the cigarette lighter).

Its cousin, the Sony PS-F9, had a few more features than the F5 (What I state from this point forward is based upon the Japanese brochures, so I don't know if the overseas releases were different in specs). In Japan, both models were sold as the "Flamingo". The PS-F9 has a quartz lock system (better speed control), a line out, and an automatic record clamp (instead of the manual clamp that the F5 has). The coolest thing about the F9 though, is that it comes standard with an internal stereo FM transmitter. That's right, it's not a receiver, but a transmitter! so you can broadcast the record over FM radio in your house! Very cool.

*If you want to know more about the specs, and some detailed information about the PS-F9, go to my blog post here, where I go into further detail.*

If you want to see a larger pic, just click the picture and it will open in a new window. It's an old Japanese brochure, basically stating all the specs:


The PS-F5 in action:


The PS-F9 in action:


If anyone knows of any other portable, battery operated vinyl players, please do share!