Sony Sits the Walkman

[Andy Chalk]

Sony Sits the Walkman

It's the end of an era: After 30 years, the venerable Sony Walkman portable cassette player [http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SearchCatalog?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10551&in_dim_search=&keyword=cassette+walkman&x=11&y=8] is no more.

Gamers of a certain age will remember it well: The day that truly portable music first entered their lives. With the creation of the Walkman, a tiny (relatively speaking) cassette player that first came to market in 1979, Sony revolutionized music by making it possible for anyone to listen to what they wanted, wherever they wanted. In those heady days, nothing marked a person as a cutting-edge consumer more immediately and powerfully than the sight of a Walkman clipped to a belt.

Those days are long gone, of course. Sony sold roughly 200 million Walkman cassette players over the years but the inexorable march of progress had long ago rendered it virtually irrelevant and now it's official: Sony has announced that the batch of Walkmans (Walkmen?) shipped to Japanese retailers in April will be the last. Ironically, the official announcement of the end of the cassette Walkman came just one day before the ninth anniversary of the iPod [http://www.ipod.com].

MP3 players are cool and portable CD players had their moment, but neither of them can hold a candle to the old Walkman for sheer transformative magic. The end of the Walkman may have been inevitable but for people who remember the thrill of walking uptown with the Flash Gordon Soundtrack [http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Gordon-O-S-T-Queen/dp/B000000OBG/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1288028694&sr=8-13] blasting through their headphones, it's still a bit of a wistful moment.

Source: CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/25/sony.retires.walkman.mashable/index.html?hpt=C2]


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[Onyx Oblivion]

R.I.P. Walkman.

That remind me...I need to finally get an MP3 player or at least a smartphone. I mostly just play my DS in situations where I'd use an MP3 player, though.

 

[Silk_Sk]

*Long rant about the misuse of the word ironic*

The word you're looking for is "coincidentally."

 

[wooty]

Ahhh, the old walkman. I think my ones still kicking about in the loft somewhere, but its had its day. Goodbye my old friend.

 

[GodKlown]

How disappointing to realize I've outlived yet another device from my childhood. At least they already had MP3 versions of it, so you might see those for a while. Still, bad enough to know I was already older than this invention, doesn't help to know it died.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

The cassette Walkman is dead, but the Walkman still does exist as an mp3 player.

 

[Danpascooch]

I should buy one of the last batch and keep in unsealed, could you imagine how much an opened Walkman would be worth some day?

 

[SturmDolch]

They still made those? Wow. Yeah I remember having one, too, in the early 90s. My first portable music device. It worked a lot better than my discman.

 

[Irridium]

Good by Walkman. You brought me much joys over the years.

Well I still have mine, and it works. Just saying goodbye in general.

 

[Tharticus]

R.I.P Walkman. That device was a big deal back then.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I'm surprised it lasted this long to be honest.

 

[Moriarty70]

I should buy one of the last batch and keep in unsealed, could you imagine how much an opened Walkman would be worth some day?

Only in a select markets. I think the value of something is only equal to it's usefullness. Now a vinyl copy of the Flash Gordon soundtrack, that's a piece of Brian Blessed filled work.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

I should buy one of the last batch and keep in unsealed, could you imagine how much an opened Walkman would be worth some day?

When computers rebel and digital media cannot be trusted humanity will value your gumption...

 

[ewhac]

There had been cassette players of various smallness prior to the Walkman, and while Sony's effort was impressive in its own right, that wasn't IMHO what made the Walkman a raging success.

It was the headphones.

Prior to Walkman, personal listening involved either monaural plastic knobs you wore in a single ear and which sounded thin as all hell (when you could hear them at all); or a couple of "cans" holding small paper-cone speakers, which were bulky, heavy, and sounded fairly muddy.

Walkman was among the first (if not [em]the[/em] first) to offer headphones made with rare-earth magnets (Sarium Cobalt, I think) and mylar diaphragms. The frequency response and fidelity was astonishing compared to everything that came before. Not only did the new headphones sound infinitely better, they were also more compact, thus lending themselves to portable audio.

If you'd had previous experience with portable electronics and their poor headphones, the experience of hearing a Walkman for the first time was literally jaw-dropping.

 

[Citrus]

I didn't know anybody was still making Walkmans, to be honest. I haven't seen a cassette in a decade.

 

[therandombear]

I still have my old walkman one for cassettes and one for CDs xD

 

[Andy Chalk]

The word you're looking for is "coincidentally."

Actually, the word I'm thinking of right now is entirely different, but thanks for dropping in to contribute.