Happy 40th Walkman!!!

I did a quick Wikipedia check and the term "earbuds" came out in the mid-1980s. However, the first Walkman players came with on-ear headphones (at first glance I thought the headphones you commented on were the Sennheiser HD414 due to the yellow cushions). I posted this video in another thread since it covered the Koss PortaPros, but it also features the first headphones that came with the Sony Walkman (go to 7:02):

​

 

Earbuds didn't become popular until the Apple iPod era. Part of the whole trendy look of having a Walkman in the '80s and '90s was having the headphones hanging around your neck even when you weren't listening to them. Back then earbuds were usually mono (a single earbud) and came with cheap transistor radios.

 

Wow, blast from the past! - I had one of those.

 

My last Sports Walkman broke down several years ago, and I just never bothered to find a new one. By this point in time, any vintage cassette deck will have maintenance issues and unless you know how to tear one apart and replace the belts (to say nothing of finding new belts), you're pretty much screwed. I have seen portable tape players around but I have no idea if they're any good, or if they just use cheap-as-hell parts and sound like ****.

Like most kids, I upgraded to portable CD players in the mid-90s, but you always had to carry those things so carefully, as the slightest tap would cause the discs to skip or stop. Forget about using one while biking or running. The good old Walkman was always the superior product in that department.

 

i am so old ...

 

I had the first CD/MP3 player that Sony released and it is still my favorite portable CD player. Great battery life, large display (about 4" by 3/4"), and a well-designed control layout. While the player itself was about 3/4" thick, it was round and only a little bit larger that the CD itself. While it would skip if you shook it too much, it had skip protection that allowed you to use it while walking (it basically had internal memory that would allow it to hold a few seconds of audio in memory). Its only weakness was it could not fast-forward or rewind when playing MP3 files.

My player eventually stopped playing and I haven't found a portable CD player as good as that one. If Sony offered a retro version of the player at a good price, I'd buy it in an instant.

To see what the player looked like, see the following video (at 0:28 its the player on the right):

​

 

Happy happy

 

That one doesn’t actually play tapes.

.

 

Indeed .Its a modern media player that Sony launched in tribute to the original walkman.

 

True. It has a screensaver that is designed to look like it is playing a compact cassette tape (the name of the album and artist appear on the "tape's" label and its color changes based on the music's mood), and the protective cover makes it look like the original Sony Walkman playing a tape when closed (with a part of the "tape" appearing through the window).

 

Yah. In other words, it’s a ‘cool fail’.

If it played tapes (and cost way less than 400 quid), then it’d be a winner.
.

 

I agree. With the recent modest resurgence in cassettes, I think there would be a market for a good portable player. The new compact cassette players I've seen out there I wouldn't purchase.