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After 30 years, Sony is discontinuing its Walkman portable cassette player


the stranger

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"A batch of Walkman cassette players produced back in April in Japan is now officially the final run ever, as Sony has announced that it won't make any more. Since first landing in 1979, the Walkman line has accounted for 200 million sales over the decades."

I'm totally amazed that they were still in production into this year. I can't even imagine.

 

Honestly, I didn't even realize they were still making blank cassettes, assuming they are.

 

 

I well remember the first stereo cassette deck I ever heard, back at the end of the 60s in the local high end audio shop. It was a then-$600 (AIRI) Sony deck hooked up to a then-$3000 stereo ($3K in 1969 is equivalent to about $18K today)...

 

... and it sounded like utter crap. The flutter was ridiculous, the high end all but non-existent, and the hiss quite noticeable. (This was, pretty sure, before Dolby B.)

 

At the time, I had a bottom-line Sony stereo reel deck (it didn't even have 'split-track' recording, it was stereo or nothing) but it sounded so much better than the 5x as costly cassette deck... I mean, there just was really no reasonable comparison.

 

[That said -- the very first CD player I heard was a Sony and it sounded like utter {censored}, too. Really, really awful. And it cost $2K -- at the time. Around $4.5K today.]

 

Things certainly got a lot better. I have a 'pro' cassette deck I bought in the 90s for the then-equivalent of around 100 bucks and it sounds... OK. For cassette.

 

It's not a format I'm gonna cry over.

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Cassettes were never intended for music reproduction, but dictation. I still have an ancient cassette Sony Walkman (playback only). Had a Walkman Por and recorded a lot of samples on it at one point, but it self-destructed over time...very shoddy construction, given the cost.

 

So are they still making Minidiscs?

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I have a die-hard cassette fan for a friend. I just mailed him the link. I should have asked him if he was sitting down before sending him the link. He doesn't have much money but he buys up every decent used Nakamichi Cassette Deck that he can get his hands on.

 

Dan

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Maybe they'll put the last one made in the Smithsonian.

 

 

I think there ia a 'virtual' Walkman and Pocket Calculator Museum where enthusiats can chat.

 

I remember a guy whose parents boght him a pocket calculator in 1973 from Sears...price was a little over $200 bucks.

 

He used to whip it out at any given opportunity (the calculator) to impress the ladies.

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I remember getting a Walkman as a birthday or Christmas gift and thinking it was just about the best thing ever. I was always stubborn when it came to changing to a new format, and didn't have a CD player (car stereo, in this case) until 2001.

 

I still haven't embraced this whole MP3/streaming audio/iTunes business.

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I've got one


It's in the loft
:)

 

Ferret it out, display it with the rest of your gear in your attic recording station.

 

From your pics it looks like a funky, warm, and decidedly great, venue to record the 'Brit -Pop' wonders that you do so well.:thu:

 

My studio is sorta/kinda like yours...a third floor servants room...not mine, but the servants of a rich, Hebraic, Doctors family, that lived in this house before me.

 

My Sony Reel to Reel, brought back from Viet Nam 1971, a 1993 Tascam 4 track Porta studio, and post WWII amps built and maintained by my father...as well as vintage Mics he acquired for next to nothing, when people dropped them off for repair and never showed up to retrieve them...

 

All on display here...messy but neat,and dripping of Provenace.

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This must make you really really sad. Are you buy gonna something from the last run?

 

It ain't all that, but yeah, I'm sentimental. Cassettes are so ingrained in my experience, what can I do? Those things and me go way back. And I sure as hell wasn't dictating. :poke:

 

Just the magic of recording. Just like today's digital and computers give people the tools, so did the cassette. Need I mention the 4-track? ;)

 

The cassette brought me so much joy over so many years, in spite of the dropouts and the eaten tapes, complete lack of usable high end all the others issues, you still can't put a price on what having that Walkman and that Twisted Sister tape did for me.

 

You could tell by the way I used my walk, I was a music man, no time to talk.

I may as well had a Walkman implanted, because I was one with the machine. ;)

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I've been reading about the possibility that Apple may buy out Sony. Apparently Sony has not been doing so well, and Apple has a huge amount of cash.

 

If that happens, I will know the end times are here. Sony makes the best laptops and some of the best digital cameras. Apple? Well Apple just sucks. :freak:

 

Please, someone say this ain't so.

 

Terry D.

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I'll shed a tear for the last Walkman. I played mine to death and just the other day found it again. I had thought of selling it because, apparently, some cassette Walkmans have fetched almost $30. That's a lot more than I expected...but I think I'll hold onto it just for the memories.

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