Sony Walkmans

[Rickson Gracie]

does anyone listen to their analog recordings on a sony walkman rather than an ipod to try to preserve all the analog goodness?

i figured these are found pretty cheap as a nice portable option.

[A Reel Person]

I don't usually listen to cassette analog walk-man-style portables any more, for the most part,... though I own a few that still work. I usually listen to my mixes on a full hifi stereo or a portable CD player with headphones. In the car I usually listen to the portable CD with a cassette adapter, tho' recently I did listen to a few actual cassettes in the car.

[famous beagle]

This thread made me curious and want to get my hands on one, so I checked them out. I figured with the ipod craze, that people would be practically giving these things away. I couldn't believe it! Many of them are selling for over $30! I was thinking, surely, I'll be able to snag one for a couple of bucks, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I haven't checked craigslist yet, only ebay. Maybe I'll fair better there. Or I bet garage sales (when the weather's nicer) would produce one.

[Talldog]

I see tham at yard sales all the time. You'll probably have to wait until spring though.......

[Muckelroy]

I once was given a Sony Walkman, in like 6th or 7th grade, one of the very first releases of it -- the big honkin' metallic ones.

It was absolutely SWEET -- don't know what happened to it though, between grade school and college it may have found its way to a donate pile :-(

When I first got it, the FM radio side of it worked REALLY good -- in fact it picked up stations better than my Hi-Fi stereo at the time did. However, the cassette portion would not play at all. I cracked it open and it turned out to be a faulty belt. I fabricated a replacement from a like-sized rubber band laying around, and it worked like a charm from there I was mostly impressed with how smoothly it played back cassettes. When I was that age, I didn't know the terms "wow and flutter," but I knew what wow and flutter sounded like, and I can tell you that this walkman had little to no wow and flutter to speak of. It was pretty sweet.

I can't say the same for the later models. My older brother had a walkman from the early 90's -- a standard v6 black plastic one, much lighter weight, and I recall doing some a/b testing. The later one sounded like crap on cassette playback, and also didn't pick up FM stations as clearly.

[Instroverb]

in analog as much as possible, in the car on cassette and at home on R2R or cassette.

[Talldog]

I had a big ass blue one when they first came out. No fm though. I'm pretty sure I have one or two non-sony ones in a box somewhere. I'll see if I can find it. Might be some other interesting random audio stuff in there as well. I'll keep you posted.

[famous beagle]

I just scored one locally off craigslist for $3. Perfect working condition.

[sweetbeats]

I used to have one of the WM-F28 Walkmans below. Used the tar out of it...it took a serious beating and kept on going. And hey, for the ultimate in sonic tailoring you better get an SEQ-50 on the other hip (pictured to the right of the WM-F28)!

Next we'll be seeing compressor and exciter Walkmans...

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by sweetbeats

I used to have one of these:



Used the tar out of it...it took a serious beating and kept on going.

And hey, for the ultimate in sonic tailoring you better get one of these on the other hip:





Next we'll be seeing compressor and exciter Walkmans...

Those links were "forbidden" for me. I don't know if it's just my system or what.

[Talldog]

All I got was a box with an x in it.

[sweetbeats]

Wierd...never had that happen like that before...okay...edited the post...should be able to se the WM-F28 and SEQ-50 now.

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by sweetbeats

Wierd...never had that happen like that before...okay...edited the post...should be able to se the WM-F28 and SEQ-50 now.

Whoah .. I'd never seen the walkman EQ before.

[sweetbeats]

Me either! Isn't that thing nutsy-cool?!

Found 'em both on this site:

http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/sony/

[Tom_B]

Interesting question!

I go ipod myself. Too convenient to pass up. My huge box of cassettes started to fall apart and sound like crap a long time ago, any ways. I threw those out and a lot of the cds (I ripped a lot of it to mp3) and now have a few hard drives of music (one ipod, one computer, one backup). I'm still hanging on to a lot of cds, though I never ever listen to them. I'll probably let them go soon.

Now records, on the other hand, I still listen to whenever possible. Records do sound good enough to me that I'll go through the hassle...

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by sweetbeats

Me either! Isn't that thing nutsy-cool?!

Found 'em both on this site:

http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/sony/

What a cool site! All the pictures of all those models!

[themaddog]

My car has an auxiliary "Ipod" connector. I just connected a Sony Walkman instead.

I don't own an Ipod, but the car has its own hard drive which will rip CD's. I've used it more than I'd like to admit.

-MD

[A Reel Person]

I love that Walkman History site!

I do have a few walkman type players. I used to love them. I had that "little" Aiwa that was AM/FM & a recorder as well as player, but the door broke off from an unfortunate drop. I had a larger Sony Am/Fm cassette walkman. I had a couple of Sanyo's that had 3 band EQ, liked them so much that I got 3, but their speeds didn't match from player to player. I have a more contemporary (90s) Sony AM/FM cassette walkman with digital tuner and 5 presets. Actually, I still have all of them, 'cause I never throw anything away. When I die, they'll probably find me buried in a mass of 80's relics!

This thread had me go to my utility drawers to see which walkman I had on hand, the 90s AM/FM digital tuner Sony Autoreverse. I'm sure it still works, but I couldn't bring myself to actually load it with batteries and "listen" to it. Maybe tomorrow. I'm more of a CD person now. I don't mind listening to the occasional cassette in the car or at home. I still have cassette in both venues.

One thing for sure, though, cassette walkmans outperform any CD or Minidisc Walkman in High-G-force sports such as snowboarding. The cassette will play when the Cd has given up on mistracking from the G's and bumpy ride. Tho' I've not been snowboarding in years, another post altogether, if I did go back I'd use a cassette tape walkman for tunez.

[Muckelroy]

My second vehicle was a 1990 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Coupe. It had a really nice cassette/radio deck built in, with a 5-band slider EQ. It sounded AMAZING! But I drove it as of just a few years ago, and cassette tapes were pretty much non-existent on the mainstream market, so as my primary collection was CD's, and me not wanting to lug around a portable CD player/tape adapter rig, I just dumped a few CD's to cassette and listened to cassettes. I used Maxell CrO2 tapes, and I pushed the envelope on the levels to get a nice punch out of the program material, that made me forget that the material originated from a CD

I would probably still be driving that car if the transmission didn't start slipping on me. Oh well.

[analogkid]

I still have a later model plain cassette Walkman around. Works like a champ, but it is rarely used.


AK