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Feedback on the old cassette player Sony Walkman WM-FX481 - AM. The history of Sony Walkman or how portable audio began Sony walkman cassette player

Review of the old cassette player Sony Walkman WM-FX481

The day before yesterday, when I was rummaging through the pantry in search of coolers, I accidentally found my old Volkman cassette player.

Yes, it was a good thing back then.

I remember very well that I bought it in 2002 in Novosibirsk for 1900 rubles and a few kopecks. Then it was very expensive - portable CD-mp3 players did not exist at all - they just started to appear.

And, people, therefore, I managed mainly with cassette players and tape recorders. Well, cassettes in the markets were the only way they were sold for 15-20-30 rubles, depending on popularity.

It was my first player - before that I had neither a tape recorder, nor anything at all. How did I live without music back then?

Why am I writing about this player now - it is still alive - all functions and buttons work. And he is already 13 years old. That's what Japanese quality means, though... I must admit, I used this player only for the first three years, until I bought a then-fashionable Panasonic CD-mp3 player with anti-shock in 120 seconds))

The quality of mp3 songs was an order of magnitude higher than on a cassette, and even a 700 MB disc contained up to 140 songs.

Since then, she has lain in a box for about 10 years.

As I wrote above - I bought this player for the first time. As it should be, I didn’t understand the players at all - I stupidly bought into the store for a cool appearance. I did not know or understand anything about its functions and capabilities.

And he, at that time, knew quite a lot.

There was (why "was"? - and to this day there is) the possibility reverse- that is, there is no need to turn the cassette as it ends.

Possibility VCLoop playback- when the tape of the cassette ended on one side, reverse was turned on in the opposite direction - and ... so on in a circle until the batteries run out or you get tired of listening.

Very powerful volume- and now I unscrew the volume control only by 20%.

Relatively small size, although ... in 2003-2004, more miniature "cassettes" appeared - a little larger and thicker than only the cassette itself and completely on digital control- that is, there were no "those" control buttons as such - there were small shallow rubber "push buttons" on the case.

Well, and most importantly - digital FM/AM radio tuner with memory up to 40 stations.

At that time there were about 20 FM radio stations in Novosibirsk and all of them could be saved.

Plus lock button front buttons HOLD.

And two digital features:

- Mega Bass- when the bass stood out very well - it was especially good when you listen to the radio - after all, music stations transmitted a rather scanty bass - and here is a ready-made amplification from the player;

- AVLS- forced decrease in volume - I don’t know why, I didn’t use it, but the volume was severely reduced.

Here is such a "volkman" - a true Japanese quality (if it is still alive and 100% functional). He also had a plastic case for attaching to his belt - it's a pity I sowed it somewhere.

I almost forgot about batteries. There are two AAs here - enough for a very, very long time:

After reading the comments, I want to refresh our memory with you.

In Novosibirsk, when I was studying there, in 2002 no one in my group had a CD player - they did, of course, but weren't common.

The first common CD players were just that CD- players - they did not read any mp3 files, they could only read audio CDs, which could hold up to 20 songs at most.

They were bulky and thick, not everyone had anti-shock.

A year later, the matter, of course, moved forward - in 2003 My Russian friend Vanya bought such a plump CD-mp3 player, sorry I don't remember the company. So - in his group, he alone had such a player.

Let me also remind you that flash drives were not widely (and indeed) common at that time.

We, students, kept all our files on 3.5" floppy disks. And there were boxes like this for storing floppy disks.

My friend Lenya only bought an expensive 64 MB USB flash drive in 2004 - and again, he alone had a flash drive for the whole group (he was rich :)). Then stupidly flash drives were very expensive and not everyone could buy them.

Let me remind you that in 2002 computers with Pentium4 and Athlon1800+ processors were popular.

Hard drives in 2002 for 80 GB were very expensive and not every computer had them.

BUT- it was from 2003-2004 that a technological boom took place sharply and massively began to produce flash memory, as a result of which from year to year (exactly according to Moore's law) flash memory began to become cheaper, and their volumes increase.

Hard drives began to move to smaller processes and their capacity began to double every year at the same cost.

I'm talking about common and massive pieces of iron. In 2002, audio cassettes were the king of storing and selling music, and it was cassettes that were sold on the markets, and not CDs with mp3 files.

At least that was the case in Novosibirsk. Everyone listened to only cassettes.

MP3 files weren't that widely distributed - what do you want when your hard drive was 40 GB and an mp3 file averaged 3-5 MB.

Mass distribution of mp3 music happened simultaneously with the cheapening of hard drives and flash memory - this happened a little later.

The Walkman brand needs no introduction, for sure, readers used and perfectly remember Sony Walkman cassette and CD players, with which many people associated the concept of portable music as such. At one time, it was Walkman players that gave a huge impetus to the development and popularization of portable players. Musical media has constantly evolved, after very dimensional records and reels, a more compact and practical format appeared - audio cassettes (or compact cassettes). Their size already made it possible to think about creating portable devices for personal music listening, and Sony became the first company to launch a commercial portable cassette player.

Walkman cassette players, or how it all began

Sony Walkman TPS-L2

The history of the Walkman began a little over 35 years ago, in 1979. Developed by engineer Nobutoshi Kihara on behalf of the director and founder of Sony Akio Morita. The first model was the TPS-L2, which was a slightly redesigned Pressman TCM-600 voice recorder. He lost the built-in speaker and recording function, and the built-in microphone was used for the function "hotline", which overlaid the sound from the microphone to the music for communication during music playback. The function did not take root, it was removed in the next player model. The external microphone jack was converted to a second headphone output, which made it possible to listen to music together. To be fair, it is worth remembering that TPS-L2 is the first in the world commercial portable audio player (but not the first in terms of functionality and purpose). The inventor was Andreas Pavel in 1972, the device was called the Stereobelt and, as the name implies, was a kind of belt with the necessary electronics. He was never able to interest manufacturers of equipment with his invention, but he patented it in many countries, which allowed him to repeatedly sue Sony, which nevertheless paid a considerable amount to the inventor in 2003. The TPS-L2 did not become very popular at the beginning of its life cycle, but this changed with promotion and release a few years later in other countries. First option The TPS-L2 was completely unbranded Walkman, it was emblazoned with the word Stereo (as in the photo above). By the time they entered the international market, the names Soundabout, Stowaway and Walkman appeared, which eventually caught on.

Sony Walkman TPS-L2

The most successful from a commercial point of view is considered to be released in 1981 WM-2 (or Walkman II), on which the engineers worked in detail. It became more attractive and significantly reduced in size, which was largely due to the rearrangement of all mechanisms. In particular, the entire tape drive mechanism has moved into the lid. The sound quality has not been forgotten either: it has become much better. The player sold over 2 million copies. In the same year, budget and not so popular models were released. WM-1 and WM-3 (the first is based on a voice recorder, the second - cheaper version of TPS-L2).

Sony Walkman WM-2

In its history, Sony has released a huge number of cassette players, it makes no sense to remember everything. You can focus on several of the most interesting models. The Sony WM-7 was released in 1982 and was the first portable player to feature an auto-reverse function, a wired remote control, and a Hold function to avoid accidental presses. The player used three motors: two for playback in both directions and a separate one for rewinding.

Sony Walkman WM-7

WM-10 was released in 1983. Its main "chip" was the design, thanks to which the player was smaller than the audio cassette in height (without it inside, of course). In order to insert it, the cover had to be moved. In working order, of course, the device increased to its usual size.

Sony Walkman WM-10

The company continued to produce cassette models even after the launch of CD players. The Sony WM-701 was a commemorative and released in 1989 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Walkman. The company shoved the entire arsenal of its technologies into it, the player was compact, with a digital remote control, but there was no talk of its former popularity.

Sony Walkman WM-701

Sony's latest cassette model was the WM-EX651 in 2010. It had nothing revolutionary, but was sort of the end of an era. Later that year, the company announced that it would discontinue its cassette Walkmans. In total, about 200 million units were sold (approximately half of all Walkmans).

Sony Discman CD players (later Walkman)

Sony Discman D-50

With portable CD players, Sony also arrived early and launched its first model in 1984, which received another sub-brand and was called the Discman D-50 (in some markets D-5). Development began shortly after mass production of CDs began in 1982 and the release of the stationary model. CDP-101. The main goal of the engineers was to create a portable disc player that would not exceed four CD boxes in a stack. The Discman brand was used for a long time, but in the 90s they decided to abandon it, and Sony CD players also began to show off the words "Walkman" on CD players. But this Sony Walkman D-E01 was released for the 15th anniversary of CD players in 1999:

Sony Walkman D-E01

Sony CD players are still being produced to this day and have reached their technological maximum: control panels with screens, support for various formats, both their own ATRAC and MP3.

Sony experiments

In 1987, Sony and Philips developed the DAT (Digital audio tape) digital audio format, which was planned to replace compact cassettes. The format never caught on for various reasons, including financial ones. For some time it was used in the professional field, the first device was the TCD-D3 player:

Sony Walkman TCD-D3

The second not very successful experiment was the MiniDisc format, which appeared in 1992. It was again created as a replacement for cassettes and competition for CDs. The MiniDisc could store as much music as a CD, but was smaller and could be overwritten. The sound was encoded with its own compression algorithm ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) audio data, which also did not take root, but was used by the company for a long time and stubbornly even after switching to players with flash media. The first model was portable recorder MZ-1:

Sony Walkman MZ-1

Even with the advent of the MP3 format (and portable players), the company tried to promote and improve its format. There is no point in delving into this, Pavel Urusov already raised this topic in the article "The Curse of the Pioneer. Why MP3 became popular, but MiniDisc did not". We confine ourselves to the fact that the latest model was the Sony MZ-RH1, which supported discs of the format Hi-MD - successor to MD:

Sony Walkman MZ-RH1

The company announced the retirement of the MiniDisc format in 2013, at the same time it stopped selling players. "Consumables" for them will be produced until 2015.

Another exotic was the portable video player Sony GV-8 Video Walkman, released in 1989. It played Video 8 cassettes and was equipped with a 3-inch color screen and TV tuner. The battery was enough for 45 minutes - an hour of work, and the gadget weighed 1.1 kg

Sony GV-8 Video Walkman

The MP3 era and the decline of Walkman popularity

In the late 90s, when the MP3 format was gaining popularity and more and more players appeared with its support, it all started with the Korean MPMan, which was released in 1998 and had only 32 MB of memory on board. Soon a Compaq variant with a hard drive appeared, and CD player manufacturers began to implement format support in their gadgets. Sony issued the so-called Network Walkman on this occasion. The first was NW-MS7 with support for memory cards 64 MB MagicGate MemoryStick (again, our own development, from which few people were delighted):

Sony Walkman NW-MS7

They only supported ATRAC for a long time, this was against the background of the growing popularity of the iPod released in 2001, which was tied to iTunes. Over time, Sony abandoned this practice, but all subsequent models could no longer boast such success as Walkman cassette and CD players in their time. The competition became huge, Sony was never able to regain its leading position, manufacturers offered similar (or more) functionality at lower prices. In 2004, the first Walkman with a 20 GB hard drive NW-HD1 was released, which could not compete in price with the same iPod. Later, versions with a smaller volume were also produced.

Sony Walkman NW-HD1

In 2005, the fairly popular and compact Sony Walkman NW-E505 was released with built-in Flash memory and support for MP3, WMA, WAV, ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus:

Sony Walkman NW-E505

The first touch Walkman appeared in 2009 under the name NW-X1060:

Sony Walkman NW-X1060

Sony Walkman NWD-W273

The Walkman brand began to be actively used in mobile phones and smartphones, which Sony positioned as music:

Sony Ericsson W810i

In recent years, portable players as a class have been replaced by smartphones. Now a small part of users buy a separate player for the sake of the battery of a smartphone, just to have a separate device for music or for the sake of better sound quality. For the latter type of users, a class of "audiophile" players appeared. For the most part, they are intended only for listening to music without compression.

The newest and top model Sony Walkman NW-ZX1 was developed with an emphasis on such an audience: the player proudly flaunts the inscription " High-Resolution Audio", which essentially means support for uncompressed FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF and DSD formats.

Sony Walkman NW-ZX1

Hardware here, too, everything is very good: the appropriate filling is used, a metal frame, a backdrop under the skin and 128 GB of internal memory. It is controlled by Android 4.1 OS and costs a lot of money: the player is not yet sold in Ukraine, and the Russian price is 27,990 rubles (about 10,000 UAH), which is quite a lot. The company's logic is quite understandable, but its popularity is questionable, especially given the presence of a large number of cheaper audiophile players.

This is how 35 years of the outstanding Walkman brand have passed, which spawned a huge market for devices. Despite the fact that Sony has long ceased to be the leader in this market, Walkman devices are still being produced, and there are no prerequisites for the termination of their existence yet.

Enjoy a morning jog listening to your favorite music or get the day"s first news reports on a vintage Sony Walkman. The Walkman lives forever thanks to its availability on eBay"s marketplace. Purchase a reliable Sony Walkman to play cassettes from your personal library collection.

Once the headsets are plugged in and the device turned on, the user can choose an audio source. As long as the Walkman maintains appropriate power from its battery source, the audio will play uninterrupted. To hear the audio, plug the appropriate headset jack into the corresponding port. As long as the headset works correctly, the audio will run through the headset wires to their speakers.

Headsets are not the only audio delivery devices. Small portable speakers designed for the Walkman exist. These speakers broadcast sound in a manner no different from oversized stereo speakers. The three common audio sources are:

• analog audio cassette
• FM and AM radio
• weather band

Essentially, the design of the Sony Walkman integrates the sealing of the casing to keep moisture, dust, dirt, and other impurities out of the internal working. Owners can"t always control the environment in which they travel with the Walkman. Contaminants might be in the air. The protective seals on a Walkman sold on eBay provide a defense mechanism against environmental hazards.

"Vintage" refers to the original Sony Walkman players sold during from 1979 to the early 2000s. The earliest forms of the Walkman operated with cassette tapes and later would play compact discs. Modern portable music and audio players rely on computer file formats such as MP3/MP4, WMA, WAV, and the like. Vintage Walkman models run the earlier cassette or disc sources.

With a fully charged battery, a Sony Walkman may play a cassette tape continuously for roughly 32 straight hours. Radio play may last upwards of 50 uninterrupted hours. The lesser amount of time with the cassette tape derives from the Walkman's engagement of the cassette player. The device requires more power to run the magnetic tape through the heads. Compatible batteries would be the "AA" variety. Review the Walkman's packaging to determine how many AA batteries are necessary.

About 15 years ago, a portable radio tape recorder, and even with an auto-reverse and radio, not to mention a wired control panel, was a super fashionable device. And I would like to tell you a little more about this.

The history of the players began and ended quite quickly - in 1979, "wokmen" appeared out of nowhere and after a quarter of a century they went nowhere. Under the cut - a brief history of the most famous "cassette" brand - Sony Walkman.

The very first. Sony TPS-L2

You might think that the first portable cassette player was the result of sleepless nights of thousands of hardworking Japanese employees of Sony Corporation. In fact, everything was quite prosaic: in the late 70s, the company's management started a reorganization, and the employees of the tape recorder division suddenly loomed with the prospect of a merger with another department, with staff cuts and salary cuts. In order not to lose a warm place, a "novelty" - Walkman was presented to the management's court. It is also impossible to call the player a fundamentally new development: the first model was a Pressman TCM-600 voice recorder slightly modified with a file (pictured below), and compact cassettes were developed back in the 60s.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Sony engineer. Before you is a portable cassette recorder, and you need to make a player out of it, quickly and without any changes. They did this: they threw out the built-in speaker and all the recording electronics, and the “Record” button was renamed to “Hot Line”. Pressing it activated the built-in microphone (which was left), and the owner could listen to the surrounding sounds through the headphones. Not surprisingly, this super-useful feature was already forgotten during the development of the next model. There were two connectors on the Pressman case for connecting an external microphone and headphones. In the first Walkman, both connectors remained, so two pairs of "ears" could be used. In promotional materials, the desire to simplify the development of a new model was explained by the concern for your friends: "listen to music together."

Actually, there was no Walkman logo on the first production samples yet, it appeared a little later. The word has become a simple transcription of the existing Pressman brand. The name "Walky" was originally proposed, but this was already used by Toshiba for their portable radios.

Sony WM-2: the most successful Walkman

The next model, the Walkman WM-2, saw some major changes. The dimensions of the player have been seriously reduced due to the transfer of the mechanical part - the motor, belts, head and other things - into the lid. The quality of the model as a whole has also improved. As a result, the second Walkman became the most successful in the history of the brand: more than one and a half million such players were sold (according to other sources - 2.5 million).

In the same 1981, the next model came out, completely illogically called WM-1. Just like the very first player, it was developed on the basis of a voice recorder, and this time it was cheaper. Sony WM-3 for the same reason is of no interest - it was a TPS-L2, repainted in a different color and slightly discounted. The first Soviet Vega portable cassette players looked about the same - large, clumsy and not very reliable.

This model is still quite large in size, but for the first time almost all the functions typical of an advanced player are implemented in it. The control was electronic, using buttons on the end, or from a special wired remote control. It is also the first Walkman to feature auto-reverse, and it uses three motors: two for playback in one direction or the other, and one for rewinding. A Hold button has also appeared, excluding accidental pressing.

Sony WM-10: smaller than a cassette

In this model, nothing fundamentally new appeared, except for the size. In fact, the height of this player is less than that of a cassette, and in order to insert it, it was necessary to slide the cover down, thereby increasing the dimensions. This not the most convenient solution in life allowed Sony to once again announce the creation of the "world's smallest and thinnest" device.

Sony WM-35: the first waterfowl

Another "world's first" model from Sony is a waterproof player. This is not the first representative of the sports line of portable devices, and far from the last: even Discman CD players were produced in a protected case. However, the water resistance of the model is not absolute, and apart from it there was nothing to boast of: playback in one direction, no radio, no Dolby NR noise reduction.

Sony WM-F107: possible without batteries

But this is a really interesting model: the first Walkman with a solar battery! Of course, the energy of the sun was not enough to get rid of the batteries completely. With a dead battery, you might be able to listen to the radio if the lighting is bright enough. But the player could be left for several hours under the lamp and recharge the built-in battery a little. By the way, flat batteries first appeared here, which were most actively used in portable CD players.

Sony WM-701: Anniversary

In 1989, the Walkman brand celebrated its tenth anniversary. In honor of the anniversary, a limited series of WM-701 players was released, in which all the most modern technologies at that time were implemented. Slim metal body, electronic remote control, long battery life: it was a real dream player. Sony's most advanced player was released in a year when the popularity of compact cassettes began to decline. Already in 1986, Sony released the first portable CD player Discman D-50. A year earlier, Dire Straits had released Brothers in Arms, the first million-selling album on CD.

In 1989, another event took place, little noticed by the public. My own collection of audio cassettes began to exist, which was regularly replenished for ten whole years, until I switched to a new format. The 20th anniversary of the Walkman was celebrated with the WM-WE01 with wireless remote control and headphones. The innovation turned out to be unclaimed, and five years later, instead of the next anniversary cassette player, a player with a built-in hard drive was introduced.

Sony WM-EX651: latest

This model was released several years ago, but is still sold in Japan and some other countries (not officially on sale in Russia). In addition to it, you can find some other models on sale, cheaper, but this one is the most interesting. At least in that it differs little from the anniversary player of 1989: the same case thickness, wired remote control with headphones, buttons on the case. Only the design has changed a bit.

The "real" Walkman can still be buy but he didn't have long to live. The universal brand, unlike Discman, which does not contain the type of media in its name, is now present on Sony Ericsson mobile phones and portable players on flash memory. Moreover, now it is not necessary to buy a player: a mobile phone will do an excellent job of playing music. The development of computer technology has led to the fact that the audio cassette has become obsolete overnight, along with many other formats that were relevant quite recently. Vinyl, VHS, laser discs - soon you will have to explain to the younger generation what it is. I can't say that I regret such a quick change. But your old Sony WM-EX162 sometimes I take it out, along with a bag of old cassettes, to listen to ancient collections that I recorded for hours once in my youth.