Hello and welcome back.... My love of the Walkman (Personal Cassette Player).
I miss the Walkman.
Throughout the middle 80s till early 90s i was madly in love with my Walkman. I had several through the years. The best one was a Anniversary model from AIWA and was made in Japan.
It cost me a small fortune (around $800), for someone who pumped petrol for a living, it took a while to save up (about 6 months).
You could buy a gold model or a black model. I chose black because as i didn't want to get mugged (gold looked too flashy)
This thing was the ducks nuts of Walkmans, auto reverse, record from radio or built in mic (or plug in), all metal construction, amorphous head and leather case.
You could tell some serious work went into the design and build of these units from Japan.
As you can see from the pics above, they were a real work of art. This little walkman went everywhere with me.... Until, I was hit by a car going 80kmph early one morning on my way to work.
Sadly, i never seen it again. While i was laying on the road, dying (i died twice), bleeding internally, pelvis broken in 4 places.... Some shithead (excuse the french) stole my most prized possession. It was gone.
I had several since but none was the same as this model. I preferred AIWA over Sony units, the sound quality seemed better.
I owned several Sony, Phillips, Panasonic models but always went back to the AIWA models.
Their was something about Walkmans, they sounded amazing and looked amazing. The good ones played Normal, Chrome (my fav) and Metal tapes with a selection of 60, 90 or 120 mins to listen to. I usually used 60 min tapes because i found that the 90 or 120 min tapes would put too much stress on the motors / rubber bands.
You had to listen to the whole tape. Sure you could FF (Fast Forward) but you never really knew where you would end up, but you didn't mind because it sounded so good.
The auto-reverse was wicked. Finished one side and like magic would turn to the other side.
You could interact with your Walkman.... You could...
listen to the radio, preset channels for later use.
Change bias from Normal, Chrome and Metal / Dolby to hear the difference.
Add extra bass at the push of a button.
Fall asleep using the timer function to the sounds of Milli Vanilli,
Wake to the sounds of Milli Vanilli using the alarm function.
It was like your best friend.
I will put a few pics below of some of the various Walkmans i owned (that i can remember)
Lets hope in the near future, someone will bring back the Walkman... And hopefully will put some effort into it.
You can get a Walkman style tape player for around $49 dollars at the moment but its very basic. No auto reverse, no bias settings just a USB out for its claim to fame. Still its a start.
Vinyl Records are making a comeback so fingers (and legs) crossed.
Some Walkman's Ive owned and loved over the years.....
P.S Massive thanks to website Walkman-Archive.com for the memories / pics of these amazing units.
Visit them here = http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/index.html
#Sony
#AIWA
#Walkman
#Tape
#Electronic80s
I miss the Walkman.
Throughout the middle 80s till early 90s i was madly in love with my Walkman. I had several through the years. The best one was a Anniversary model from AIWA and was made in Japan.
It cost me a small fortune (around $800), for someone who pumped petrol for a living, it took a while to save up (about 6 months).
You could buy a gold model or a black model. I chose black because as i didn't want to get mugged (gold looked too flashy)
This thing was the ducks nuts of Walkmans, auto reverse, record from radio or built in mic (or plug in), all metal construction, amorphous head and leather case.
You could tell some serious work went into the design and build of these units from Japan.
As you can see from the pics above, they were a real work of art. This little walkman went everywhere with me.... Until, I was hit by a car going 80kmph early one morning on my way to work.
Sadly, i never seen it again. While i was laying on the road, dying (i died twice), bleeding internally, pelvis broken in 4 places.... Some shithead (excuse the french) stole my most prized possession. It was gone.
I had several since but none was the same as this model. I preferred AIWA over Sony units, the sound quality seemed better.
I owned several Sony, Phillips, Panasonic models but always went back to the AIWA models.
Their was something about Walkmans, they sounded amazing and looked amazing. The good ones played Normal, Chrome (my fav) and Metal tapes with a selection of 60, 90 or 120 mins to listen to. I usually used 60 min tapes because i found that the 90 or 120 min tapes would put too much stress on the motors / rubber bands.
You had to listen to the whole tape. Sure you could FF (Fast Forward) but you never really knew where you would end up, but you didn't mind because it sounded so good.
The auto-reverse was wicked. Finished one side and like magic would turn to the other side.
You could interact with your Walkman.... You could...
listen to the radio, preset channels for later use.
Change bias from Normal, Chrome and Metal / Dolby to hear the difference.
Add extra bass at the push of a button.
Fall asleep using the timer function to the sounds of Milli Vanilli,
Wake to the sounds of Milli Vanilli using the alarm function.
It was like your best friend.
I will put a few pics below of some of the various Walkmans i owned (that i can remember)
Lets hope in the near future, someone will bring back the Walkman... And hopefully will put some effort into it.
You can get a Walkman style tape player for around $49 dollars at the moment but its very basic. No auto reverse, no bias settings just a USB out for its claim to fame. Still its a start.
Vinyl Records are making a comeback so fingers (and legs) crossed.
Some Walkman's Ive owned and loved over the years.....
P.S Massive thanks to website Walkman-Archive.com for the memories / pics of these amazing units.
Visit them here = http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/index.html
#Sony
#AIWA
#Walkman
#Tape
#Electronic80s
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