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"Giving up my iPod for a Walkman"

post #1 of 17
6/30/09 at 1:58pm
Thread Starter 

When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.
What your comments on this story?
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post #2 of 17
6/30/09 at 4:02pm
Let's see him review an old mobile phone.

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post #3 of 17
6/30/09 at 4:38pm
and id like to see an ipod working when its 30 years old and whether it gets 3 hours of use before the battery dies
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post #4 of 17
6/30/09 at 5:50pm
Read this the other day. Liked the part about him taking 3 days to realise the tapes had another side.
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post #5 of 17
6/30/09 at 5:54pm
It took him 3 days to figure out tapes had 2 sides? Wow.

This makes me feel old. I'm 19, but I grew up with an early 90's Walkman. Ah, the good 'ol days back when I had my MC Hammer tapes.
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post #6 of 17
7/1/09 at 12:54am
I have a couple walkmen as well as a full on cassette deck. I'd hate to pass up some interesting music just because it's in the wrong format. My first, a 1982 Toshiba, is in good shape and still works.
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post #7 of 17
7/1/09 at 3:26am
I had a water resistant Sony Walkman in the early 90's. Brought it with me most days to high school. I certainly would not take it over an iPod. Also don't miss the tape hiss, stretched tape sound defects, and the sporadic 'eaten' tape.
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post #8 of 17
7/1/09 at 6:19am
But it's not all a one-way street when you line up a Walkman against an iPod. The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter............... A splitter cost like...1 dollar
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post #9 of 17
7/1/09 at 10:50am
not to mention that a properly recorded chrome tape from a superior source and a good walkman at first will provide a smoothen and warmer sound signature, but unfortunatly, tape degrades faster then nand,
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post #10 of 17
7/1/09 at 12:51pm
yeah, blogged about that yesterday - lovely article and the kid writes way better than i do! my first walkman was much later, about 1993 or 1992, was quite small and almost pocketable, but my mate's good aiwa and sony slim aluminium players were the objects of my avidity.
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post #11 of 17
7/1/09 at 4:58pm
i had one of those panasonic all terrain ones, in blue and orange, unfortunatly it got sand in the motor when i took it to a summer camp, aparently some girl got the idea that you can leave it half buried in the sand since it was that resistant, what she didnt know is that it had a seal switch you had to turn 90 degrees to get it airtight, after that, no one ever again got to barrow my portable gear,
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post #12 of 17
7/1/09 at 5:16pm
The comparison would be to something like the Rio PMP300 to do this properly. First generation vs. first generation.

The first Rio, if we recall, only had about 32mb of memory; and had a parallel interface. And it sounded really bad.

Of course, the very first walkman had really limited frequency response. Later generations became pretty darn good. Some even significantly reduced the wow and flutter associated with active moment like running.

No way I'd give up a current model MP3 player now. They are quite good for modest prices. Even if you are not an Apple fan, a nano with 8gb of memory for $149 is a nice piece of gear. A Sansa Clip with 4 mb for $35-50 is amazing stuff compared with a walkman. You get the picture.

Remember when there was an attempt to put turntables on gyros into cars!!

But hey, there are still fans of 8 track tapes.

I thought the HIFI track on VHS was not bad for music storage (not for portability of course).

I can be retro with the best of them. Every so often I still put out a DAT tape and use my Sony DAT man! (The WMDT1).

Personally I still jones for the Elcasette (not!).
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post #13 of 17
7/2/09 at 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bba1973 View Post
It took him 3 days to figure out tapes had 2 sides? Wow.
Generation Z Whaddayaexpect?
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post #14 of 17
7/2/09 at 10:45pm
Lets see tape head and capstan wear not to mention the motor and while it was nice from
memory tape hiss was present on quite passages. I think it would be like getting rid of
your turntable and getting a wax cylinder rig.
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post #15 of 17
7/2/09 at 11:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonthouse View Post
Generation Z Whaddayaexpect?
A little bit better than that...
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