Sony release a walkman

[msknight]

The good news - Sony release an anniversary walkman. The bad news, it doesn't do cassette.

 

It apparently "evokes the original character of vinyl into your digital tracks" using a "Vinyl Processor"... yeah... right.

 

Sony didn't actually create the walkman. It was called the "Stereo Belt" and was invented by German-Brazilian Andreas Pavel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereobelt

 

My preference was Aiwa, and I do repair them, but they went to the wall some time ago. Only the name lives on. So cassette walkman lovers have been watching Sony for some time... what has come is, in the world of today's DAPs, a little disappointing, to be perfectly honest.

[lewdicrous]

Was this made to compete with the zune?

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, lewdicrous said:

Was this made to compete with the zune?

it was made to compete with the galaxy player

[msknight]

Just now, lewdicrous said:

Was this made to compete with the zune?

With the recent resurgence in audio cassette tape, helped in part by Guardians Of The Galaxy, some (me included) were looking to Sony to create an anniversary cassette walkman. That, would have been something worth waiting for and possibly producing in limited numbers... but this is just a me-too device in my personal opinion.

 

Cassette never really went away. The Indi music scene has been using them to get their music into the hands of fans at events, as duplication is much, much cheaper than CD and especially vinyl. With the advent of digital duplicator bins, the quality of mass produced cassettes was on the rise as well. New cassette decks have been coming out of China, but nothing even like the quality of the older units. So the timing would have been right for Sony to have released a cassette walkman. But, I guess that isn't going to happen.

[msknight]

For people who want more info, National Audio are the company that are creating new audio tape... as existing stocks of tape are nearly exhausted.

 

 

[msknight]

Here is a recording played back on an Aiwa that I've refurbished... a far cry from the hissy stuff that people remember.... and this is the reason why people were looking to Sony to give us a modern, new cassette player. It's sad that this opportunity was missed. Permission obtained for the audio used, as indicated. Video is not monetised.

 

 

[mariushm]

18 minutes ago, msknight said:

Cassette never really went away. The Indi music scene has been using them to get their music into the hands of fans at events, as duplication is much, much cheaper than CD and especially vinyl.

You're joking, right?

You can get audio cd's made for less than half a dollar.... the cassette tape alone costs around 20-30 cents... more if you want good quality tape.

 

ex CD Baby does 500 discs with printed stuff on them plus color covers for around $600 for 500 discs, discounts for higher quantities : https://duplication.cdbaby.com/quoter/default.aspx

Disc Factory does it for 380 uk pounds (~470$) : https://www.discfactory.co.uk/replication-quote/

A local Romanian IT magazine used a Hungarian replication company to make their discs and even back then they were super cheap... this is the page: http://www.vtcd.hu/index.php?module=arajanlat_cd

Nowadays it's enough to google "cd duplication" or "cd replication' and you find loads of options, certainly cheaper and higher quality (not 20 cents audio cassettes made in china or india with poor quality tape)

[msknight]

Just now, mariushm said:

You're joking, right?

You can get audio cd's made for less than half a dollar.... the cassette tape alone costs around 20-30 cents... more if you want good quality tape.

No, I'm not joking. The indies generally do small runs of tens of cassettes, and do small re-runs as needed.

[mariushm]

Just now, msknight said:

No, I'm not joking. The indies generally do small runs of tens of cassettes, and do small re-runs as needed.

Well, they're dumb then...  it's often cheaper even if you're doing batches of 100 (with minimal printing on disc) and buying your own plastic cases from a distributor to save on the shipping costs from the replication company.

Feels more like they're using cassettes to be special or different.

[msknight]

There are other reasons... here is one article on one band and why.... and there are more articles from more bands as to their reasons.  Key among this is

Quote

"It was a cheap alternative to putting out an analogue release. So we invested a couple of hundred dollars and made a hundred cassette tapes, and we dubbed them ourselves"

https://www.westword.com/music/rising-indie-band-lvl-up-on-why-it-released-music-on-cassette-tapes-8832458

[dalekphalm]

23 minutes ago, msknight said:

There are other reasons... here is one article on one band and why.... and there are more articles from more bands as to their reasons.  Key among this is

https://www.westword.com/music/rising-indie-band-lvl-up-on-why-it-released-music-on-cassette-tapes-8832458

If they're using cassette as an alternative to printing vinyl's, sure - that makes sense.

 

But as a cheaper alternative to CD's, there's no way you can get cassette's cheaper than CD's. Hell you can make your own for pennies ($16 for 100-pack of CD-R's) - but even if you use a CD production company, as posted above it's still very cheap.

[Volbet]

1 hour ago, msknight said:

With the recent resurgence in audio cassette tape, helped in part by Guardians Of The Galaxy, some (me included) were looking to Sony to create an anniversary cassette walkman. That, would have been something worth waiting for and possibly producing in limited numbers... but this is just a me-too device in my personal opinion.

 

Cassette never really went away. The Indi music scene has been using them to get their music into the hands of fans at events, as duplication is much, much cheaper than CD and especially vinyl. With the advent of digital duplicator bins, the quality of mass produced cassettes was on the rise as well. New cassette decks have been coming out of China, but nothing even like the quality of the older units. So the timing would have been right for Sony to have released a cassette walkman. But, I guess that isn't going to happen.

The problem with that would be that Sony would have to dedicate both factory and engineering time to create a proper cassette mechanism. 

Else they would be tied to the Tanashin mechanisms that have monopoly on cassette mechanism right now. While they do come in a varity of quality options, a Sony player would not really be any better than the players you can buy for $8 on AliExpress.   

 

Would I have liked to see Sony make an actual cassette Walkman? Sure, but I would never be willing to pay the premium such an endevour would demand. I'll stick to my old JVC and Sansui home decks for the time being.   

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, msknight said:

With the recent resurgence in audio cassette tape, helped in part by Guardians Of The Galaxy, some (me included) were looking to Sony to create an anniversary cassette walkman. That, would have been something worth waiting for and possibly producing in limited numbers... but this is just a me-too device in my personal opinion.

 

Cassette never really went away. The Indi music scene has been using them to get their music into the hands of fans at events, as duplication is much, much cheaper than CD and especially vinyl. With the advent of digital duplicator bins, the quality of mass produced cassettes was on the rise as well. New cassette decks have been coming out of China, but nothing even like the quality of the older units. So the timing would have been right for Sony to have released a cassette walkman. But, I guess that isn't going to happen.

Do you watch Techmoan by any chance? Literally one company makes cassette mechanisms these days. Any device you buy that plays cassettes is using the exact same mechanism and it's very obviously made as cheaply as possible. Even brand new out of box they sound horrible and Mat has even had occasions where brand new cassette players have arrived with broken cogs and gears.

 

There's no way Sony would use a cheap Chinese mechanism in a Walkman and even less chance they'll start making their own cassette mechanisms again.

 

There's been a resurgence in people buying cassettes but no where near enough to warrant production of new players, not decent players anyway.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Volbet said:

The problem with that would be that Sony would have to dedicate both factory and engineering time to create a proper cassette mechanism. 

Else they would be tied to the Tanashin mechanisms that have monopoly on cassette mechanism right now. While they do come in a varity of quality options, a Sony player would not really be any better than the players you can buy for $8 on AliExpress.   

 

Would I have liked to see Sony make an actual cassette Walkman? Sure, but I would never be willing to pay the premium such an endevour would demand. I'll stick to my old JVC and Sansui home decks for the time being.   

You Ninjad me by 1 minute

[Volbet]

38 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You Ninjad me by 1 minute

I like to think clever minds think alike. 

Granted, your post is much better worded than my, in hindsigt, garbled mess. 

[williamcll]

Mind you Sony has been selling walkmans as DAC players for awhile.

[Ashleyyyy]

walkmans were never great though. i had a few when i was a kid and they were shit compared to the awesome player in my hifi system now. 

[dizmo]

Ooooh. Very interesting. I wonder how this will compare to the new HiBy R5. It already seems to beat it on battery life, which is a huge plus for me.

Also the fact that it has WiFi, Bluetooth, etc is awesome. Usually a device will be missing one of them.

Might have to pick this one up, provided it's not too high on pricing.

 

2 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman-digital-music-players/t/walkman

*inhale talk* this won't be cheap (it's the A100 in the list)

I don't think it'll be tooo bad. I figure around $500, which is pretty reasonable for a device like this. Interestingly I've always noticed when Sony puts out something with a lot of color options, chances are it won't be that expensive. With more colorways there's a greater chance of dead inventory, so generally their investment is lower.

24 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

What can it do that a phone cant do?

Many phones have great DAC, and anything running Oreo or later natively supports LDAC

Better DAC/amp. Plus, personally, during a party I don't have to hand someone my phone to change tracks.

If you don't get it, it's not really meant for you.

[Thaldor]

2 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman-digital-music-players/t/walkman

*inhale talk* this won't be cheap (it's the A100 in the list)

What a prices.

I will still continue holding on and keeping alive my Sony Walkman D-NE511 MP3-CD player, at least it has changeable memory and expansion to the memory came as a CD-case for 20 CDs with it as bonus back in the early 2000s (that's 14.7GB worth of music right there). It has also standardized and widely available changeable power source called "AA batteries"

[RejZoR]

As much as I'm for nostalgia and pretty much grew up with them, I'm glad cassettes and CD's died. 32GB USB in my car and I have all of it there. Before I had my whole glove box full of stuff and it was just terrible. Also walkman eating batteries like crazy because I used 120+ cassettes to mitigate having to carry tons of them was annoying.

[nbrowser]

3 hours ago, msknight said:

Here is a recording played back on an Aiwa that I've refurbished... a far cry from the hissy stuff that people remember.... and this is the reason why people were looking to Sony to give us a modern, new cassette player. It's sad that this opportunity was missed. Permission obtained for the audio used, as indicated. Video is not monetised.

 

 

One of the nicer portable tape players back in the day...I'd kill for a decent tape based "walkman"...by any manufacturer.

[mr moose]

I feel sorry for Pavel,  but the reality is he never really invented anything groundbreaking.  He took an existing product and stuck it to a belt then improved the headphones.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I feel sorry for Pavel,  but the reality is he never really invented anything groundbreaking.  He took an existing product and stuck it to a belt then improved the headphones.

Why does that make you feel sorry for him?

 

Inventing an excellent evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) product is still a good thing.

[Andreas Lilja]

6 hours ago, lewdicrous said:

Was this made to compete with the zune?

Zune is still solid as of 2019.

 

Not as a modded iPod Classic, though.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Why does that make you feel sorry for him?

 

Inventing an excellent evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) product is still a good thing.

Because he put a lot of time into something but it wasn't good enough to warrant the patent and it cost him millions in the end when he took sony to court and lost.

 

I mean, I guess he might have just been patent trolling, but his patent was early on in the days of portable audio and I don't know him, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.