Sony release a walkman

[mariushm]

I've had this walkman for a while (sadly, just borrowed) : https://www.petervis.com/walkmans/Panasonic_RQ-SX20/Panasonic_RQ-SX20.html

Awesome thing... was amazed how it worked for tens of hours on a single AA battery. Had an actual sony walkman which ate through pairs of aa batteries.

It has a rechargeable 1.2v flat battery inside (like a chewing gum stick but thinner) but can also use AA battery with an adapter that connects on the side.

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

<snip>

it was made to compete with the galaxy player

it was made to compete with a VCR

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, msknight said:

The bad news, it doesn't do cassette.

Booooo! No cassette =  not a walkman.

[Results45]

11 hours ago, msknight said:

The bad news, it doesn't do cassette.

 

The better news: buy a dozen of them, mod them to work with mini-cassette tapes, and sell them for ten times more!

[Salv8 (sam)]

18 hours ago, msknight said:

The bad news, it doesn't do cassette.

[suicidalfranco]

knowing that it's sony probably means that it-s going to be overpriced as hell. So as far as DAPs are concerned i'm still going for the HiBy ones. 

[msknight]

20 hours ago, mr moose said:

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.

He won some, lost others and reached settlement with Sony on other cases...

Quote

In negotiations that began in 1980 and ended in 1986, Sony agreed to pay Pavel limited royalties for the sales of certain Walkman models sold in his home country of Germany only (about DM 150,000, almost 1% of Sony's Walkman profit in Germany).

Quote

A second round of legal battles between Pavel and Sony that began in 1990 through the England and Wales Patents County Court ended in 1996 after Judges ruled in Sony's favour, leaving Pavel to pay almost 3 million euros ($3.68 million) in court costs.

Quote

Pavel's legal challenge was lost in 1993 and his patent revoked. Judge Peter Ford adjudicated the patent to be invalid because the technology was "obvious and not significantly inventive". The case proceeded to the Appeals Court where Pavel lost again in 1996.

Quote

Finally in 2003, with Pavel threatening to file infringement proceedings in the remaining two countries where he held patents, Sony approached him with a view to settling the matter amicably, which led to both parties signing a contract and confidentiality agreement in 2004. The settlement was reported to be a cash payment in the "low eight figures" and ongoing royalties of the sale of certain Walkman models.

 

[Murasaki]

the Sony iPod? okay.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, msknight said:

He won some, lost others and reached settlement with Sony on other cases...

 

until that final settlement he was left with a bill for 3.3M though.   Also other sources say the 1993 case resulted in Pavel receiving $10M in settlement (but he lost?).

 

Quote

In 1989, Pavel started infringement proceedings against Sony in the UK. Four years later, the British patent was invalidated by a British judge. The exact settlement fee is not known, but European press accounts said that Pavel received a cash settlement in excess of $10,000,000 and is now also receiving royalties on some Walkman sales.

 

However having thought about it for a while now if I treat him like I treat any business, he essentially took sony's Dictaphone made it more about playback than record with headphones and put it on a belt then tried argue he had invented portable audio. 

 

sony also claim their TC-1010 was released in 1970 (7 years before the patent of the stereo belt), which is why they won all the cases barring the initial settlement in Germany and the final settlement (By 2003 it may have been cheaper to buy Pavel out over 2 countries than fight the case).

 

It seems like a normal case of a product evolving incrementally over time with many different inputs.

[Dabombinable]

On 9/8/2019 at 7:23 AM, dalekphalm said:

Why does that make you feel sorry for him?

 

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

*Looks at classic iPod*

[Trik'Stari]

I wish I could get a decent sounding, decent priced DAP with wifi.

 

I really don't even care about storage capacity. Just the ability to play audio books while I'm at work. Has to be "not a cell phone" because we aren't supposed to look at our phones during work.

[Fnige]

On 9/8/2019 at 7:25 AM, Andreas Lilja said:

Not as a modded iPod Classic, though.

please explain what you mean modded iPod Classic

[Andreas Lilja]

43 minutes ago, SlimyPython said:

please explain what you mean modded iPod Classic

256gb+ flash storage, there are many tutorials out there. Also possible to upgrade the battery. 

[msknight]

5 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I wish I could get a decent sounding, decent priced DAP with wifi.

All down to what price you're willing to pay. Most DAPs at the entry level are decent sounding when you look at voice work. https://sonoboom.com/best-mp3-player-audiobooks/

 

The big problem with many is audio books specifically. They aren't usually built to handle long audio streams and don't remember where they were when you've switched off the unit in the middle of playing a long audio stream. Best go to some specialist forums and ask what they recommend. Head-Fi is a good one.

[mariushm]

8 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I wish I could get a decent sounding, decent priced DAP with wifi.

 

I really don't even care about storage capacity. Just the ability to play audio books while I'm at work. Has to be "not a cell phone" because we aren't supposed to look at our phones during work.

Uhmm... get a Sandisk player for 35$ and copy your audio books to it : https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-8GB-Clip-Player-Black/dp/B00VXMY262/

Has 8 GB of storage, enough for tens of hours of audio, but you can also add a microSDHC card up to 32 GB for more stuff.

It may even be supported by Rockbox in the future, as it's very similar to other Sandisk players.

 

[maartendc]

My 25+ year old Sony Walkman with cassette player and FM radio still works.

 

I am entertaining offers now, starting at $500

On 9/7/2019 at 9:37 AM, msknight said:

The good news - Sony release an anniversary walkman. The bad news, i

 

[Monkey Dust]

On 9/8/2019 at 2:03 AM, leadeater said:

Booooo! No cassette =  not a walkman.

Yeah it it. I had a minidisc walkman back in the day. Minidisc was awesome

[Trik'Stari]

12 hours ago, mariushm said:

Uhmm... get a Sandisk player for 35$ and copy your audio books to it : https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-8GB-Clip-Player-Black/dp/B00VXMY262/

Has 8 GB of storage, enough for tens of hours of audio, but you can also add a microSDHC card up to 32 GB for more stuff.

It may even be supported by Rockbox in the future, as it's very similar to other Sandisk players.

 

I'm new to audio books. Can I copy my ones off of Audible?

[mariushm]

12 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'm new to audio books. Can I copy my ones off of Audible?

 

How do I transfer my audiobook to my MP3 player on Windows 10? : https://audible.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9239/

^ the windows 10 instructions show them "activating" a sansa clip zip player ... I think they basically read the unique serial number of the player and link it to your audible account and then encrypt the audio files before they're uploaded to your mp3 player  so that only your mp3 player can decode them.

 

The Amazon description for the player claims it supports Audible (DRM) audio files so it should work, but I didn't personally try it. 

 

also, there are programs which allow you to remove the DRM from audible files, here's an example: https://sourceforge.net/projects/aaxtomp3/

You still need an account and buy the audio book and download it, but then you can run the file through the tool and you get plain mp3 files you can play everywhere.

 

An alternative (the most basic simple way but real time speed) is to buy a stereo cable : https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Stereo-Audio-Cable-Meters/dp/B00NO73MUQ/

Take the stereo output of your sound card and connect it to Line in on your computer, play the audio book on your computer and record Line in with a free software like Audacity ... leave the pc recording over night, in the morning you just hit save to FLAC or MP3 and you get your audio.

 

If you play the audio in something like Media Player Classic Home Cinema you could probably play the file at 2x speed and record it at 2x speed but at 96 kHz or some high sampling rate, and then slow it down when you're done recording.

[TheKDub]

On 9/7/2019 at 10:37 AM, msknight said:

The bad news, it doesn't do cassette.

I'm upsette

[Fnige]

18 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

256gb+ flash storage, there are many tutorials out there. Also possible to upgrade the battery. 

Ok... is it still possible in any way to add songs onto them or am i out of luck for that?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, TheKDub said:

I'm upsette

9.5/10

[Crowbar]

What exactly does a "vinyl processor" do?

 

Artificially add pops/clicks/feedback so that what your listening to sound like shit outside of the highs that drown it out?

[dalekphalm]

49 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

What exactly does a "vinyl processor" do?

 

Artificially add pops/clicks/feedback so that what your listening to sound like shit outside of the highs that drown it out?

Most likely - simulating the sound characteristics of Vinyl and applying it to a digital file.

 

While we know that digital files that were mastered to the same quality level are inherently objectively superior to vinyl, there are plenty of people who subjectively prefer the sound characteristics of vinyl over digital/CD.

 

And that's totally okay, assuming the "vinyl" processor is configurable and can be disabled.