RIP Sony Walkman

[rob]

ironically on day that Sony finally discontinues the Walkman (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad-applic ... 5943499963) I'm tidying up the workshop and find my Sony WM-R2 Recording Walkman which had fallen down the back of the shelves.

I figure that pretty soon it will be worth big bucks as a vintage tape recorder.

Strangely today was also the day when I finally solved the intermittant fault in my Nakamichi BX-300 cassette deck.

So it's back to cassettes at Pro Harmonic

[waitup]

Pete Holz ('peat' on this forum) picked up a cassette deck at the abc auction the other week... Maybe there is a revival coming...

[rick]

damn i bought a box of ten marantz superscopes at the auction so i could get the the 224xl larc and through them all in the skip at the auction gate so i had room in the car for the 224 and my kids
and the superscopes where the thing to have in the day
classic cassette decks ...who knew ..? damn

[peat]

yamaha natural sound cassette recorder, xlr i/o dolby!
was also tempted by the teac (120mkII?) just because it has VU meters.
very cool
main reason I got that is to transfer old cassettes for my dad, he has alot of them.
first up is adams family groove by mc hammer!

[Chinagraf]

I went lookin for a new mid size hifi system for my dad last week cause his cd player crapped itself. I was looking at a bunch and there was one with a cassette deck as well as a cd, and get this, a memory card slot for mp3's.
Talk about a bizarre combo.
I said to the salesman "I can't believe you've got that, do they even make cassettes anymore" and he said they were tryin to get rid of it if I wanted it cheap. So I gave him a small amount of cash
and took the system down to Dad's and he went a found a bunch of old tapes of things like Anne Murray and Kris Kristofferson etc. He was stoked.
Then as a thankyou he made me listen to Anne Murray.

Must be the week for it.

[Text_Edifice]

perhaps you'll have to wait a little longer to cash in on the big buck vintage / fetish market for your old walkmans

http://evolver.fm/2010/10/25/rumors-of- ... aggerated/

[rob]

well if that's true, then these 2010 walkmans will be made in china, rather than japan as they have been to date. Pfffpht

.... I think my original japanese made recording walkman ... with a pair of built in stereo mics... will still collect a fortune on the evil second hand market pretty soon.

[Milo]

had a call from a customer who wanted to transfer his reel-to-reel tapes to what he called "that digital medium thing"
2-inch? quarter inch? I asked. Didn't know what I was talking about
Size of the reel? 10 inch? 7 inch?
Oh, no, smaller than that.
No, not one of those old little 3-inch Rola jobbies??
No, smaller. Its got something written on the box. It says: TDK D90
Well, technically he's correct

The most interesting transfer to disc I've done is a phone call: apparently just after the war in the UK, instead of Australians writing a letter back home, you could also step into a booth and cut a record on the spot, then send that, so folks at home hear your voice reciting the news about the rations and the cold.

[tunetown]

Hmmmm, The plot thickens....???

Sony (NYSE: SNE) shares have moved up recently on rumors that the company might be bought by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). Apple could easily afford the deal. It has over $50 billion of cash on its balance sheet, and a market cap of $282 billion. Sony’s market value is less than $34 billion.

Apple might like to own Sony’s gaming operation which manufactures and sells the PlayStation line of products. Apple does not have a position in the market which is dominated by Sony, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Nintendo. The Apple App Store does offer online video games, but by industry estimates Apple only keeps one-third of the revenue from those and obviously have no hardware presence in the industry.

But, Sony is a very messy company, so Apple would probably have to dispose of some of the Japanese firm’s businesses. Sony owns a large movie studio. Apple is in the content distribution business, and its content partners would probably not want to see Steve Jobs as a direct competitor.

Apple might be tempted to keep Sony’s digital camera and TV screen business. It would have to suppose that the Apple brand would help sell the products at premium prices. There is, however,the problem that the two businesses have low margins and are in extremely competitive markets.

Sony has also been poorly managed, if operating profits and revenue growth are good measurements. Apple does not have the executive prowess to run a huge but unsuccessful company that is struggling. It would have nothing to do with Apple’s strengths: product management and brand management.

Sony’s best days are behind it. The company recently said it would stop making its Walkman cassette player for most of the world. That is a sign of how much power Sony has lost in the consumer electronics world. Even Apple would face a Herculean task if it wanted to revive Sony’s fortunes.

Douglas A. McIntyre

As Tommy Mottola said this morning, "Steve Jobs is the new CEO of the Music Business".

[toddd]

"yamaha natural sound cassette recorder, xlr i/o dolby!"

man, i would love to get my hands on one of those for a decent price.

so funny everyone says tape is dead.. 5 bands that i work with have put out self made tape releases this year.. they cant afford to do a proper recording, or think the material wont fit on a proper release, or they have left over material from 'proper' records and none of them wants to do a cd-r thing cause they look cheap and nasty.

i have to say the independent tape releases that i have all look waaaay cooler artwork wise than nearly all the homemade cd-r releases i have seen in the last couple of years - just a shame no one can listen to them. ha.

[rick]

i never said cassettes were dead , just that i threw out 10 great recorders last week
when i get busy i will throw out another ten
you cannot keep everything , i have tried

[mylesgm]

The most interesting transfer to disc I've done is a phone call: apparently just after the war in the UK, instead of Australians writing a letter back home, you could also step into a booth and cut a record on the spot, then send that, so folks at home hear your voice reciting the news about the rations and the cold.

I've got one of these shellac discs I grabbed in an auction for .50c. Very cool but I no longer have a 78 to play it with. The accent and attitude of the chap talking to his mum is fantastic. I've been meaning to donate it to the australian War museum after I've transferred it but never got around to the transfer. Did you keep a copy?

M

[Milo]

No, Myles, I should have, but no copy. Interesting trying to tell whether the guy on the record (Australian soldier) had picked up an English accent while he was there, or whether all (or a large percentage) of Aussies had a BBC accent back then: "frightfully chilly heah", "Gosh, the food isn't very chipper" "Crikey, I miss the Old Country ever so much"......

[mylesgm]

my recording is from chicago and yes the accent is very british but at the same time unmistakably aussie. Beaut piece of history.

m

[waitup]

So it turns out sony is still making them in china... they've just stopped making them in japan.

[Adam Dempsey]

Sony (NYSE: SNE)

Sony’s best days are behind it. The company recently said it would stop making its Walkman cassette player for most of the world. That is a sign of how much power Sony has lost in the consumer electronics world.
Douglas A. McIntyre

Could that really be the reason – in 2010..? Blame the company, not the format's obsolescence (at the exception of being 'retro')?

[obutcher]

So my old Walkman may be worth something afterall to the ebay 'retro' crowd. Nice! Still in great operating condition!