Tru Playas: Portable music thru the ears.
Rummaging thru my cupboard, i discover my collection of old walkmans, i look at the ipods on my table and i see the line running right thru them. most of us might know the walkman kicked of portable music and in 2005 apple seems to have that bit of the market sewn up. whatever.
Here we go!
On the left!
That my friends , ( if i am right ) is the first walkman ever released. My dad came back from work erm, maybe 20 years ago and bought us each one ( i know lucky bugger ). I thank my mum for not ever throwing it away. made completely of metal, it had some really odd features. becuase it was a shrunked cassette deck, it was still seen to be not a completely private audio experience. so! it had 2 head phone jacks ( and i don't mean to scare you but the distance between the 2 jacks are the same as those found on double pin aircraft head phones) sorry, so it has 2 head phone jacks so you and your friend could listen at the same time BUTTTT. It had a HOTLINE button! hot line? hot line?? what the hell is hot line i hear you ask. So imagine this you and your friend are listening to the Pointer Sisters. Half way thru " Jump" you really got to let your friend hear you out, you want to tell him that :" jump is the best song ever written, but you both have the huge orange head phones on, and really you are not about to reach over and yank them off.. so... You pick up the walkman, Hit the HOTLINE button and speak into the inbuilt mike. your voice comes over the music! both of you can talk to each other!...MC!
Other silly fetures. independent volume control? as in Left/right ear not headphone 1 and 2 ...and a tone switch. Play is labeled " listen "
2005, i put in 2 AA batts and the " operation' lamp lights up but motors are screwed...
2nd on the left.
This was ipod 1988. this was the golden age of the walkman, they were beautifully put together and this one had an amazing finish, deep glossy lusture... `this baby had it all, barely larger than a cassette, it had DBB ( dynamic bass bosst i assume, mid and max settings !) 3 tape positions ( till now i think this is a con ) Dolby NR, wired remote and.. Auto Reverse. Now some of you might be too young to understand this, but auto reverse was the fu$%ing holy grail of cassette player nirvana. you could listen to rattle and hum Non stop! no silly flipping of the tape over manually, it did all that with a crisp ' tchnk". music.. " all day all day.... watchhhhh them awl phol down.. all day ... ..... Unfortunatly this also means that bono ( or neil tennant ) kept on singing if you accidentally switched the bloody thing on. This meant a flat battery by the time you were on the bus home. and auto reverse kept on breaking down on these ones.
but see how sony slid in the later years, the two walkmans above i owned from the early 90's to the mid 90's. loveless pieces of shit. i dunno why i still have them.
then something called the disc man appeared and to me, they all never worked, too big, i mean who carries a disc? and the idea of moving around with a spinning disc in an enclosure never seemed right. so i think i've thrown away all my discmans..
2002 to 5
ipod you know what they are so, yes, much better...
Dancer!
Here we go!
On the left!
That my friends , ( if i am right ) is the first walkman ever released. My dad came back from work erm, maybe 20 years ago and bought us each one ( i know lucky bugger ). I thank my mum for not ever throwing it away. made completely of metal, it had some really odd features. becuase it was a shrunked cassette deck, it was still seen to be not a completely private audio experience. so! it had 2 head phone jacks ( and i don't mean to scare you but the distance between the 2 jacks are the same as those found on double pin aircraft head phones) sorry, so it has 2 head phone jacks so you and your friend could listen at the same time BUTTTT. It had a HOTLINE button! hot line? hot line?? what the hell is hot line i hear you ask. So imagine this you and your friend are listening to the Pointer Sisters. Half way thru " Jump" you really got to let your friend hear you out, you want to tell him that :" jump is the best song ever written, but you both have the huge orange head phones on, and really you are not about to reach over and yank them off.. so... You pick up the walkman, Hit the HOTLINE button and speak into the inbuilt mike. your voice comes over the music! both of you can talk to each other!...MC!
Other silly fetures. independent volume control? as in Left/right ear not headphone 1 and 2 ...and a tone switch. Play is labeled " listen "
2005, i put in 2 AA batts and the " operation' lamp lights up but motors are screwed...
2nd on the left.
This was ipod 1988. this was the golden age of the walkman, they were beautifully put together and this one had an amazing finish, deep glossy lusture... `this baby had it all, barely larger than a cassette, it had DBB ( dynamic bass bosst i assume, mid and max settings !) 3 tape positions ( till now i think this is a con ) Dolby NR, wired remote and.. Auto Reverse. Now some of you might be too young to understand this, but auto reverse was the fu$%ing holy grail of cassette player nirvana. you could listen to rattle and hum Non stop! no silly flipping of the tape over manually, it did all that with a crisp ' tchnk". music.. " all day all day.... watchhhhh them awl phol down.. all day ... ..... Unfortunatly this also means that bono ( or neil tennant ) kept on singing if you accidentally switched the bloody thing on. This meant a flat battery by the time you were on the bus home. and auto reverse kept on breaking down on these ones.
but see how sony slid in the later years, the two walkmans above i owned from the early 90's to the mid 90's. loveless pieces of shit. i dunno why i still have them.
then something called the disc man appeared and to me, they all never worked, too big, i mean who carries a disc? and the idea of moving around with a spinning disc in an enclosure never seemed right. so i think i've thrown away all my discmans..
2002 to 5
ipod you know what they are so, yes, much better...
Dancer!
posted by Synth at 11:09 PM
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