Cassette Walkman

whiskeyman

It's truely the dawn of the mp3 music player...
but, does anyone still use a cassette walkman?
I saw a girl on the luas with one the other day. So damn big and bulky.
Mind you, I use a CD Walkman myself (waiting for Mp3 player to arrive in post )

I wonder if dixons and stores similar will start to phase them out, as they have video recorders.

Scarinae

I have a cassette walkman, I probably would use it except I have no cassettes worth listening to... I haven't bought a tape since I was about 12, and I had TERRIBLE taste in music (ie. I bought what was in the charts at the time - aagh) I presume that it still works!
I thought they had already been phased out of places like Dixons? I guess they could be useful though if you'd taped something off the radio - I don't think you can 'CD' off the radio (off the internet yes, but off the radio? Or am I wrong?)
My walkman was a state-of-the art model back when I was given it one Christmas. It had, wait for it, DIGITAL RADIO, oooh (the normal at the time was those whirly dials for tuning, but mine used buttons!)
Now it just looks massive though, haha

Megatron

I have about 3 of them at home, none i use.

The one that will always stand out is a Sharp one.

It can be put into a normal stero and it makes the stero work ( sort of like a docking station to a laptop these days).

it even has a mic on it. used to use alot, and i still have aload of tapes but most are just pure sh-it. however some of the ones that shows my age would be, Berf leppard , hysteria - Bon JOvi - slippery when wet. Queen - best off. metallica - black album.

Ahh the glory of days gone by

whiskeyman

Fishie wrote:

I don't think you can 'CD' off the radio (off the internet yes, but off the radio? Or am I wrong?)

I've a long way about this....
I tape on cassette of the radio... then plug hifi in PC and record Line In onto hard driver... then burn onto CD.
Its long winded, but I'd got some great live concerts when 2fm used to play a good few on the weekends.

Havent done that in a couple of years now though... havent used a cassette in ages.

billy the squid

walkmans.. had one of these with a play fast forward and stop button. to rewind you had to turn the tape over press fast forward, and turn the tape back over. then there was a flashy new addition to walkmans. the rewind button.

it was also possible to get walkmans which were radios but did not have tape decks on them.

limerick_man

I so remember that where u couldnt rewind it... but i never knew they brought out ones with rewind!!!

My mom used them up until about three months ago for walking, then she got an anti-bounce Discman, two weeks ago she got an MP3 Player!!! (how come i didnt get one first)! She flew through the inventions in a matter of weeks! She didnt really like the discman coz it was too big for her pocket!

pwd

I've found noticeable depreciation of quality coverting tape cassettes to digital formats in the manner described by whiskeyman.
Why don;t you just connect the radio to the line in and record it directly, instead of bothering to tape it?
TV tuner cards can have radio tuners on them too. You can record mp3s from these alos, and the quality will be better than using a line-in cable.

RicardoSmith

billy the squid wrote:

...
it was also possible to get walkmans which were radios but did not have tape decks on them.

..er... would that not be called a radio? Or am I missing something?

I've a lot of stuff on tape, concerts, recordings etc. I've started puttiing some of it on CD and MP3 but the quality isn't great. If I see CD's on special offer, I generally just buy it and dump the cassette. But I can't do that with all the stuff I have on cassette it would cost a fortune! A lot of cars still have tape decks too.

billy the squid

nope it was a walkman. you have to remember that the word walkman was a product name which becaume a commonly used word like hoover.

sony brought out radios with no tape deck for, well , walking and they were called walkman.

RicardoSmith

billy the squid wrote:

nope it was a walkman. you have to remember that the word walkman was a product name which becaume a commonly used word like hoover.

sony brought out radios with no tape deck for, well , walking and they were called walkman.

The orignal product "walkman" was a cassette player only. The CD player was a Discman. Only after that did they stick it on everything they could think of. But I take your point. These days they stick "walkman" on everything.

byte

RicardoSmith wrote:

The orignal product "walkman" was a cassette player only. The CD player was a Discman. Only after that did they stick it on everything they could think of. But I take your point. These days they stick "walkman" on everything.

Heh, true. An upcoming Sony Ericsson mobile phone will also have Walkman branding as it'll play mp3 or something.. :rolleyes:

charon

I still use one lol I bought a discman a few years ago but the battery life was terrible. An hour and they batteries would be dead. At least I can get ages out of my walkman

Flukey

I have a cassette radio walkman, though I rarely use the cassette on it. I get great use out of the radio though.

Hoochiemama

two of my mates are DJ's and they've made me a few cassettes of sets they've done for me with all my favourite songs so i use mine to listen to them

pork99

I got my cassette walkman out the other day - hadn't been used for so long that the batteries had gone septic and destroyed it

Flukey

There is a design flaw on many of the cassette/radio ones. Usually they have a button that is set to either the cassette or the radio. So to switch off the radio you set it to cassette. However, what sometimes then happens is that accidentally and unknown to you the play, FF or Rewind buttons get pressed. If there is no cassette in it they go until the battery is empty! They should have 3 settings on the switch and include an Off setting. The could also design the switch positions into a T shape with the Off being at the bottom of the T, making it more difficult to accidentally switch it on again. I suppose they don't make many of them anymore, so it is redundant to a certain extent, but it has happened to me a few one times, including once recently.

irlirishkev

I used to have a Sony Walkman. It was big black and bulky, and had the super cool 'MegaBass' settings on the front. I thought it was the dog's bollorks.. Then a few years later I upgraded to a really slim version in silver. No 'MegaBass', but I think it had a 'loud' setting. The buttons were set into the front like on an MD player. I used it maybe 10 times then gave up on cassettes altogether. RIP.

K.

seo-ireland

Ah the days of making mix tapes of Dave Fanning's show on 2fm and listening to them on the good ole cassette walkman. Memories.

I actually prefer the sound quality of tapes, obviously not for its clarity, but for the warm fuzzy background buzz that exists. Like when you used to listen to Atlantic 252 over LW and the sound quality was crap but strangely pleasing. Or maybe I am alone on this one

BLITZ_Molloy

Got a Sony Sports Walkman back in about 1990. It was the business. Two headphone jacks so two people could listen. It looked very cool indeed as well. The iPod of its day. Except for the fact it was ****ing indestructable. I must have dropped the thing a million times and not a bother. My iPod lasted 7 months before the battery conked out.

Hahah.. Oh my goodness. I just had a look to see if I could find the picture of it. And looks what someones done.

http://www.retropod.com/

Now that is pretty ****ing hip.

I got this one in the mid 90's. Can't seem to find a pic of the older one.

nlgbbbblth

whiskeyman wrote:

It's truely the dawn of the mp3 music player...
but, does anyone still use a cassette walkman?
I saw a girl on the luas with one the other day. So damn big and bulky.
Mind you, I use a CD Walkman myself (waiting for Mp3 player to arrive in post )

I wonder if dixons and stores similar will start to phase them out, as they have video recorders.

I don't know of any other store other than Dixons that has phased out VCRs
People panic when they hear something like this. They assume that because Dixons stop selling them, their VCR will suddenly stop working - or else they think that a crack team will break into their house overnight and steal their VCR.

Same with turntables and vinyl. Both equipment and medium are still being produced - you just need to know where to look
A friend of my sister's got a cassette walkman as a present for Christmas just gone - from her grandmother. She was disgusted.

RicardoSmith

Dixons still have VCRs' on sale. I was in there this evening....

BLITZ_Molloy

VCR's will be around for ages. They'll just be rather expensive. Much more moving parts than DVD players.

Blisterman

Im sure they'll always sell them, for professional use. They'll just go up in price.

vector

I don't feel sentimental about the demise of the walkman

I remember how bad it was
-big
-eat batteries
-having to rewind and fast forward by the counter and not by the track