Sony S2 - The oft-overlooked 2000s sports audio redux

[@BenHur872]

@Techmoan There's a blast from the past. As a freelancer for Sony I built the website for the S2 range in the UK, so I can confirm that they did get sold here! Sony branded up a classic VW campervan and took it on a tour of the UK surfing locations to promote the S2 products. I'll have a copy of the website in an archive somewhere if you're interested?

[@kutter_ttl6786]

I just learned today that the UK has surfing locations. Cool.

[@jadedheartsz]

i'm interested

[@BoxOfToasters]

Ooh, can you share a link to this archive?

[@DJRickDawson]

would be cool to see the website.

[@karolkozik5918]

​@@kutter_ttl6786 UK was somewhat early to the surfing game. Thanks to an oddball man born in Ceylon called Jack Churchill.

[@Takodate]

Bulbous glossy white plastic with orange accents is very much a 2000s aesthetic

[@davidsentanu7836]

The Frutiger Aero aesthetics

[@monotonehell]

Add a blue LED to that and you're in peak early 2000s.

[@rimmersbryggeri]

@@monotonehell And it must absolutely be excessivly bright so that it will light up your whloe livingroom should you happen to want to charge it.

[@volvo09]

​@@rimmersbryggeri I had a radio in my car in 04 that had a blue "source" button. I had to tape over it because to this day it was the brightest single blue LED I had ever seen until modern "cob' LED's came out. It lit up the interior like I had blue neons in the car, and affected my vision at night. It was so dumb.

[@kingofcapp]

Despicable Me

[@koraypekericli]

I remember gifting an S2 CD Walkman just like 14:50 to my friend who was in the army and spending weeks on mountains. He still mentions how much of a life saver it was under the pressure of duty. Thanks for documenting these relics for us!

[@Astrosynthesist]

I still (literally) daily drive Sony's gift to biking enthusiasts at 8:43 ! I can give a rundown of its features: Firstly there is one of those hall effect bike wheel sensors that lets it track the rotations of your wheel and keep stats. What is notable is that the wheel sensor and magnet are stamped with S2 and even the Zip ties to attach the wire to your bike frame are custom-molded with S2 on them and a funky shape too! The radio attaches (slides in and out with a compliant thumb button to release it) to a black platter that is affixed to your bike handles. This allows you to easily remove the radio and take your stats with you/prevent theft when bike is parked. The radio detects when removed from the bike and stops displaying speed at that time. Radio still operates. It has a little oval antenna under the back which also props it up and acts as a stand on a desk. Bike stats are: Speed, Odometer (848km or so on mine!), trip odometer, moving timer (clock stops counting when wheel stops spinning for a few seconds), and average speed. Those three reset at once when holding the reset button while any one of them is displayed. It also tracks your maximum speed, which you can reset independently from the other 3 stats. Memory is retained even if the batteries die. 2 AA batteries. I use NiMH. They last for months as I don't use the radio much. Orange backlit display. FM radio has DX/Local toggle on bottom left of radio. Volume is a wheel on bottom right of radio. The knob sticking out in the pic is the tuner/preset selector. The radio is waterproof and tunes AM/FM. No TV or weather though I am Canadian, the TV audio feature would've been cool! Sound quality is mid-poor but loud and clear voice on the radio so not bad for biking at all. Certainly not unlistenable. DX mode has never helped me improve a station signal quality. There's no megabass function but like it's a single 2.5"/6 cm speaker so temper your expectations haha. I love taking this thing on a bike trip, unclipping it, and walking with it to wherever my destination is and dumping my trip stats into a spreadsheet. Been tracking my bike trip stats for years with it. I've taken some major falls and the radio has never been damaged. The screen has some scuffs but nothing major. The white paint on the metal grill is still intact too! The platter it mounts to has cracked in 3 or 4 places but I preemptively superglued the cracks and it is still 100% functional and looks fine under casual inspection. I worry about ever moving it to a new bike though. The hall effect method of capturing my wheel spinning matches a GPS track of my bike trip to about 3% agreement which is good enough for me. Maybe I gave it a slightly wrong bike wheel size but I don't want to mess up the stats now by correcting it. 10/10 product would love to see an updated bluetooth radio version. Would buy again as-is, but I'm sure people have little glass cockpit displays for their bikes now with maps or something. Personally given some of my wipeouts I'd never want to put my phone on my handlebars. I love this thing and will use it until something gives. Side note, I like having cylindrical batteries on certain classes of products. Putting a rechargeable lithium in everything is another way to plan obsolescence of it when it inevitably loses its ability to hold a charge and/or becomes a spicy pillow. This radio has decades of life in it thanks to being able to keep updated fresh NiMH batteries with no challenge or drama at all to me. I miss the days of smart, thoughtful, consumer-friendly engineering (admittedly Sony itself has trended away from that especially in recent years). Thanks for coming to my Techmoan talk! I hope you found it interesting!

[@Gary85Paul]

Orange and white was also the design language of the early Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, released at the same time as these devices. Coincidentally, I was tinkering with my old W800 the other day. A fun trip down memory lane.

[@munkSWE88]

Felt like everything was a mix of silver, orange and white back in the 00´s

[@Milamberinx]

Ah yeah, I had a W810i. It was probably my third mp3 player, but I used it a LOT... just a shame that Sony didn't include a proper headphone jack on their "media" phone.

[@CMDBob]

Yeah, I had a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone back in the day, was my first actually good media player after an older CD player. Good phone too! Replaced it with an Android smartphone (as a gift from my parents for getting into uni) in 2010 though. Good times...

[@Onewheelordeal]

Dang dude my W810i was the shiz. Used the same memory cards as my PSP for a full on MP3 player built into my phone and the free online audio subscription was my first introduction into getting any media from the internet. Also had a great camera for the day and I still have you could get an external telescopic lense that clipped onto the phone

[@Onewheelordeal]

​@@Milamberinxthe headphone jack cord was also sneakily the FM radio antenna

[@doyouunderstandlife]

I had that cd player. While the other kids were sporting iPods I was rolling around the school hallways with a cd player with a giant strap for the hand spinning atrac CDs of KoRn’s discography. I was so cool.

[@shark.bait12]

Love how the boombox has controls on the handle so you can control it while carrying it.

[@profosist]

It also points at you while carrying it.

[@robertschnobert9090]

That's what she said haha 🌈 ​@@profosist

[@sterlinsilver]

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for these because my dad had that arm radio one waaay back when I was a little kid. He would go jogging with it. I will always associate these with him :)

[@LosPompadores]

Saturday has started

[@TheUrbanCavalier]

My favourite KZbinr release schedule. Saturday breakfast watching!

[@tezcanaslan2877]

Yall are waking up now?

[@MuchWhittering]

Waking up at 10am on a Saturday isn't that weird. ​@@tezcanaslan2877

[@LosPompadores]

@@tezcanaslan2877 No, but mentally it started now :)

[@jezusmylord]

one day i will watch Matts weekend videos without a hungover but man, today is not the day

[@null_subject]

@15:18 The strap does connect, you have to slide the 2 tabs running underside the top half into the 2 grooves on the topside of the lower half.

[@thejoojooman6538]

Oh gr8....the Techmoan effect is gonna make finishing off my collection of these impossible (it was already hard).

[@grilnam9945]

You can sell yours for a profit now. You will just have to use the money start collecting something he hasn’t covered yet.

[@LaurentiusTriarius]

I was collecting obscure brands of watches before the pandemic, then they started making vids ... 😅 I cannot collect them anymore.

[@matthewrease2376]

Really just... any KZbinr covering something. Not just him.

[@thejoojooman6538]

@@grilnam9945 😂😂. I do want that minidisc player though.

[@seanlavoie2]

I think he did point out more than once that It would be something to buy if it’s cheap it’s not like a highly engineered field recorder that doesn’t need belts.

[@Sigma-INFJ.]

Seeing Spock wearing a headband radio prototype made me think that they should have named that show "Star Tech."

[@Broken_robot1986]

Shut up

[@kbhasi]

Your comment reminded me of a meme that read ‘Star Trek - predicting the future since 1966’

[@startedtech]

There's a brand here in the US at least that sells miscellaneous electronics stuff and is named just that

[@thesteelrodent1796]

Star Tech is a supermarket-quality electronics brand around here. Nothing related to Star Trek, but when they sell a DVD player for what equates to about £20, you don't expect much from them

[@polbecca]

And Matt rocking his mobile holo-emitter during the round-up. 🙂

[@limerent72]

My husband still has one of those armband radios new in package. He bought two at the Sony outlet store when those stores were still around maybe 15 years ago. I never imagined that one day it would be mentioned in the same sentence as "obsolete," "relic," and "blast from the past." Sony was transcendent back in the day.

[@PaulBakewell]

My old boss had one of the S2 boombox in the year 2000. We used it in the office when we were doing all the year 2k IT work. The best boombox I have ever heard.

[@uncled39]

You couldn't have heard many boom boxes then.

[@PaulBakewell]

@@uncled39 what would you say was the best boombox ever?

[@ricenoodles632]

I don't think the Sports S2 line was out in 2000. They only came around in 2002-2004. They had the normal silver plastic boomboxes though. Since the late 90s. There was "Psyc" boomboxes in the late 90s I think.

[@GizzyDillespee]

For a subcompact boombox, these sounded good. Believe it or not, there were clock radios in the 80s and 90s that had bigger and detatchable speakers. There were boomboxes that had MUCH better speaker systems than this. The retro ones that they make today are trash - they look okay from a distance, but they sound nothing like a real boombox. These Sonys were better than the new things they sell now (I have a cheap generic boombox, from about 10 years ago, that has wow and flutter on the CD player!), and were pretty good for an office radio, though.

[@max_e_maxxy_]

​@@PaulBakewellJVC kaboom box is genuinely high fidelity. Certain Sharp models are pretty good. But I do understand that in this era Sony made a pretty good sounding box Sony wide-range drivers really do deliver a good experience

[@kirya312]

Pretty cool of them to make the logo in the legendary “Sony sports yellow”!

[@volvo09]

Hahaha 😂

[@Antique1dude]

Incorrect it's orange.

[@mystriddlery]

@@Antique1dude Its turquoise

[@pederb82]

I worked at an Euronics store from about 2004 to when we closed it down in 2015 or there about. I do remember the S2 products. But just barely. We never had any in stock I believe but I did see the S2 range offered here in Europe for the mp3 and headphones ranges as well as portable cd-players. At one point I had a customer who wanted a portable cd-player but could not find any in any store around here anymore. I ordered one specially for that customer. And it was a S2 model. So they were here in Norway but not common.

[@jessestiller8085]

I remember seeing that boombox in the store many times as a kid and thinking it looked so cool. Still do!

[@jarthurs]

My ears pricked up for the brief blip of 'Owner of a lonely heart', hard to believe it was an old track when most of this S2 kit came out.

[@nickwallette6201]

If I could sum up that album in one word, it would be "reverb." Two words? I would add "precision."

[@roscat_]

I used to have that boombox!! It was awesome. I would take it to my cousins when we would hang out and play basketball.

[@MariaEngstrom]

Life is good, it's Saturday, no place to be, no work, no time to keep and "TechnoMan" uploads another video about obsolete electronics.

[@Keepskatin]

Obsolete,? Boom boxes are obsolete

[@AtheistOrphan]

Who’s ‘Technoman’?

[@gwishart]

@@AtheistOrphan It's the LIDL own-brand version of Techmoan, on the same shelf as the Nascefé, Wheetobisk, and Cudbary's Diary Malk.

[@yannisgk]

@@gwishart lol

[@larrysacks8927]

Shh 🤫 don’t tell Matt these are Obsolete he mentioned futuristic in his video….

[@apricebcd]

You have to love Sony's name in conventions. So catchy they just roll off the tongue.

[@sednoid]

and how easy to remember!

[@extrahourinthepit]

I feel like their naming convention gets too much of a bad rep from tech enthusiasts specifically, and that’s precisely because of how they’re meant to work: you’re not meant to use them. None of these are meant to be sold to the consumer by their model number but by their line name and featureset. “Come buy a Sony S2 product for your sports and active life! We have CD players, MiniDisc player, armband radios, boombox systems…” and the consumer just buys a Sony Boombox from the S2 line with MP3 capability, and they’re not expected to remember that alphabet soup any more than Mazda expected consumers to know they were buying an FD3S. Product names are just vaguely descriptive identifiers for customers to order parts, and they just need to memorize the few things they do have one at a time, and at most for nerds like us, who’ll memorize everything anyway. Far be it from me to say they couldn’t be more logical or more easy to memorize or both, but people seem to judge them in terms of a strategy that isn’t Sony’s.

[@md_vandenberg]

@@extrahourinthepit I'm with you, the "jokes" about Sony's naming schemes are lame. I don't give a damn what the S2 Walkman is called; does it work or not? Besides, Sony gives the things that matter proper names. Trinitron? *PlayStation* for crying outloud?! Be sure to blame DankPods for this trend. Wade doesn't know when to shut up sometimes.

[@vcprado]

​@@md_vandenberg it's just a joke, you know

[@extrahourinthepit]

@@md_vandenberg The thing about Wade is that, like all of us, he’s a nerd, to whom the cool names and logos Sony actually intended you to call their products by are just a weird form of marketing material irrelevant to the quest for the specific product’s “actual” name. Especially given his familiarity with the notion that two seemingly similar products from the same company and the same line can be extremely different in quality. It is judging fish for their ability to climb trees, but some may justifiably object that they do need their trees climbed.

[@crazychicken2005]

As someone with an WM-FS222 that is used a lot, I enjoyed seeing a video about the rest of the S2 lineup that I did not really know about. I'd also been wondering what that thing on the top of it was and I'm glad to now know that it's a valve. Keep up the good work.

[@ChrisCTurner10]

I had the discman- for three weeks anyway, some wonderful person took it from the locker room when I sat it down and went away for a minute. It indeed was a GREAT discman!

[@rate733]

I still have the S2 Cd player and use it regularly as my mobile music player around the house; the audio quality is still great paired with AT's. Thanks for taking a look at these Sonys Ive always had a soft spot for them.

[@Tamarack_Barbell]

Absolute gem of a channel.

I always thank you from my frozen land Patagonia Argentina. Your videos help a lot in front of a heater. Gracias

[@GenericSweetener]

I love early 2000s Sony stuff because everything is just a *shape*. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, they designed this in a computer and you’re going to know it. It’s like they found fragments of exploded alien technology and decided to model radios off of them.

[@ALTDOK667]

Erm, most of it seems quite ergonomic... didn't you see in the video where he talks about you they fit your hand and the location of controls?

[@nickwallette6201]

It's exceedingly practical and designed with ergonomics and purpose. And it couldn't be further from my aesthetic preference. I hated the "bulbous shape" trend in the 2000s, the Storm Trooper White with black accents (wasn't a fan of the yellow either, but at least it had some character.) The sheer chonkiness and rigamarole to get inside them, egch. Give me a sleek, sophisticated thing that would drop into a pocket any day. Interesting to see the whole family, but I like them no more now than I did then. :-)

[@palladen1933]

Love the show so very educational, can't believe they make all those models with only very small variations it's crazy, you have enough Electronics there to start a museum of classic devices that's what you need to do, thank you 😊😊😊

[@cthulpiss]

That orange/amber + grey + white combo looks fantastic!

[@TirantRex]

I got a great offer from an ebay seller for a D-NS505 and I've been absolutely obsessed with it ever since it arrived! I can't say I've ever used CD-RWs until I got this player. Coming off my older DIscman (D-33) this is basically an all around improvement in usability with about the same audio fidelity. What a fantastic device and thank you for documenting it for us!

[@darke-minecraft]

I remember these things. Really great to look back at these as a series of products. One thing I remember very fondly about Sony’s 90s Walkman were the super high-end cassette Walkmans they made were hardly bigger than a cassette tape case. They had all the features including track seek, auto reverse, slimline rechargeable batteries, and in-line remote control controls. I would love to see a video featuring some of these models.

[@technics-n-thuiast8346]

Nice video. If i knew you were making it, could've sent you my S2 radio, SRF-M80V. Still works like when was new. Great Sony products that just keep on going.

[@Sigma-INFJ.]

This almost seems like a 3 part series, starting with the Sony 360° cassette player video, then the Sony Sports Yellow video, and finally this video.

[@yannisgk]

indeed!!!!

[@sroubos]

I’m impressed by the amount of thought that went into the design of these devices. You can tell this is made by people who have been doing this for years and have been using their experience to make these things as user friendly as possible.

[@jlitagibfonseca]

“… and here a photo of Mr Spock wearing a prototype”! Hahahahahah . The best humor sense ever!

[@volvo09]

I don't even watch Star Trek and that made me laugh!

[@erich214]

Oh wow, thank you for this video! I completely forgot about this line but memories came flooding back! I loved the design elements for this range with its colour scheme and curved designs. It really harked futuristic vibes and definitely looked sporty.

[@chrisjamesr77]

4:11 "Meet & Fu..." not gonna lie, I was waiting for that last word to being something else besides "Fun" lol

[@baddudecornpop7328]

The 2000s tech aesthetic is so good lookin. I think it still holds up today.

[@SayMcGillicuddy]

Never was Sony's DGAF naming convention laid more bare. Heroic effort Mat. I doff my cap

[@CptJistuce]

Model numbers are not names. I don't believe most of these devices HAD names, really. "Walkman S2 sports radio" covers a lot of devices, as does “Walkman S2 sports cassette player"

[@EvilCoffeeInc]

God, I love the visual design of those cassette players. The block colours and bubble fonts and bezier curve through-lines of the 2000s will never get old for me.

[@5ublimate]

The boombox is a prime candidate for a bit of peroxide treatment!

[@jubbetje4278]

The 8-bit Guy doesn't do that anymore.

[@rosco-reigns]

I used thin bleach to re-whiten my Raleigh vektar

[@SiD3WiNDR]

@@jubbetje4278 He prefers dremels these days, right?

[@SiD3WiNDR]

Nah, that's just that typical Sony Sports Yellow!

[@Carl-vq6ww]

Love these videos he does, very fun and knowledgeable 👍👍.

[@richardpuente867]

This guy needs his own museum

[@JC20XX]

I think that's called his storage locker

[@marcusdamberger]

@@JC20XX Pretty sure that happened years ago. There was a video a while ago where he goes sleuthing around the storage locker shelves to find a tape recorder ala Mission Impossible style. About tape recorders used in the show. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5bNlZmVjbl1ipIsi=ZITrI0HEPq-5RCzr You got a glimpse of just how much is put away.

[@DJRickDawson]

has LookMumNoComputer got a bit of space to show some items?

[@richardpuente867]

@JC20XX how much for admission? 😂 Is there tour guides?

[@ryansheldonart6358]

The techmoan-ium

[@criggins1]

I've still got my MZ-S1 minidisc player, and inspired by your video, I pulled it out and it still works! Nice video!

[@Henchman1977]

I worked at Radio Shack in the early 2ks... That Sony lineup was YUGE! At that time most Sony portables came is blister packaging which was difficult to open cleanly and difficult to repackage for sale. Most Panasonics at the time came in boxes which we much preferred as it could be repackaged cleanly.

[@mhoppy6639]

The UK equivalent was Tandy, which stocked “RadioShack”- branded stuff in their stores. I don’t remember whether they carried Sony gear back in the day, but I sort of remember some of the stuff they sold being a bit crappy : lots of knockoffs and tinny speakers galore. Am I remembering that right ? I remember the high end stuff was usually in Lasky’s which was (at least in Chester) dark and seemed to my uselessly immature eyes, very classy and upmarket as a result. 😂

[@SonyEnthusiast]

I'm binge watching all of your Sony content; keep it up!

[@auroragoose3414]

My S2 minidisc player survived my high school years traveling to track meets and other bus rides. I would record a full md off an electronic music channel, overnight, and had hours of good vibes for the next day - as long as I remembered a fresh battery 😅

[@nukfauxsho]

I had a sport 2 walkman radio during my primary school years. It was indestructible. Loved it.

[@El-Ritmo]

I'd forgotten all about these - it's definitely the yellow that comes to mind with Sony Sports - but I do remember them now: I always thought the glossy white with orange looked really clean and classy.

[@BobbyS1981]

When I saw the S2 boombox I immediately thought “we have one similar to that!” Then you mentioned it. The ZS-X10. We’ve had it since new. It’s been on many camping trips and is now more commonly used as a garage radio and entertainment while doing yard work. It’s still going strong after all these years. Thanks for creating this excellent video about the S2 series. Brings back memories of browsing all of the Sony products at the stores in the early 2000’s.

[@JosephFarthing]

Orange video released on Dutch Koningsdag (a national holiday where everything is orange!). I thought it was deliberate for a moment...

[@taofanarchy96-renzomaracas14]

With my free to air satellite in Italy, I watched the Inauguration of King William Alexander back in 2013. I can confirm: everything is orange.

[@gravedigger525]

10 somethin years now and i come from work and see a new Techmoan i click. Hell yeah man

[@paulrippcord506]

I love the late 90s and early 00s melted bar of soap aesthetic. Getting rid of hard edges because round is futuristic.

[@StephenFinkNRP]

I bought the CD S2 back when they were for sale at Best Buy. Recently picked up the armband radio and cassette Walkman. I've been looking at the boombox but have not seen one in the condition I would like. I am glad you did this episode. The series seems to be mostly ignored on KZbin.

[@mhoppy6639]

Steve Jobs was _heavily_ influenced by Sony’s design language and visited their factories to gain additional insight. You can see this in the early iPods and the iPod shuffle which were lovely little pieces of design (by Jonathan Ive!) There’s a great little piece on this period in Walter Issaacson’s biography of Jobs which is highly recommended. It’s definitely not a hagiography and paints jobs in rather a dim light at times. PS I love Sony. Great products brilliantly made, particularly in the 70s, 80s, 90s.

[@mhoppy6639]

@@PotatoeSnow yep he went to Xerox and nicked GUI for Mac then had the gall to try and sue Bill Gates for Windows. [to Jobs] “Well, Steve [Jobs]… I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.

[@shinrasboy]

The story goes that Steve Jobs met up with a Sony executive because he wanted to tap Sony on the shoulder to allow them to use macOS on the Vaio but the executive said no.

[@glennac]

@@mhoppy6639 To be fair, the Xerox GUI wasn’t going anywhere and was there for the taking. Xerox had no real plans for it as history has shown. And Xerox agreed to an arrangement where they received shares in Apple for letting Jobs peek under Xerox’s hood. There were no restrictions in place because Xerox lacked the imagination to pursue a computer division (they were still all about copiers at the time). It was Xerox shooting themselves in the foot, not the other way around. Additionally, If it wasn’t for Jobs’ repurposing the idea for the Lisa/Mac the world would have been stuck with the command line for a lot longer than it did.

[@mhoppy6639]

@@shinrasboy I didn’t know that. Thank you.

[@jesstech]

God, I wish they had licensed Mac OS X. Vista would have flopped and we'd all be using a decent unix-based operating system by now.

[@dragossion]

You always make my day nicer when I see you upload! Keep up the excellent work man!

[@PascalGienger]

RDS in the US came out 1992, they adapted the European RDS standard a bit so RDS chipsets needed to be modified to also accept the US variant. It was standardized by IEC in the year 2000 worldwide.

[@volvo09]

My first experience with RDS was getting into a Chevy around 04 or something. Thought it was pretty cool.

[@PeterBellefleur]

Yeah I was going to mention this, we have RDS in the US, but it really only over took off on car radios and some home av receivers. Rarely saw it on anything portable or lower end

[@PascalGienger]

@@PeterBellefleur Chipsets to decode RDS came out extremely cheap after the IEC standardization. But - radios became rare as people stream. Main usage of RDS is the car stereo as the information carries alternative frequencies for the same radio station. Something very common in Europe but nearly non-existent in the US (local vs affiliated). The other challenge in the US are long distances to emitters. Often the stereo decoder turns off already so RDS is gone already for a long time already. Stereo uses carrierless 38kHz in the "audio" signal, RDS 57kHz (3x the pilot tone).

[@rolfathan]

I had a D-CS901, and I've been wondering exactly what that model was for ages! Thanks for breaking it all down.

[@haydenkielbowick2787]

What interesting timing. I just picked up one of of the D-FS601 CD players thrifting about a week ago. 15:53

[@948320z]

Every time Matt referenced yet another long string of Sony model number, I can just hear Dankpods saying "catchy name, Sony" sarcastically lol

[@InredibleMrH]

My dad got one of the portable CD players in 2003 or so. I’ve always loved the look!

[@twocvbloke]

The demonstration track on the boombox had me worried when I saw "Meet & Fu" on the screen, we've all seen that spam on twitter to assume it was something else!!! :P

[@honkyvanwildebeest8926]

I thought Matt was being a bit blase about his selection of track!

[@singinglawnchair]

Matt likes a particular type of game from Newgrounds...

[@thatonehumanoid7756]

@@singinglawnchair*Family Feud ding*

[@DarthKidd]

Oh man, I had that CD Walkman and used it every time I went running. Thing never skipped on me. It the best portable CD player ever.

[@Sigma-INFJ.]

Now Mat should do a video about the My First Sony Series.

[@TemporallyYours]

Lovely coverage as always! Wanted to mention the strap on the CD player (D-NS707F) does actually connect together- there is a locking groove on the sides of the two straps that face each other. It's odd, but does seem to hold well once connected, haha.

[@uncled39]

Saturday is Techmoan day

[@BenGoldNYC]

I had that tape deck when I was a kid and would listen to the radio on it in the morning on the way to school. It also picked up TV stations. They also made a pair of over the ear headphones with a built in radio.

[@hudde814]

It's been said before and it's being said again to further emphasize the point, Sony really loves naming their products that aren't PlayStations like they're making a new password for each website

[@drworm5007]

It's a test to judge who is worthy to download the manual.

[@WatanabeNoTsuna.]

I never knew about these! Cool stuff! Thanks for showing it to us in such an interesting manner, as usual! 😊

[@pizzaface4079]

I love the S2 line, the srf 80 is my favorite, I use it all the time.

[@michaelbird27]

I love these. I have the CD player, the Minidisc player, and the cassette Walkman.

[@RococoAlmanegra]

The future of the past was so beautiful! Now we've been living in the 80's for over a decade and it's gotten boring....

[@Jiddy12345]

Very nice! I have my handheld cd player with strap just feet from me right now.

[@dabblerblue]

I really loved this line. I had the S1 portable sport NetMD and to me it was absolutely amazing. I still think about it. Cracking it open, ejecting the spent MD, slapping in a new one, and chunking it closed felt like I was loading a revolver with deadly tracks.

[@nickcabrera3982]

I have the silver/black/yellow sports cd player with the locking clasp that bridged the gap between these and the 80s. Beast of a player that would not skip. Endless battery time.

[@DeathInTheSnow]

Sony usually keep a catalogue of their manuals online on their website. There's also manuals lib too. With that knowledge, as well as Sony's method of product naming (it isn't catchy, but it's usually consistent with a range - MDR being headphones, Xperia being phones etcetera), you may be able to trawl through there to find more of the S2 range! Mind you, this is coming from a guy who sat through one of your MiniDisc unboxing videos and catalogued everything you opened and put it in a comment, so...

[@miked4377]

I like that s2 line very nice looking capable devices!

[@malkymoos]

I once saw a woman renting out those boom boxes at the beach, for ridiculously cheap like cents a hour, but no batteries included. When pressed about how she made a profit, she told me she sells c-cells by the seashore

[@joet4774]

Damn it lol. I've been trying to buy the MD model forever at a good price. I'll have to wait for the Techmoan price bump to settle down

[@Pittibarlin]

Join Vinted. It's a place very few people look, and the kind of thing I've picked up at crazy cheap prices as people throwing "old outdated" stuff out think it's almost worthless.

[@yannisgk]

@@Pittibarlin thanks!!!

[@Nomad-Rogers]

I was a young teen in the 00s' and these brought back memories of me wanting one of those portable S2 CD players so bad I couldn't stand it but we were on a budget and couldn't afford one. A family friend for Christmas bought me a very nice Panasonic maybe it is just nastalgia look back on my very early teen years but I have never had a CD player sound that good.

[@shane8915]

Take a page out of the old Nintendo refurbishing playbook. Retrobright that boombox. That should solve the yellowing quiet well.

[@duskonanyavarld1786]

I think the 8 bit guy have videos of making polymer white.

[@Pittibarlin]

Peroxide and sunlight works just as well, and much cheaper.

[@Safetytrousers]

@@duskonanyavarld1786 There are channels that quite often use retro-bright. I'm sure Techmoan knows of such things.

[@Haffmatthew]

Being that the bulk of these features devices are from my teenage to early adulthood years, I’m fond of the aesthetic of their overall looks. The focus on having each device looking futuristic and modern speaks to me as a society exhibiting a sense of optimism for the tech that the coming years would bring. The color scheme, as well as the rounded organic shapes seems to evoke a space travel theme as well as pandering to the active lifestyles of the end users. Love this video, Mat!

[@toby182]

Back when design was fun

[@daveubermensch]

I love my WM-FS555. Loved seeing you do a video on these.

[@mattmanslim]

I see Techmoan and I click

[@GYTCommnts]

I have the arm radio! Still works perfectly! About the "TV / Weather" options: TV was very useful to be able to hear analog TV stations, so if something important happened and the power went out, you would still be able to hear TV news for example if you wanted to. I used it many times when analog TV existed. About "weather", not in my country but in the U.S. there is/was a specific transmission for the weather. There is other excellent portable radio model from Sony, not a sports one, very durable and sturdy like this S2 that was available in black or silver colors, with the same functions. My Dad has it, I bought it as a gift and still works nowadays too.

[@Mr-Trox]

I thought that's what the weather option was for. When I was a kid I thought the weatherman on it sounded creepy. Then in my teen years, I'd tune to the weather band and pray for him to mention snow.

[@estusflask982]

MEGA BASS

[@ProbablySteven]

Late stage portable cd players were really good and plentiful. I guess that tends to be the case for most products right before they run their course. As a teen in the early 2000s, I loved these types of things, plus early MP3 players. Lots of fun unique designs.

[@latexbeep]

That was my first Walkman

[@dieferman]

Wow, very nice collection. Thanks for sharing your passion with such great content! Keep it up!

[@d33b33]

You could Retrobrite that Boombox.

[@scottysunday]

My favourite discman is from this era, the Sony D-CJ01. Plays CD, CDR, MP3 on CD, and displays text on a little handheld shuffler (same as what you get on minidiscs). It's silver and clear, which is very on brand for the time, though I could have seen in being white with orange text instead.

[@pb_zep3838]

I quite enjoyed this brand specific product line-up. More please 😊

[@TheLordBarker]

I had the cd player D-FS601 model. I loved it for how the skip protection worked flawlessly. I'll have to see if I can find it, if I still have it.

[@Charlesb88]

I’m glad you gave these a sporting chance. 😄 Should have called these the Sony Sportsman line.

[@MrStimpanzee]

I had one of those S2 CD players. What set it apart for me was the anti skip performance. It never missed a beat.

[@glitchwolfe]

The S2 CD player with the hand strap was my main player for pretty much all of middle/high school until I got my first iPod. The anti skip on that thing was incredible, I used to go skateboarding with it!

[@N-MCMXCIX]

What a surprising coincidence! I just found that armband radio at a thrift shop yesterday! [Friday morning, I say looking at the clock] Haven't tested it yet, but it appears to be in amazingly great condition, not even yellowed! To have Techmoan do a retrospective on it the very next day, that's the icing on the cake! Though upon closer inspection, this appears to be a different model, SRF-M85W, no TV, 25 presets instead of 30, but otherwise close enough.

[@PK1312]

Heyyyy I had that casette s2 walkman at 11:02 when I was a kid! So many audiobooks listened to on car rides in that bad boy.

[@mutavhello6654]

I had one of those S2 CD players when i was a teenager. It was really cool, the ability to play MP3 CD's was the main reason i bought.