Walkman II : The Do-over. The start of something small

Some say that the Walkman II was the first proper Walkman.
I'm not saying that because I can't deal with the hassle - but it was definitely an opportunity for Sony to reset and start again.
Resources:
stereo2go.com
walkman-archive.com
walkmancentral.com/
audio-database.com
www.hifi-archiv.info
www.hifiengine.com
www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/Corp...
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[@jeffhughes1318]

Excellent. I just wish you'd actually modelled it all on a tool belt!

[@andymerrett]

Sony missed a trick not creating one (maybe they did)

[@Deebz270]

.... Whilst climbing a cell tower...

[@_sabot]

Batmoan

[@1974UTuber]

​@@Deebz270You mean an AM or UHF CB repeater tower to be chronologically correct. There were no cell towers in 1981

[@ggeudraco]

I think the belt would sag 😉

[@AndyBHome]

I really do remember thinking "what's the big deal?" when the original Walkman came out. It seemed like we already had players just like it, but with the ability to record. What I didn't realize was that it was stereo and in conjunction with the small, light, open back, rare earth magnet headphones, it produced sound that was superior to what a lot of people had at home. So a lot of the success, I believe, was due to the quality of the experience of listening to music on them.

[@volvo09]

A portable graphic equalizer and a portable DBX decoder, wow! Those must be quite rare these days.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

later on Aiwa and Panasonic integrated both of those features into their portable cassette players, but I don't recall Sony ever bothered

[@BobWiersema]

If it was made in the 70's it would have had a disco ball attachment as well. 😁

[@joshuascholar3220]

I owned the equalizer, mostly because it could get louder than a walkman or a diskman could by itself.

[@serratusx]

the equaliser sells for about £300-400 nowadays. There was a saisho equivalent which also fetches a very high price

[@krzysztofczarnecki8238]

There are new portable headphone amps with a graphic equalizer that has actual sliders rather than an app, like Jaben Oriolus SE02 (but it's pretty chonky and costs $300)

[@skree_fpv436]

I remember asking for a Walkman for my birthday when I was a little kid in the early/mid eighties. I got one but it was FM radio only version. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but I was still happy and grateful to have it. It was my first ever piece of audio equipment.

[@Blitterbug]

Same here. Not all parents could afford about £180 for a portable music player in the mid 80s. That's like £500 today, probably.

[@Techmoan]

My first personal stereo was a Saisho that cost a tenner. My second was also a Saisho that cost a bit more (perhaps £20) because it had a radio and a five band graphic equaliser. There’s zero shame in buying what you can afford.

[@Blitterbug]

@@Techmoan Exactly! I was so chuffed I took my pocket (stereo!) radio to my friend's house and his dad (who had a grand's worth of JVC seperates) indulgently asked for a listen and complemented me on its sound. Made me feel proud as hell.

[@heathwellsNZ]

I vividly recall being given an FM radio similar in size to a walkman... with headphones and belt clip. The most vivid memory was the shock of discovering that there were in fact no FM radio stations to actually listen to! This was in Christchurch, New Zealand and we only had AM until the early 80's! All I could listen to was taxis getting calls from their base and talking to each other! It was several years before I was able to actually use it to listen to the radio! Ahhh... many a morning waking up to find the radio you placed under your pillow, so as not to alert parents you were doing it, was left on coz you went to sleep... and now your batteries were flat!

[@EVPaddy]

As I didn’t have any home stereo or anything like that at the time, and my original ‘walkman’ (not a sony) broke and we could get a new one for half the price, my mother agreed on buying one with built in radio and recording possibility (don’t remember the brand). It had autoreverse and was tiny (it had an external stereo mic ‘block’). But sound quality of the recording at least were abysmal. I got a Discman in 1986 and haven’t look back to analog music since then. Got a DAT around 1989 to copy CDs.

[@Bren0780K]

Admit it, back in the day if you were wearing all those devices on your belt at once, you were thinking to yourself "I'm Batman"😁

[@SG-gc7mn]

Not really!

[@bvfgfvbgch4853]

​@@SG-gc7mn lol

[@iantk17]

i would imagine something more like. I am the coolest guy at this school with my portable hifi system.

[@izimsi]

biblically accurate Walkman setup

[@bobmcbob4399]

In other words - all lies.

[@drworm5007]

​@@bobmcbob4399 I believe it and I'm considered by my peers an intelligent person.

[@fridgemagnet]

In November 1983 for my 13th birthday I received my first walkman, a Sony WM-7. My father had a friend who worked for a petroleum company and who regularly flew around the world for his job, so he asked him to pick up walkman in duty free from Tokyo airport in Japan. I was a hero at school with my Auto Reverse, Full Logic Control, Remote Control on the headphones and Dolby B. I was spoiled from then on, the sound quality was light years ahead of the cheap plastic units most people had. The Thriller album on chrome tape, Ah such memories !! I still have the WM-7, it's currently with Dr Walkman under going a restoration. I currently listen to a WM-DC2 from 1985.

[@lounisphotography]

I still have thriller on chrome tape!

[@Nezuji]

As a little kid in the mid-80s, my Walkman was indeed the old original model. It had been my father's, and he handed it down to me as an old, second-hand device that wouldn't be missed if a little kid like me lost or ruined it.

[@Troppa17]

My first Walkman was an WM-EX23 handed down from my sister as she bought a new one.

[@nesagwa]

That's why in GOTG he has an old model of walkman. It and the mixtape were gifts from his mom.

[@randomdestructn]

Same. I used the original one and the orange headphones until I got an updated one in the early 90s.

[@lancairw867]

Yea I thought the same thing. Could had been a hand me. I was the youngest and in the 80s I had many hand me downs 😂

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

Yep. I had a similar-size Aiwa big boxy one as a kid in the late '80s. The only difference is that my Aiwa could record. I prized my portable recorder. Purely for recording FM, I didn't have a microphone.

[@ashkitt7719]

tfw it's 5 AM and I catch a Techmoan video.

[@GearHzMusic]

4am for me. Can’t fall asleep lol this is perfect

[@alaraswings8535]

Heh, it's 1 30 pm for me and I'm supposed to go to my extra tutoring school, yet here I am, watching techmoan haha

[@xgford94]

Hello from 8pm😂

[@TechTokOffical]

It's like 8am tomorrow over there lol...

[@jtr159]

Mat, I just realized I've probably been subscribed to you for ten years now. Stumbled upon your channel to see some random dashcam I think. Thanks for always educating us and showing stuff most of us have never heard of. I've watched every single video and will keep doing so. Your channel is just the best!

[@SimonGreen85]

Time certainly does fly. It's been a pleasure to watch his videos

[@awdadwadwad1723]

I stumbled upon this channel over 7 years ago when I was looking for reviews of Cambridge Azur amplifier, which I soon got too. I’ve watched every single video here since then haha

[@JohnKobaRuddy]

Remove your tongue from his rectum

[@SianaGearz]

I think i came upon it when he was reviewing a Honda motorcycle and a 3-wheel motorroller or two. And then stayed on to watch the 808 keyfob spy camera reviews. Watched every vid since as well.

[@eyeamstrongest]

was watching regular car reviews about 10ish years ago, one of the videos mentioned techmoan and i thought this channel looked interesting enough

[@jameslocke1416]

I’ll never forget my first Walkman-style tape player I had, from the summer of 1981. I won it on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, and it was a very chunky, crudely built machine with buttons that would pop off when you pressed Stop. It was white, which showed every smudge clear as day, and had the cheapest headphones I’ve ever seen to this day, but it was *mine*, and eleven-year-old me couldn’t have been prouder of it! I didn’t even own any tapes when I first got it, but thankfully it had a fiddly, staticky AM/FM tuner. Good memories!!

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I recall walking into an audio shop on the main street of oxford in the 80s and seeing an entire glass cabinet of very expensive sony models, some with recording and external mic abilities apparently aimed at pros and other tiny models. They were certainly objects of lust

[@PhineasPhlob]

Brilliant, really enjoyed that. Bonus points for the 'jock itch' ad in the first magazine. Negative points for making me remember I sold my WM-22 for £4 at a car boot sale.

[@65CJ5]

I worked at an A/V shop that was a Sony distributor when the original walkman came out. We sold as many as we could get. Full list price, no deals, no sales! People loved them.

[@jimgillert20]

They were a status symbol at work.

[@gu_gu]

They were under-priced

[@neriozulberti1492]

@@jimgillert20twenty years later apple Ipod 😊

[@the_once-and-future_king.]

'No deals, no sales!' is exactly the rhetoric that caused things like Amazon to come about, and people to shop there. There's no incentive to 'shop local'

[@nickwallette6201]

@@the_once-and-future_king. That's true. I remember when the NES Mini came out, and I had the option of trying to find one on the shelf at a local shop for $90, or buying one on Amazon for $200. Which I did. It was counterfeit. Thank heavens for the Internet, eh??

[@TaralgaBushAdventure]

When I was in high school in 1980, I remember one of my classmates had one of the Walkman I's , and we spent a swimming carnival listening to loud stereo on headphones, just amazed at it. Then a year later, same kid had Walkman II (with external D cell battery pack), and we were just shocked at the size of it.

[@ThomasHope73]

Such nostalgia! Being 17yo in 1990, the peak of the cassette, it was very much the music medium of my teens. Never saw anyone with the paraphernalia at the end though. We'd just carry rechargeable AA batteries, and it was common to have a tape or two on you, at any time.

[@squareeyz]

I got the original Walkman as a Christmas present in the early 80's. Mine came with a plastic grey Sony carry case and shoulder strap, and a special FM radio cassette receiver, which was hopeless . I literally played this thing all the time until it died. Thanks for the memories.

[@PaulMiller-mn3me]

Mat’s videos are a ray of sunshine through the clouds

[@KasparOnTube]

yes! part of nice weekend morning!

[@schitlipz]

Like glorious bangers and mash.

[@davegesell5470]

That setup at the end is absolutely madness, and I loved it!

[@deepsleep7822]

I remember when they first came out and thought that were rather expensive. I did eventually get one but it was many years later. It had FM radio with a preset option and a digital clock. I still have it.

[@davidb.6681]

I can't remember the model, but I had a Sony one that had a small LCD screen with 5 preset buttons under it. Even after the belt wore down I still used it for the radio because it seemed to pick up every station and the audio quality was pretty good. I wish I still had it.

[@10p6]

Nice. I remember about 1989 I wanted to buy a portable tape unit for my trip to collage, and I ended up buying a small Panasonic unit with auto reverse and record as it was still quite a bit cheaper than a standard Walkman even then.

[@Spearca]

I did live through the '80s, and this is the first time I've seen a Walkman component system. 😁

[@schitlipz]

I know, eh?

[@jimgillert20]

If i had known about and had the $$ to buy a D-sized battery pack i would have gotten it day one.

[@Thats_him_with_the_daft_hat]

14:11 My dad made his own D cell adaptation to my old Alba. He cut down an old datacorder power cable and used an old torch body as a battery pack. Four good solid solder points and hey presto!

[@DoubleSmackJacksSmackAttack]

I found a TPS-L2 at a flea market back in the mid 00s with a set of headphones AND WM2 headphones for $15. Had bad belts and barely worked. Held onto it and thought nothing of its history, I just liked that it was a proper metal case. Imagine my shock looking at eBay a few years ago! Motivated me to fix it right quick.

[@AvidRetro]

Great story, I never saw one for sale that cheap. As the TPS-L2 began getting more popular to have I found out about a WM-3 and bought one of those for around £38, which I still have although it needs new belts now...trying to build up courage to take it apart!

[@tschak909]

The one thing I loved about the TPS-L2 was the hot-button. It never made it out of the first unit. It was excellent for quickly responding to people who were talking to you.

[@Kabelkerl]

Finally a nice cassette video again, thank you very much. But I think I have to disagree about StarLord, especially as the son of a single mother, the old Walkman fits perfectly at that time. As a small child, you often got the worn-out things of the older ones, even when it came to technology. His mum certainly couldn't afford any new expensive technology, so it fits perfectly

[@Techmoan]

I think you missed the point of that section… I said the exact thing that you use as your argument against what I said in the video. You’re agreeing with me. 06:01 - “Now I understand that it’s a fantasy film and you can come up with some kind of back-story that it had been handed down through the family…“ I followed that up by saying that a lot of people who weren’t around at the time now think that the Walkman most people were using in 1988 was the one featured in a fantasy film (set in 1988 with this backstory) whereas *the reality of day to day life in 1988* was that the vast majority of personal stereo users were neither A) Using a Sony…or B) Using a TPS-L2.

[@Kabelkerl]

@@Techmoan Youre right , maybe i mussunterstand that part , cause it reminded me a little of my own past :)

[@mickael486]

Peter Quill was using his Mom's first walkman because he loved her. It's a creative and emotional plot device that you should appreciate.

[@thisisnotachannel]

I pulled a model 2 Walkman (same as the one you showed, but blue instead of red) out of a basement I was emptying out about 2 months ago... thought I had found an excellent piece of tech history... it was even in near mint condition, externally. I had a blue one as a kid, and it was my favorite thing for a few years. But when I opened the battery compartment? Leaky batteries, acid all over everything on the inside of the tape deck too... damned batteries must've leaked til they were empty. I didn't open it up, but there is no way that acid didn't leak in to the mechanical parts... I had to toss it. No salvaging that. I cried a little 😋

[@tcpnetworks]

I always had AIWA stuff. It was a little bit cheaper, but typically had more features. I ended up with a recording Sony in the early 1990's - and it had Dolby and all the good stuff. By 1995 - everything went to CD.

[@user-gf7kj5vj3p]

The earbuds with my aiwa personal tape deck were awesome of the best sounding stock. Can't remember the model, but the body was metal, took a square battery but had option of two AA/AAA in an external plastic housing.

[@mankepoot9440]

I couldn't afford a Sony neither, mine was also an AIWA.

[@stamfordly6463]

I seem to recall that Aiwa stuff was usually more plasticky and busy looking but had the longer description in the Argos catalogue due to having more bells and whistles. When you're that age and spending your own Christmas/pocket money you probably care more for features you'll possibly never use than cool design.

[@chrishart8548]

​@stamfordly6463 I had an aiwa. Mainly because it was so small. It took 2 aaa batteries to but them in you opened the cassette door took the cassette out and they went under where the cassette would be. The didn't last very long. It was from argos. Must have been around 1994

[@christopherrigby2798]

My first own brought one was Aiwa HG-S 35. Sounded excellent on type II and top end type I tapes like Maxell XL1-s and TDK's AR. I only transitioned when the MiniDisc appeared starting with Sony playback only model and then a sharp portable recorder.

[@themightyimp08]

Props for you featuring Electro 4 on CC in this video. I have the Electro series on Vinyl, and would scour the record stores weekly for the next in the series to come out.. great memories!

[@benji.B-side]

Same here, I have the Electro series on vinyl. I'm an old school Break Dancer. 😉

[@dries74marocben8]

Electro 10 ; Dynamic Duo "Knights Of The Turntables" great memories indeed.

[@gregoryhayball]

​@@dries74marocben8Johnny The Fox and Transformers, that takes me back a long time. Played it a lot but my favourite was definitely Electro 5 though.

[@DavidFrankland]

I've got almost all up to 11 on vinyl. The one that stands out though is Electro 4 as it's the one that introduced me to the series. I had it on tape, recorded from a friend, so didn't buy the vinyl until many years later. I still think it's possibly my favourite along with Crucial. Breakin in Space sounded like something from the future 🙂

[@Fluteboy]

The Cybotron track _Techno City_ featured a sample of a voice clock - which ended up being reviewed by *VWestlife:* kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYuzqYN6ma6kobc

[@anakondase]

Me and my best mate at the time often sat on the bus listening on my original walkman. We used the button to speak to eachother, that was easier than lowering the volume or taking our headphones off. I thought it was an awesome feature.

[@dunebasher1971]

I remember that a typical cost-saving measure of the majority of the non-Sony personal stereos was that they didn't rewind, they could only fast-forward. Many car stereos were the same. If you wanted to be able to rewind, you had to be prepared to pay a fair bit more.

[@itme999]

Oh man, i haven't thought of that in years. Turn over the tape and fast forward 😂

[@ally7055]

Yes! My yellow Grundig 'Beat Boy 30' had that. Still loved it, though.

[@peterrenn6341]

"In my mind and in my car - we can't rewind we've gone too far" - oh hang on that was video wasn't it? ;-)

[@AvidRetro]

Yes I remember them, even have one now as part of a Neostar Record Player / CD / Cassette Combo!

[@baroncalamityplus]

I was still using the original Walkman in 1987. My house hold was a bit unusual. My Dad loved everything Sony. Even had a Sony Reel to Reel. So when the Walkman came out, he got one for himself and mom. A few years later I got his original when he upgraded to the new one.

[@Thats_him_with_the_daft_hat]

Agreed. Personal stereo cassette players certainly evolved quickly. My first was a saisho - straight outta Dixon's. It had an FM tuner but no rewind! FF>> only. My last one, purchased 1992, had auto reverse, no tuner, bass and treble sliders, megabass, Dolby sound and excellent sound quality. My final model was an aiwa. In-between I'd used Sony, alba, Lloydtron, Philips and a few "own brand " models, like the saisho.

[@6581punk]

I got nostalgic for a Boots (PS88) one I owned and found one that's like new. But the biggest drag I find is batteries, I really detest buying disposable AA batteries and rechargeable cells are lower voltage.

[@wisteela]

My first was a Saisho like that too, but with 3 band graphic equaliser.

[@volvo09]

I hated the FF only tape players, I had one for a while.

[@wisteela]

@@volvo09 Was really slow too

[@RBzee112]

I had AIWA's too. I eventually got a SONY when I found a lost one 😊.

[@HappyMinds1]

That was tremendous. I have never been so moved by a retrospective in my life. By the end of this video I had a memory awash with fellow music lovers decked out in all of this kit. The only thing, the only small thing I wish this video had, was a Matt with all of these on his belt, ready for stomping the streets. A finer piece of media will never be made by this channel or any other ever again. We have peaked.

[@daviatorcustoms3168]

The tech savvy (but poor) amongst us knew of the additional devices you cover in this video, but pretty much none of us acquired them, as, no one I knew could even afford the walkman 2 alone, let alone all the add-ons. Even if they COULD afford all this gear, they never really bothered with the extra gizmos and just stayed with the walkman 2 by itself. I remember thinking when I saw the walkman 2 in the Sears catalog, I think, the equalizer unit was pictured right next to it and part of some bundle deal. That was probably the most likely way people were getting these accessories because Sony didn't seem to be going out of their way to advertise them and many stores weren't carrying the accessories. I remember thinking too, that the equalizer being sold as a completely separate device was kind of ridiculous since, for the price they were charging for the Walkman 2, Sony should have included one ON the unit itself. My feelings were apparently echoed by other manufacturers, as the next year or so later, Aiwa introduced a personal stereo model with a 3 band graphic equalizer, a model I own and is still in perfect working order. Later models from Aiwa as well as other manufacturers had 6 band equalizers built in as well.

[@randywatson8347]

Ahhh yes. Still got both of them in my collection. Both replacing the rubber bands was easy, but the later DD has that dreaded plastic gear. For me the WM-10 is the true innovation in terms of miniturization in 1982. The size was exactly the same as a cassette case when there is no cassette in it andd retracted.

[@briantaylor9266]

I used to have a WM-10. Not sure if I disposed of it somewhere along the line, or whether it's buried with other antiques.

[@thomashounsome7737]

I have a wm1 with the dreaded gear as well.

[@babygerald4645]

The WM-10 was a work of art. The sliding case was so slick and it was built rather strong for being so small. In the late 80s a friend of mine had two and gave me one. This was a few years after its debut when it was distinctly surpassed by newer tech but it was still a marvel then. My favorite in the entire Walkman line was the WM-600. I had one in white and I swear Steve Jobs used it as the inspiration for his walkman-killing iPhone which would feature a similar jog wheel style input.

[@jlitagibfonseca]

As always, an interesting, curious, well-produced and entertaining video. Congrats, Matt!

[@ericriggert9231]

A DAK catalog! As soon as I saw that hyperbolic "Pocket Concert Hall" title, I knew I was looking at an old DAK catalog from Southern California. It was the gadget source of it's time. My first "Walkman" was not a Sony either - too expensive. Even just having cassette functionality at that time was expensive. But the Walkman craze spawned a series of AM/FM radios in Walkman size format, with the same kind of headphones. These were a million times nicer than the same-sized 9V AM transistor radios they replaced. I had a Mura Hi-Stepper, and the sound quality was, to me, at 13, amazing.

[@siwynjones]

I can confirm that when I became a teenager in 1989, I was still using a hulking great big Sanyo M-G7SP with a missing FF button, that had been handed down by my uncle. The original headphones were long gone, but it did have matching Sportster speakers. I replaced it with a smaller £7.99 Alba unit from Argos. Sony Walkmans were what the kids off the posh estate had.

[@dream.machine]

This is so cool! I only caught this a few minutes after you posted. Thanks for the in depth info about the Sony Walkman.

[@yanks1fan09]

My father sold the original Walkman TPS-L2 wholesale so I got on of the very first in the US for $125.00 USD. I remember recording REO Speedwagon's Hi Fidelity over and over. One thing you forgot to mention about the WM-3 black version was it offered the ability to play Metal Type tapes which was an improvement over the original. Personally, I think the best walkman is the WMDC6 which I also own. Growing in the 80's and having a dad in the business afforded me opportunities to own many high end stereo components.

[@dorklyasmr6017]

My dad worked at Sears in the US and thus bought me the Sears knock off version around 82 or 83. And like every sears knockoff, it completely missed the point of the original. Far from being a small thing you could sort of fit in your pocket, it was HUGE, and built insanely solidly. Volume wise it might have been a full 75 percent bigger than even the original walkman. It also took four double A batteries (And ran through them like candy). My dad bought be a battery charger and batteries; but at the time the technology sucked. So while AA batteries were SUPPOSED to put out 1.5 volts; these only put out 1.25 volts. So in the end the player needed 6 volts; but got only five. And the result was that everything played just a little bit slower than it was supposed to. I got so used to hearing the slower versions that I was convinced radio stations were playing speeded up versions to fit in more commercials or something.

[@jaymzx0]

You mentioned the cost of a Walkman back then compared to the cheap brands. I remember I always wanted one of those Sony 'Sport' Walkmans - the yellow ones with the digital tuner. They went for around $100 USD back in the mid 1990s - which is about $200 USD today with inflation. I was a teen and couldn't afford it but liked to look at them. I know we're used to cheap electronics these days but back then $100 for a cassette player was 'reasonable for those who can afford it, but a luxury nonetheless'. One day I was hanging around down by the downtown mall and I found a like new Sony Sport walkman hidden in a plant container! I'm pretty sure it was stolen or dropped, but it was mine now (hey I was 15 yrs old). It was the most well-refined tape player I had ever used. The tuner worked beautifully and rarely has issues with fading or static on FM. As what goes around comes around, someone stole it from my backpack when I was in math class one day. I sure missed it.

[@BobBell808]

It's funny how these retro-tech videos bring back selective memories. When you thought of the early Walkman you went back to school-age kids riding a bus. When I remember my earliest memories of Walkmans I'm in college at a summer arts camp, lying on a lake shore, with the music director on a beach towel in a speedo, listening to Chariots of Fire by Vangelis... different memories.

[@ve2vfd]

Gotta say, in 1981 or '82 I had a Sony WM-8 Canadian Edition (has a maple leaf on it instead of the US model with a star) which I won off a TV station contest. I ended up using that walkman for 6-7 years before upgrading to a smaller more recent model. Strangely enough, most walkman lists online do not include the WM-8, but it was popularised by appearing in Stranger Things and as a consequence, sells for insane amounts on ebay.

[@willitbend7262]

I was able to get a Canadian WM-8 Walkman for $5. It just needed new belts. That was a few months ago. The coolest thing about it is that it’s red instead of grey.

[@KarldorisLambley]

i think my first personal stereo, around 1982/3 was an aiwa. the cassette went in it in landscape orientation, it had 2 3.5mm jacks, each with its own volume control, and it had a built in mike, that operated at a button press, to allow the user to hear his surroundings, should he wish. i wish i still had it. it still amazes me that personal stereos worked on only 3 volts. the efficiency of analogue electronics, and no big screen, no doubt.

[@justjoe7313]

Kudos for getting all the parts together!!

[@OzRetrocomp]

16:34 Thanks for that. Now I have "Wired for Sound" by Cliff Richard stuck in my head.

[@stragulus]

Yeah, like most, definitely had the later gen cheaper walkman, only by the time I hit 40 I finally got my hands on a TPS-L2 which I lovingly restored. I will say though, in the later 80s over the ear phones in the Netherlands were still very much a thing. Orange color and all!

[@6581punk]

I can't remember what I used. The advantage of headphones was being able to take them off and have them rest around your neck.

[@indiegun]

Maybe it's just me, but earbuds were not commonly used in my memory until the late 90s and early 2000s. I know they existed long before that but I saw no common use in my day to day life in the mid eighties through the nineties. My own Panasonic portable always sported a foam 'over-ear' headset from 1985 all the way till Hurricane Katrina took it from me 20 years later. Everyone I knew used the foam over-ear sets. We all constantly put our headsets on our friends' heads to show off our latest musical finds and NO ONE liked the idea of shoving soiled buds into each other's ears. I still wouldn't do that now. If one does a Google image search for "1980s Walkman headphones" it will be pretty obvious what the norm was back then. Even Marty McFly used them in the movie scene Mat used in this video. Earbuds were hardly a blip in common usage back then. Perhaps it was different in the UK or perhaps Mat and his pals were a localized exception.

[@djgreenhornet2892]

The Walkman setup is so cool!

[@xmds2062]

Thanks Matt for this great video. My father was often in Japan on business in the early to mid-80s, and we also had Japanese people visiting us at home. Once he received a Walkman II as a gift including two headphones with the orange Walkman button, the carrying case, the strap and the external battery case. When he mentioned that he was going skiing in winter, they also gave him two special, "aluminium" coated, original Sony thermo strap carrying cases. One for the Walkman, the other for additional cassettes. I didn't see these in your video, they would probably be extremely rare today. My sister and I used the Walkman much more than my father (who travelled a lot), unfortunately there is nothing left, at some point it was "gone" and I had switched to a D99 Discman. Thank you for this journey through time. P.S. Unfortunately, my parents didn't allow me to use the thermo-wrapped Walkman on the ski slopes...........😢

[@RCAvhstape]

You are correct about the price of Sony. In the early 80s my parents got me a General Electric clone that was similar to the others on that catalog page. I used it for a quite a long time, though I remember the stock headphones were less than stellar. I eventually got a pair of Sony MDR-40 headphones which I absolutely loved. I still have them in an old drawer somewhere in the hope that I can figure out how to fix them, because they sounded better than any other on-ear headphone I've used since.

[@SianaGearz]

I have had a Walkman back then and i have the SONY headphones that i got in the late 80s, and they are OK, not great. SONY headphones that look sort of similar by purpose, obviously not the exact same but vaguely similar dimensions and also metal headband and light open foam covered cups, 30mm driver, but which i bought new in mid 2000s sound LOADS better. Other good open and light on-ears i have here are by Sennheiser, also from mid 2000s, couldn't decide which of them i like more, probably SONY. Then there's of course Koss PortaPros and the Koss clip on headphones (which can be converted to headband type) and i can't make up my mind on whether i like them or not, i can see them being both attractive and controversial. Yes you can very much fix them if you can solder, or get a friend to do it for you. There's no shame in sacrificing dollar store earphones to get a fresh wire, though ideally better earphones come with more durable wire. You can even upgrade them with a mic/button/headset feature, imagine that!

[@beastmastreakaninjadar6941]

I had a version of the Walkman that actually was the size of a cassette case, as long as you didn't have a tape in it. lol It was barely thicker than a tape case for the drive mechanism, but the height and width were the same and it would actually fit in many cassette storage cases alongside your tapes. It worked, sort of like a Transformer, by sliding the head and electronics section out to a wider position so the cassette would fit inside. But it also had FM radio, so you could still just walk around with it in its more compact form. Amazing, really, considering it still had to house a battery along with the electronics. WM-F10, I think after a quick search.

[@markjamesmeli2520]

You opened up a floodgate of memories, thanks, reminding me that I say goodbye to my 50's in about six months! As, from your memory of many personal stereos, but not many Walkmans - I saw a good deal of Walkmans back in the day, but NEVER a Walkman Two. And I never saw any Sonys that had a "record" option. Did they sell them in the US? Mine was the basic model, purchased in late 1984. It suited me well for what I wanted it for (tapes of my worn out records). By 1987, I was using my Walkman as an overdub deck for home demos, etc. I was in the workforce, so wearing a Walkman was a strict no-no. It was time to get a good deck for my car then.

[@jayducharme]

In 1973, I had a Bradford (W.T. Grant brand) portable cassette recorder that was just a bit smaller than the first Walkman. It was mono, but I used it to record music and took it everywhere with me. Great little machine, just not stereo.

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

Not just Guardians of the Galaxy--that same year, the original walkman was featured prominently in Deutschland 83 also--that's what reignited my imagination re: the original Sony walkman. I got my first one (the blue w the orange button and orange foam phones) for Christmas in 82 and I've basically never taken my headphones off since then.

[@franzspirk6064]

What a story out of a "simple" Walkman Mat’s did. I still have a DD Walkman but I had no idea about the adds on. Well done

[@sniper441]

Your videos are the big treat at the end of the week that I always look forward to. Thank you so much for these.

[@mwitty111]

Always the best. The quality of your presentations is unmatched.

[@PhD63]

I bought an LPS2 in 1979 while I was in Hong Kong, before it was available in UK and US. Still have it and still working. The orange head phone pads fell apart years ago though. Great vid as always but the only point you missed Mat was the main reason of the hotline button was the ability for one user to talk to the other. I won’t ever sell it despite the crazy prices being asked as I consider it a piece of history.

[@nestrac]

The add-ons's for the WM-2 just reminded me that i resently purchased a Bluetooth transmitter for my Sony MD walkman so I can use it with my headphones without a loose cable dangling ... Just for the convenience of it.. You can still mod your equipment with some modern(ish) stuff

[@Fluteboy]

7:29 - One of my favourite albums in 1984/5. I used to play tracks 2 and 3 to death! _"The scratch, the bass, the congas in your face!"_

[@snapsnappist4529]

I was born in '79, so I had a few of personal stereos when I was a kid back in the 80s and early 90s (Sharp, Aiwa, even a crappy Bush player that didn't have a rewind function) but never a Sony. Way, way too expensive. The top line models back in the late 80s were over £100, which was an obscene amount of money at the time. Other models may have sounded good, but Sonys were without doubt the most beautiful of all. State of the art Japanese industrial design and precision engineering. They're just another electronics corporation now, but there was something magic about Sony back then. I'm trying to imagine how many pages it would take to illustrate every product that Sony put out. It would probably run into the thousands.

[@c128stuff]

The 'hotline' feature did make an earlier comeback in the late 1980s and early 90s on some of AIWA's hs-jx line of personal stereo systems. For example the hs-jx505 (1990) has a microphone built into its wired remote control, which can be used for recording, but also for picking up sound from your environment and mixing that with either radio or tape playback. Of course, as those devices can also record, it makes a bit more sense to have a microphone, and when you have that mic anyway, adding this is trivial.

[@toms5996]

I just love physical media. I, myself, still have a portable MiniDisk player plus a desktop stereo system with a 5 MiniDisk changer. I would watch all videos on this channel even if they were only of MiniDisk😄 Edit: Absolutely brilliant video. I didn't know much of Walkman's history at all.

[@inertmission4427]

The beauty of the dual headphones and hot line feature was you could enjoy listening with a friend (on separate headphones) and use the hot line button to talk to each other without pausing the music.

[@darrenjones5885]

I bought a WM2 from Rumbelows in a January sale with money from a part time job at Kwik Save when I was in 6th form. That makes it Jan 81 or 82. It came with two sets of headphones and the D Cell battery pack. Everyone was amazed at a player barely bigger than a cassette.

[@FabioGnecco]

I wanted a clip of you walking around with that setup lol Lovely video ! Thanks !

[@ocker2000]

My WM-7 died years ago, but I still own that D battery holder and the EQ. Nice to see you are bringing the younger generation up to speed on Walkman history.

[@robertlawrence9000]

I was born in 77 and I can remember in the mid 80's to 90's going to yard sales and finding older cassette players and record players. Every now and again I would purchase one for very cheap. So probably around 1988, I had some gently used players that may have came out in the 70's and 80's. I can see how that could be a possibility in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Nice video you have here! I would like to see more on brand comparisons of these. Sound quality, internals and build. Thanks for the content!

[@roboftherock]

Ah, so this wasn't a tech review, it was a history lesson. Well done, professor!

[@elsviec]

thanks for the bedtime story dad

[@digi_056]

It would be interesting to see how close we could get to a cassette case sized player with today's technology.

[@baritonfelix]

Not that much closer than Sony already did I don't think. Although a flat Li-Ion battery would surely help. And of course not even Elon is going to splash out on that project.

[@jorgendnilsson]

There were players smaller than cassette cases already in the early 90s - perhaps earlier. I had a Panasonic. In the 80s there were the Hitachi CP-88R that were significantly smaller than a cassette case, but a bit thicker. The tape stuck out the side of it, looks kinda odd.

[@lexion8152]

These devices don't exist anymore because we can't design or create these things any more. That's why all modern cassette players use cheap chinese components. The engineers of yesterday run circles around modern day ones.

[@stragulus]

@@jorgendnilsson The Sony WM-10 'cheated' and was smaller than the cassette itself. Until you actually put one in obviously. But that was early 80's so with today's tech that most certainly could be even tinier (and more reliable!). Still a very cool walkman though. But indeed it's never going to happen as no one is going to build a compact quality mechanism from the ground up anymore.

[@uncled39]

We couldn't. Have you seen the new cassette players?

[@simonhodgetts6530]

I had a DD-33 - it was a beast of a thing - built like a tank, solid, and sounded amazing. It was my university tape deck, mated with some excellent Sony SRS-170 powered speakers (which I still own). A true ‘Rolls Royce’ (well, actually more like Volvo) quality Walkman. I sold it a couple of years ago - spares or repairs (the central drive cog had broken - a common fault). Even broken I got £150 for it!

[@EyMannMachHin]

Ah, the memories. I had a knckoff walkman, complete with 2 volume sliders and mic, looking more or less similar to the original. After turning 16 I spend half my summer school vacation in an assembly factory producing parts for containers putting small metal pieces into a hydraulic press risking my fingers. From the earnings I bought my trusty DD-II, which currently is the only working cassette player I own. At least it was the last time I checked some 3 years ago.

[@TheOneFreakservo]

'Walkman', 'Discman'....Something tells me if Apple didn't invent the iPod, the next portable music device - because of the usage of hard-drive storage - would have been called 'Hardmans'. And Capcom would sue.

[@6581punk]

There were players before the iPod, they called them Portable Media Players or MP3 players.

[@damonappel]

An astute observation about the Walkman used in Guardians of the Galaxy. By 1989, the Discman was all the rage. I owned the original D5, and a friend had the slim D9, and the smaller-than-a-CD D88 was even released by that time. Chris Pratt's Peter Quill character would definitely have been the 'po boy loser, rocking that mammoth original Sony Walkman in 1989. 😅

[@Troppa17]

In the movie it was an last gift from his mother along the mix tape if I'm not mistaken. So I think it was hers before and handed down. I see more an problem in the headphones then the player itself cause there were several Walkmans in that form factor and I think most kids hadn't seen a Sony in real life.

[@gamergeekenator111]

Fewer were sold of the original, and the movie hype makes it more rare.

[@ironmaiden5658]

I started high school in the US in 1987. A walkman was a must when riding the bus to school so you could pretend you were cooler than not. Back in Australia now thankfully.

[@jazztheglass6139]

The very first one in the UK was the Sony Stowaway. I had one in 1980. One of the channels broke and it would only play through one side of the headphones

[@CTCTraining1]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane... trying to hear my Walkman over crashing and clanging of the underground. You made an interesting point about tape types and although I can remember some being more expensive than others my tin ears didn’t seem to pickup on much in the way of difference ... could that be something to cover? Keep up the great work 😀👍

[@edwardbianchi192]

Great stuff as always. I really enjoy when you put the pictures of the what was offered in catalogs. Would love to see more photos and stills of those catalogs. It takes me back to “window shopping “ of what I would like to buy.

[@johncundiff7075]

Brilliant video! You are the format king!!

[@SharpblueCreative]

I had the original WMII back in the 1980’s. Had two in the end with the belt clip & extension battery pack. Loved it and still have one.

[@dalfifran7572]

Interesting, I've never seen anyone with extension battery, EQ, or other sort of accessory. But then again, Sony is waaay too expensive, so i've seen mostly other brand like Aiwa and Panasonic.

[@docolemnsx]

I remember my mind being blown away 25 years ago, when I've learnt what Anti Roll is. Trouble is, I then started hearing the tape speed dropping slightly when I was walking in a hurry, despite that being what the mechanism was trying to prevent 😂 It got better when I got the newer model, which I remember being incredibly sturdy, surviving a bunch of drops and even whithstanding being forgotten next to a fire that melted my headphones and the tape inside the cassette inside the player, with only some esthetic damage on the outside 😅

[@dallasmorrison6983]

Wow! 😄

[@starsINSPACE]

I was in preschool in 1995. A lot of little kids (say 3 - 8 years old) had special cassette players with big buttons that were easier for kids to pick out and press. Some notable ones where the "my first sony" branded ones that were bright red and usually came with a big blue handle and big yellow speaker on top that looked like the sun. Another memorable model was playskool and fisher-price. Those were usually a white body and then had a red cassette deck faceplate and all the big buttons on top were in primary colors. They also had the big plastic handle built-in. It was popular for these kids cassette players to have attached mics🎤 that were on those coiled wires like an old landline phone. I think this was called the "sing-along" feature because your voice would be amplified to play out of the speaker when you used the mic. IP branded personal cassette players were also popular. I had a little mermaid one. I feel like the chunky yellow walkmans that had the word "sports" on the front were pretty popular.

[@nickbnash]

Loved to see all of the extra accessories at the end. Thanks for the great video!

[@carlhartwell7978]

I'd happily pay £10 to see Matt cycling (£30 rollerskating in Lycra) with a tool belt and all of that attached, listening to The Power of Love or Cruel Summer!

[@reoproedros]

do you know that i can not start my saturday jobs around the house routine without watching what techmoan has to show ?

[@billmankin6204]

Thanks for this one, brings back a lot of memories. When I had my first Sony branded Walkman in 1982, it was a budget model that took 4 AAs, and there was no external battery pack available. I was going on long trips for school that year and wanted the longer life, so a trip to Radio Shack and $13 in parts later, I had cobbled together my own. Weighed close to a Kilo, but I didn't care since I was sitting down and didn't have to carry it and could leave the pack when I did need to. Good times!

[@johnnychang4027]

I really enjoy the very last part of the video where the accessories were added to "complete" the setup. That is similar to the idea of buying the thinest cellphone, but adding on the thickest cover to protect it.

[@tenchuu007]

But wait, was the battery life of each of the addons sixty hours? If not, you'd better pocket some more AAs.

[@ricarleite]

How did you comment on this two days ago if the video was added now? Patreon?

[@WatanabeNoTsuna.]

​​@@ricarleiteAlways... 😂 Yes, Patreon supporters get the videos days earlier.

[@uniktbrukernavn]

16:47 Imagine walking through airport security with all that historical accuracy 😂

[@radry100]

No Security in the 80s

[@thewiirocks]

@@radry100there were metal detectors. More similar to entering a government building rather than the TSA nonsense we have today.

[@DaveFromColorado]

I'm here in the usa, in 1994 I got my driver's license and in 1995 I got my first car which was a 1987 Ford exp. It came with an AM FM radio and tape player. I had one of the cassette adapters to play my CD Walkman so I can listen to CDs in a car. I had friends that had different types of walkmans one of them had a type with a buffer on it that you could actually see how much memory was being used as the CD was being played. I remember that very vividly. I still regret ever selling that car LOL

[@EliteRock]

Fun facts - the Walkman DD series are infamous for a splitting their 'centre gear', which takes drive from the capstan flywheel to the reels. It happens because in FF or RWD the tape simply bangs to stop and after a second or so the servo senses the jammed motor and cuts the power - it was that shock load of the flywheel and motor being stopped dead from several 100 RPM that (eventually) broke the centre gear. Very few that have had even moderate use have survived I sold my DD33, bought new in 1992, a couple of years ago with it's centre gear still intact - because from day-1 my mechanical sympathy meant that if I had to rewind a tape I always hit the stop button when the leader appeared (you get maybe half a second!).

[@DonVintaggio]

9:11 the hot line button was added because of the many people listening to loud levels they basically went isolated from the outside world, thus it was sort of a requested feature for a portable player that people used while doing a lot of activities simultaneously, and when someone talks to you or you just wanted to know if your doorbell ringed, well you just quickly pressed that big button (without even looking at it or having to remove headphones or sliding down TWO volume sliders and then having to restore them to previous levels) in less of a second. And that's how millions developed tinnitus 30+ years after.

[@WilliamHaisch]

I never had an authentic Sony. They were too premium! I only had basic generic $19 knockoffs. Mostly because I grew up on a farm and gravity was not be kind to these devices and trashing a Sony seemed like a damnable offense! 😂

[@SirAsphalt90]

I really wish modern consumer tech was as bold and colourful as this - the contrasting black and red, and the diagonal buttons make it fantastic just to look at

[@msc_2253]

I was in high school at the time here in the US and only the very well off kids had a Sony Walkman. Most of us had RCA, Goldstar, or Emerson as they are what were sold at ~$10 US in our department stores. These would all come with a cheap set of headphones, but we would buy a pair of Sony or Koss headphones to use with them. Massive improvement in sound vs the included headphones, but gave the impression that we had a more expensive tape player. I bought a WM10 second hand in 1988 and that was the last portable tape player I purchased.