[microsound] Walkman History 101

[Kamen Nedev <kamennedev@xxxxxxxxx>]

A lil' trip down Memory Lane. Thought I'd share it with you, + some
of the adverts are, well... awesome!

Best,

Kamen

(http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/history.html)


Walkman History 101

Discussing the beginnings of the walkman probably requires a brief
look at the audio scene in the '70s. The audio industry was enjoying
success in the growing home stereo market, and the implementation of
the transistor for a portable AM band receiver created a pocket radio
"boom" in the '60s which continued well into the '70s. "Boomboxes" or
battery-powered one-piece stereo systems were growing in popularity
near the turn of the decade, with sound eminating through two or more
loudspeakers. Consumers appreciated the ability to listen to high
fidelity sound without being confined to sitting near a home stereo
system. Pocket-sized micro and mini-cassette players were also
successfully sold by companies like Panasonic, Toshiba and Olympus.

So, was the development of a "personal" stereo system an obvious step
in the evolution of audio? Shu Ueyama of Sony cites that this
invention was purely accidental. Organizational changes were taking
place at Sony in 1979 and the tape recorder division was pressed to
market something soon, or risk consolidation. They came up with a
small cassette player capable of stereo playback. The invention was
born from a tweaked Pressman (Sony's monaural portable cassette
recorder) and a pair of headphones.

Sony chairman and founder Akio Morita heard of the invention and was
eager to market it. The final design of the TPS-L2, the personal
stereo cassette player was completed on March 24, 1979. Sony then
formulated a unique marketing campaign to sell the contraption. But
first, what to call it?

Cyan Walkman Logo The name needed to present the idea of portability,
so they considered Stereo Walky. Unfortunately, Toshiba was already
using the "Walky" name for their portable radio line. The new product
was a descendant of the Pressman so Walkman was proposed next. Senior
staff responded to this name with doubts, as it sounded like a
Japanse phrase clumsily made English. The name would fly in Japan but
the product would be marketed in the US as the Sound-About and in the
UK as the Stowaway.

Again, senior staff thought twice about the naming conventions--
globally marketing a product with regional labels would prove costly,
so Walkman was ambivalently accepted as the name of this new personal
stereo system.

The next task was marketing the product. The story behind Sony's
market research was legendary: they didn't do it! Said Akio Morita in
a 1982 Playboy interview, "The market research is all in my head! You
see, we create markets." But how does one convince the public they
need a product that they've never owned or seen? The first step was
to get the word out to people who had influence on the public, like
celebrities and people in the music industry. Sony sent Walkmans to
Japanese recording artists, tv and movie stars free of charge. They
also began an innovative marketing campaign, targeting younger people
and active folks. The Walkman was engineered carefully to make it
affordable to this market, priced to be around 33,000 yen (Sony was
33 years old at the time. Coincidence?) The imagery Sony successfully
used around their Walkman gave the feelings of fun, youth and most
importantly, freedom. Their invention allowed one to bring an
exceptional listening experience anywhere.

The Walkman craze began in Japan and reached the US by 1980. Other
audio companies jumped on the personal stereo bandwagon, and by
Spring of 1981, at least two dozen companies were selling similar
devices, many of which were marketed with catchy names of their own.
Toshiba had their Stereo Walky, Infinity had their Intimate,
Panasonic sold their Stereo-To-Go, GE marketed their Escape, and even
discount audio producer Craig followed suit with the Soundalong.
Styles and colors varied from the Walkman, but several key features
were found on early models: two headphone jacks (listen with a
friend!) separate left and right channel volume controls, and a neat
but impractical "hotline" switch, as Sony called it. Pushing this
button turned on an ambient microphone so the listener could hear the
noise around him instead of the music. Strangely enough, all of these
features disappeared from portables a year or two later.

While one may be tempted to criticize these other companies as
Walkman "wannabes," We should instead appreciate their
accomplishments, for together they provided us with what we refer to
as the walkman "Golden Age." Toshiba RP-S2 A marketing person
described this movement accurately. "During any product development,"
he said, "the first few years are associated with innovative design
and quality." He's absolutely right. Many personal stereo products
emerged and surpassed the Walkman in terms of features and price.
Sanyo's M5550 was smaller than the Walkman, more durable with its all-
metal chassis and contained a variable tape speed dial. Aiwa, owned
by Sony since 1969 created a product line initialized by their TPS30,
a personal stereo cassette recorder. Akai's PM-01 had FM tuning
capability through the aid of a cassette-shaped radio module. What an
incredible concept: in an effort to confine the space of a personal
stereo, how can one add features at the same time? The logical, yet
nonetheless remarkable idea was to place a radio within an audio
cassette chassis and engineer it to send the audio into its cassette
player home. Toshiba had the same functionality and offered an AM
module, also.

Companies like Infinity worked at sound quality. Their Intimate
offered Dolby noise reduction. Koss sold their radio-only Music Box
with a set of their well-reputed over-the-ear headphones, and offered
circuitry to notify the user when he or she was listening to audio
that was "too loud." High grade stereo component manufacturer Proton
even stepped into the ring and sold a model that included some hi-
tech circuitry previously available only on $1000+ stereo equipment.

Many groaned after seeing the $150 price tags of Sony and Toshiba and
settled for their $20 earphone-clad radios until names like Unic,
Randix Audiologic, Craig and Yorx came along cheap personal stereos.
Discount manufacturers seized the opportunity during the portable
stereo craze. Products similar in shape and functionality (but not
necessarily quality) were marketed as the Walkman, using photographs
of people on the go, in sneakers, roller skates and on bicycles.
Fortunately, these companies made a personal stereo available for
everyone.

Competition was strong as throughout the early '80s and new ideas
were popping all of time: Sony feeling the pressure worked on
engineering their Walkman line be smaller, while still looking and
sounding better. Long Island, New York audio company Mura decided to
focus on the radio-only stereo, so they enhanced functionality in
their Hi Stepper line. One model even offered TV audio reception.
Popular US electronics distributors like Radio Shack, Sears and JC
Penney also jumped on the bandwagon by selling their own personal
stereos. Walkman Ad Overseas audio manufacturers like Grundig and ITT
were selling similar portables that rivaled the quality of Japanese
brands. JVC announced the "be-all" of portables in 1982: the CQ-F22K.
This was the first portable stereo that included all of the features
we're accustomed to having today, like Dolby noise reduction, auto-
reverse and AM/FM tuning. Perhaps the most exotic feature offered on
a personal stereo at the time was the wireless feature discovered on
some gray market Aiwa CS-J1 units. They apparently transmitted an
audio signal that would be received by special headphones. Sony
offered their affordable Walkman II, or WM-2 in a small, shapely all-
metal chassis. This remains the most successful model of all time,
selling 2 1/2 million units. By 1983, Everyone was shopping for a
personal stereo.

As with any fad, many groups raised concerns with the Walkman. Were
we at risk while performing daily activities like driving or walking
around town oblivious to the world around us? Would we go deaf or
catch brain damage? Would we turn into anti-social creatures,
encapsulated in our little personal stereo world? Of course, these
concerns didn't slow the Walkman movement even slightly. 16 Candles clip

We caught MTV's tongue-in-cheek airing of "Video Killed the Radio
Star," but teenagers didn't think twice about strapping on a pair of
samarium cobalt headphones and banging their heads to Autograph's
"Turn Up The Radio." The generation gap widened as young people
became "wired." With the exception of school, many kids spent their
waking days with a personal stereo on the hip.

Several initial players in the personal stereo market dropped out as
the '80s endured, but Sony, Aiwa, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic and Sanyo
thrived. Product lines widened from $25 "disposables" to $200
professional-grade models. Niche models popped up, like Sony's
durable Sports line, and Aiwa's featured-packed J Series recorders
with stereo microphones and wired remote controls. Perhaps Sanyo and
Sharp enjoyed the most success with their inexpensive portables,
aimed at young and price-conscious buyers. If you were sick of
wasting AA batteries, you had solar-powered walkmans available, like
Sony's WM-F107 and Mura's Sun Stepper. Sony and Panasonic even
offered models that contained two cassette drives, so you can listen
to one cassette right after another, or dub a copy of an original
recording.

We also noticed the blossoming of an industry to provide aftermarket
accessories for personal stereos. We've all had to buy a second set
of headphones at some point, some of us purchased little desktop
speakers allowing our little personal stereo to become a home one of
sorts. Unitech marketed a cushioned vinyl travel bag for your walkman
that contained little stereo speakers inside. Simply pop your unit
into it and you've got a boombox. Signatech sold a trendy vest that
sported loudspeakers on the shoulders and special walkman "pocket"
for an audio source.

The walkman craze (note the lower-case "w", as the name was entered
into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1986) continued its run, and
prices dipped as functionality rose. By 1985 many models featured
graphic equalizers for even better sound, tape direction change and
auto-reverse features for ease of use. The average model required two
batteries, as opposed to the typical four in 1980. Sony announced a
belt-free "direct drive" mechanism for remarkably low wow and flutter
(terms that describe the warbling noise in audio cassette playback).
Panasonic offered their "Radio Card," the thinnest pesonal stereo
radio ever.

1986 marks the year that we identify the beginning of the end for the
walkman, for it was in this year that Sony announced the D-50, a
portable audio device that played a new digital medium called the
compact disc. Aiwa J800 The public was eager to hear the "perfect"
sound of the CD so they rushed out to grab a "Discman." Audio
companies again followed Sony and began focusing their efforts to
this new technology. Walkmans didn't wane in popularity initially,
for all pre-recorded music was available in cassette form and there
was no consumer CD recorder at the time. As we approached the turn of
the decade, features digital tuning, clocks, alarms, rechargeable
batteries, wireless headphones and logic controls. But the walkman
novelty had worn off, replaced by the CD and later the mini-disc.

Today, personal stereo cassette players and radios bear little
resemblance to their predecessors from years prior. They're
absolutely disposable, averaging $20 in price and offering key
features like pastel and chromy colors, rounded edges and clear
plastic chassis. Obviously little effort is put into the design or
engineering of the walkman, for manufacturers believe the audio
cassette is a dying medium, soon to be replaced with the digital
technology of hard disks and RAM cards.

This sad state is what drove us to build this site. We hope you can
appreciate the obsolete device we call the walkman. It changed our
perception of sound and became a cultural icon. It was a gadget with
soul.





------------------------------------
Kamen Nedev
c/Pelayo Nº38, 5º Izda.
28004 Madrid
España

(+34) 649 77 80 37
kamennedev@xxxxxxxxx
http://emitmedia.blogspot.com
http://emit-es.blogspot.com
http://emit.omweb.com




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