Everything about Walkman totally explained
» This article is about the Walkman brand. For information about the generic item, see Personal stereo.
Walkman is a popular
Sony brand used to market its portable
audio and
video players. The original Walkman introduced a change in
music listening habits, allowing people to carry their own choice of music with them.
The original Walkman was marketed in the 80s as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK.
(External Link
) The device was created by audio division engineer
Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman
Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent transpacific plane trips. Morita hated the name "Walkman" and asked it to be changed, but relented after being told by junior
executives that a promotion campaign had already begun using the 'Walkman' name and would be too expensive to change. After lengthy legal battles, Andreas Pavel was finally recognized by Sony in 2003 as the original inventor of the Walkman.
In March 2007, Sony extended the Video Walkman brand by launching its first digital, flash-based video Walkman, the
NW-A800/810 series, where A stands for "All in one", "Advanced", and "Attractive".
History and design
Cassette-based Walkman
The original blue-and-silver Walkman model TPS-L2 went on sale in
Japan on
July 1,
1979. In the
UK, it came with stereo playback and two mini headphone jacks, permitting two people to listen at the same time (though it came with only one pair of MDR-1 headphones). Where the Pressman had the recording button, the Walkman had a "
hotline" button which activated a small built-in microphone (the Pressman), partially overriding the sound from the cassette, and allowing one user to talk to the other over the music. The dual jacks and "hotline" button were phased out in the follow-up Walkman II model.
Some devices were also capable of recording. The highest quality Sony Walkman recording cassette deck was the Walkman Professional WM-D6C. It was introduced in 1984, and was comparable in audio quality with many of the best non-portable cassette decks. Unusual for a portable device, the Walkman Professional had bright LED recording level meters and manual control of recording levels. It was equipped with quartz direct drive capstan, and amorphous head. Powered by local AC mains or by 4
AA batteries (compared with 2 for most Walkman models), it was widely used by
journalists and developed a following among
hi-fi enthusiasts; unusual for a consumer-electronics product, it was in production, unchanged, for almost 20 years. One of
Henry Rollins' early
spoken word CDs was recorded with a Walkman Pro.
Amid fierce competition, primarily from Toshiba (the Walky), Aiwa (the CassetteBoy) and Panasonic, by the late 80s, Sony upped the ante once again by creating the playback-only WM-DD9, launched in 1989 during the 10th anniversary of the Walkman (five years after the WM-D6C) and became the holy grail for a niche group of cassette Walkman collectors. It is the only auto-reverse Walkman in history to use a two motor, quartz locked, disc drive system similar to high-end home cassette decks to ensure accurate tape speed for both sides of playback (only one motor operates at a time depending on the side of the tape being played). Power consumption was improved by requiring only either one AA battery or one gumstick-type rechargeable, with optional AC adaptor input. It is also equipped with a tight gap amorphous tape head capable of reproducing the full 20–20,000 Hz frequency range, a gold plated headphone jack, and a 2 mm thick aluminum body. Sony made this model with only sound quality in mind, therefore it contains no gimmick features such as in-line remote control, music search, or LCD readout. Its only features are Dolby B/C noise reduction decoding, Mega Bass/DBB bass boost, tape type select, and two auto reverse modes.
By the late 1990s, the cassette-based Walkman was generally passed over in favor of the emerging digital technologies of
CD,
DAT and
MiniDisc. After 2000, cassette-based Walkman products (and their clones) were approaching technological obsolescence as the cassette format was gradually phased out. However, Sony still continues to make cassette-based Walkman personal stereos today.
Every five years since the Walkman personal stereo was born in 1979 until 1999, Sony would celebrate by coming out with an anniversary cassette model on July 1st with unprecedented breakthroughs in technology and features. Each anniversary model carries a different theme while retaining some characteristics of previous anniversary models: WM-701S (user friendliness theme with remote control and slim sterling silver plated body — 1989), WM-EX1HG (efficiency theme with long battery life and pop-up eject — 1994), WM-WE01 (wireless theme with cordless remote control and cordless earphones — 1999). However, cassette Walkman innovation would come to an end as during its 25th Anniversary, Sony chose to not introduce another limited run cassette model but instead, brought out the hard disk based NW-HD1 in 2004 to officially augur the death of the compact cassette. (Sony did release two anniversary models in 2003, but they were MiniDisc players — see below.) The last play-only cassette Walkman to be introduced (in North America, at least) was the WM-FX290, first sold in 2002, which also featured digital tuning, AM, FM, TV and weather band radio, operating on a single AA battery. In Canada, at least (where, like all portable radios distributed in that country, the WM-FX290 lacked access to TV and weather bands) this device appears to have ceased production as of May, 2006. In August 2006, Sony Canada began selling cassette Walkmans again, but this time they were only offering a basic model, the WM-FX197.
In spite of the decline of the cassette-based Walkmans, logically operated deluxe models (WM-GX788 etc.) are still sold in a very few countries, especially in South Korea and Japan. These models still support a so-called gumstick-type rechargeable battery, offer relatively better sound quality than cheaper models do, and have an automatic tape position selector and auto-reverse function.
Balram Shotam
However, the original patent for a personal stereo was registered by Balram Shotam (Baal). The patent was filed in the UK in 1974. Baal had a prototype built in 1972 while he was in the record industry as President of Baal Records distributing ABC and AVCO (Stylistics) records. The patent no. in the UK is #2064326. This was the first wearable electronic entertainment device ever patented and a copy of the patent was sent to Akio Moriata of Sony including copies to Matsushita in Japan in 1976. The patent was for a transportable cassette player which didn't allow recording and was solely connected to headphones.
Stereobelt
A portable personal stereo audio cassette player, called
Stereobelt, was first invented by the German-Brazilian
Andreas Pavel in 1972. Pavel filed a patent for his Stereobelt in
Italy in 1977, followed by patent applications in the
U.S.,
Germany, the
United Kingdom and
Japan by the end of 1978.
In 1979, Sony began selling the popular Walkman, and in 1980 started legal talks with Pavel regarding a royalty fee. In 1986 Sony finally agreed to pay royalties to Pavel, but only for sales in Germany, and only for a few models, and refused to acknowledge him as the inventor of the device.
The primary way of putting music on this device is to use Sony software:
SonicStage and
Connect Player (now withdrawn due to too many problems). The software only works on Microsoft Windows. Other common platforms such as
Mac OS and
Linux are not supported. SonicStage has received a lot of criticism. It is only possible to move tracks from the music player to the PC hard drive, and thereby from one music player to another, if each device/computer is "authorized" to the user's account with the Connect Store for their country. Users from countries that don't have the Connect Store service are currently limited to one device/computer.
There are a number of features to select music according to a variety of criteria. The "Artist link" function prompts the Walkman to search, find and display similar artists in that genre. There are two new shuffle modes. By selecting "My Favourite Shuffle", the device automatically selects the 100 most listened to songs and plays them at random. The "Time Machine Shuffle" function randomly selects a year and plays all of the songs from that particular year currently held on the device. A recent firmware update (V3.00) added the "Artist Link Shuffle" function to the list of Intelligent Shuffle modes, along with a clock and calendar.
Symphonic is an open-source platform-independent alternative to Sony software that supports Network Walkmans.
Walkman Video MP3 Player
Walkman A 800/A810 series offers a stylish sleek design,coated with a high quality, metallic build. A chrome-like strip surrounds the edge of the device, and accenting of the same style surrounds the buttons and makes up the logos on the front. It features a QVGA display with ID3 tag and album art support.
NW-S710 and S610 series Walkman
Soon,Sony launched another series of Walkman video player, type S, standing for "specialized". This was considered as a lower end product to Walkman A series.
NW-A820, A910, and E series Walkman in Japan
At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, Sony was trying to further extend the product line of Walkman, with the debut of A910 series, A820 series, E020 series and E010 series in Japanese domestic market. Among them, A910 and A820 should be the successor to A810, which feature larger LCD display and memory, and built-in wireless function (for A820 only); and E series emphasized simple music playing, probably to rival with iPOD shuffle. E series established itself as a pure MP3 player without large LCD display to play videos. It had a similar design to a USB flashdrive, and it provided a large collection of different colors. Specifically, E020 series features changeable case, making the color selection enormous.
NWZ-A820 and A720 series Walkman
In March 2008, Sony debuted A720 and A820 series in the United States. These two models seemed to have exactly the same external design. The only difference appeared that the A820 series was equipped with a bluetooth module which can be used to connect wireless headphones. The upgraded A820 and A720 had a 2.4" LCD display and a selection of memory from 4 gigabytes to 16 gigabyte. This also includes the popular 8Gb version.The boxed packaging will contain a popular pair of Sony In Ear- Earbuds which are sound reducing and very comfortable. These will include changeable rubber for different ear sizes.It won't however include an FM radio, additional memory storage, or a voice recorder. After Sony upgraded Walkman A model, A810 series was no longer viewable at SonyStyle online store.
Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson
After losing a large portion of the market to other companies, Sony's latest attempt to revive the Walkman brand involves a series of music-centred mobile phones marketed under the
Sony Ericsson brand.
Contrary to most Walkman line, Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones don't support, and hence can't play, Sony's proprietary audio format,
ATRAC (with all of its variants). Walkman phones do support
AAC as well as
MP3.
The
W800 and
W550/W600 have numerous audio capabilities including playlists, audio equalisation, support for the
M4A audio file format, and the ability to operate only as music player, with the telephony electronics switched off. It also includes standard mobile phone features, such as a 2 megapixel auto-focus camera. The W550/W600 will have 256 MB of internal memory, while the W800 includes a 512 MB
Memory Stick.
The
W810 is an
EDGE-enabled Quad band telephone launched in response to demand for a black coloured Walkman Phone. Other than minor changes in the software and hardware, most of the features are similar to those of the W800.
Sony Ericsson also launched the
W900 (considered the successor of S700) which in addition to the audio and camera capabilities of W800, also features
3G video calling and streaming, better video recording (30 frames a second), a larger display, and 470 MB of internal memory which can be expanded up to 2 GB. Music can be imported from a variety of sources, either via the wireless service provider or from a personal computer.
Sony Ericsson president Miles Flint, claiming to have sold over three million Walkman phones, introduced their sixth Walkman branded phone, the
W950, at the 3GSM Congress in 2006. The W950i is a slim device with 4 GB internal flash memory, including a touch screen for navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums. It is also the first
Symbian OS-based Walkman phone to be introduced.
In 2006, Sony Ericsson announced yet another Walkman phone, the
W300. It is the first Walkman phone in the series in a "flip phone" form factor. The W300 is also the first Walkman Phone to support Memory Stick Micro and features a VGA camera. They also launched their 8th Walkman telephone, the W700. It is essentially a stripped-down version of the W800 with a different case colour, and includes a 256 MB Memory Stick. The other major change is the absence of Auto-focus in the onboard camera.
May 18,
2006, saw the introduction of two more Walkman phones, a second clamshell model,
W710, and the first slider,
W850i.
In February
2007, the
W880 was announced and released. It features a design which is only 9.4 mm thick and a full metal face plate. Being one of the smallest phones on the market, it has proved very popular.
The popularity of Walkman-branded telephones may be an indication that the portable audio and mobile telephone markets are beginning to converge. Walkman phones are equipped with applications such as Track ID, PlayNow and M-BUZZ and as of June 2007 Sony Ericsson claims to have sold over 26.5 million Walkman phones since the launch in September 2005. Sony Ericsson is seen to have had the most success with converging music and mobile phones, largely attributed to the Walkman heritage and expertise from Sony.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Walkman'.
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