|
Widget of the Week
Sony Walkman TPS-L2 Personal Stereo, 1979
 It’s a regular
contender for the most important, most influential, most iconic etc. etc.
gadget of all time and deservedly so because the Sony TPS-L2 is where personal
music on the move all began. This is the first and original Walkman, launched
in 1979 though to be strictly accurate in its first few months it was also
known as the Stowaway, Freestyle and Soundabout, depending where you were in
the world. Sony quickly sorted that one out and Walkman became the
generic name that it, and a multitude of copycat products became known.
Whilst we’re on the
subject of accuracy, credit for the first personal stereo cassette player
actually goes to a chap called Andreas Pavel. He filed a patent for the idea,
called Stereobelt, in 1972, but he had to wait until 1986, following a long drawn
out legal battle, before Sony begrudgingly coughed up some royalties, and he
didn’t get a full and final settlement until 2003.
There is no dispute
over Sony’s brilliance at marketing the device, its incredible popularity and
the huge impact it has had on generations of music lovers, not to mention youth
culture, the leisure and consumer electronics industries. It’s also worth
pointing out the huge risk Sony took, selling a cassette tape recorder that
couldn’t record for the thick end of £150. It was actually a really big deal back then, a lot of
reviewers and commentators thought Sony were absolutely mad and predicted that it would be a
flop.
As far as the design
and operation is concerned it hardly needs any explanation, though there are a
few points of interest that were unique to this model. For a start it had a
mostly metal case, and was typically – for Sony -- over-engineered, and built
like a brick outhouse. The orange button on the top is the Hotline feature,
this mutes the sound coming from the tape and pipes sound from a front mounted
microphone, so you can hear what someone is saying without having to drop the
volume or take off your headphones. It has two volume sliders, rather than a
separate balance control, and there are two headphone jacks, so you can share
your music with a close friend (who needs their own headphones, incidentally,
as only one is supplied). While we’re on the subject of headphones, the Walkman
came with a pair of Sony’s revolutionary MDR3s, and there’s more on those
here.
Some of those features
were slavishly copied by the many rivals that appeared in the following months
but none of them came close to matching the sound and build quality, not to
mention the Kudos of owning this machine.
My one is a pre-launch review
model sent to one of the magazines I was working on at the time. Like so many
products at that time it was an instant hit in the office and a real
showstopper, with me and several of my fellow journalists desperately trying to
blag more review samples from Sony (I don’t think we had much luck as they were
in very short supply). The box and manual was branded Stowaway, rather than
Walkman and I curse my stupidity for not keeping it, but I still have the
original blue leatherette carry case and headphones and the satisfaction of a
machine with a serial number in the very low thousands, making it one of the
first off the line.
What Happened To It?
Throughout the 80s and
90s Sony kept up the pressure and produced a succession of outstanding cassette
machines bearing the Walkman badge but competition was fierce. There were plenty of
rival machines from the likes of Aiwa, Panasonic and Toshiba with similar or
even better performance, more features, smaller cases and so on, but the Sony
Walkman was always the one to beat, and the one to be seen with, but time was
running out for the Compact Cassette.
By the late 1990s other
technologies were starting to have an impact on the personal stereo market. CD
and MiniDisc (another Sony development), were capable of noticeably better
sound quality, though it would take a while before they could match cassette
players for price and mechanical stability. But the writing was on the wall for
all forms of magnetic and optical media and towards the end of the 1990s the
first stirrings of solid-state memory based devices, data compression and the ubiquitous MP3 spelt
the end for small boxes full of whirring motors, gears and pulleys. It didn’t
happen overnight, though and the demise of the cassette Walkman marque has been a long
drawn out affair. By 2003 the market was essentially dead but cheapie Walkman
cassette players were still being manufactured for Sony in China up until 2010, though they were
only sold in limited numbers to specialist markets.
I have no idea how many
of the original first generation TPS-L2s were made but it probably wasn’t that
many. Within a few months of the launch they were being branded as Walkmans, so
if you are after a collectible early model look for one without a name badge on
the cassette cover. There are always a few on ebay and prices vary wildly, I
have seen mint boxed examples go for several hundred pounds, even fairly
ordinary ones can make £100 on a good day, but the occasional bargain slips
through so the trick is to be patient.
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1979
Original Price £125
Value Today? £100?
Features:
stereo cassette player, capstan drive,
Play/Rew/FF, volume, headphones, 3V DC in, carry case, 'Hot Line' talk through,
twin headphone sockets, 2-mode tone switch
Power
req. 2 x AA cell
Weight: 400g
Dimensions: 135 x 90 x 30mm
Made in: Japan
Hen's Teeth (10 rarest): 8
|
