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Fascinating article. I never that there was this sort of opposition to the walkman.
Great read, I had a walkman all the way into the late 90’s, before I traded it in for a cd version.
Honestly there were some food points back then. A lot of people simply are not able to wear headphones responsibly. It’s only gotten worse with noise cancelling technology. The ability to ignore the outside world is great when you’re in a safe space to do so, but people doing it out in public or while driving are absolutely mad.
The quotes about “breaking societal connections” or whatever are funny to me though. Because that was happening at the time, but it had far more to do with the erosion of 3rd places and the rise of car-centric infrastructure than it did headphones.
“breaking societal connections”, yeah. I don’t remember where I saw an old photo of a train car full of people, all immersed in their… newspapers.
you can speak to a reader, you can call for their attention.
with bluetooth earphones and smartphones, it’s like you’re in two different realities. Because other people stop existing in that bubble, because they become part of the background, bubbled people stop caring about them.
“Will personal headphones lead to a world of silence?” We could have wished.
Also, the OG Walkman still looks brilliant. I wish they’d bring the headphone design back.
Same as it always was with new technology. On a side note, I wish these were still made like they were. New portable cassette players all have the same terrible tape heads and the models from the glory days are really starting to fall to disrepair as time passes. I just had to cannibalize one of my Walkmans to fix the other, only to have the same issue resurface nearly immediately.
How’s the Fiio player? Also crappy heads?
Thats one I haven’t forked over for yet. It appears very chunky and I like my cassette players slim for pocket storage so I did not consider it.
Fiio player? If you’re referring to the Echo Mini, it’s just a digital player. It’s just aesthetically a tape player.
Edit: I stand corrected
No, the CP13: https://fiio-shop.de/EN/FiiO-CP13/HL02296.SkyBlueSilver
Unless they clearly say so, assume the same crappy Chinese magnetic head/motor combo single integrated module as in every other cassette player these days. I wouldn’t buy it.
They do indeed specify some sort of high voltage precision motor and a copper flywheel. And they claim a custom movement design.
And since it is an enthusiast device from a company with a good reputation, you can easily find teardowns online.
Anyway, you can read reviews online, there are plenty of them, and make your own mind.
Oh neat! Didn’t know this was a thing. Not something I need, but glad to know it exists.
I’d be surprised if it was anything other than the cheap mechanisms everything else gets. There’s very few companies manufacturing them and Techmoan is always on top of modern cassette systems and hasn’t brought it up. I could always be wrong, though.
It’s probably true for the head, but at least coming from Fiio there’s a good chance the rest of the system (motor, flywheel, etc) is top notch at least.
I was looking to get one, but a lot seem to be mono only. Otherwise Retekess TR606 looked interesting, even if just mostly as a toy.
Living in a city, I can kind of get it. The number of people who simply walk in front of my bike because they’re absorbed in their phone has made my commute stressful. I ended up installing a car horn on my bike which I’m sure makes their commute more stressful.
Perhaps the Walkman was the first time technology isolated people from the world around them.
Or I dunno, books.
The car horn on your bike is hilarious. Tangentially, a fun thing to try is using a bike bell on an escalator while standing behind people. We’re so conditioned to being dinged and moving aside that people do it before they even think about what’s going on.
Had a young man almost walk straight into my car at the supermarket. He was listening to whatever on headphones and drifting sideways across the lot. We came to a stop and waited to see if he’d hit us. His mom was watching and not saying a word! :)
Like always, outrage over useful tech is driven by stubborn conservatives hellbent on making everyone else suffer because “society”.
Hmm, I’ve never seen someone directly link conservatism to the entire concept of society.
I didn’t know considering societal conditions was conservative. But I guess conservative leaders in the US did implement a lot of environmental protections. 🤔
Where does the line actually fall, do you think? I assume I’m over extending a bit here. Making assumptions about what you mean.
I was being facetious. That’s the excuse these idiots use for every single “new” thing.
