These developed into almost audiophile caliber machines. Sony had several models with Dolby, auto-reverse, tape select (metal / regular / chrome) and the ability to record. The wow and flutter specs were great too. The high end models are quite collectable. If you purchase one of these expect it to need belts to drive the mechanisms inside. With a properly recorded tape, these units sounded excellent.

You can't buy something like this new any longer; good cassette decks are no long manufactured. Apparently there is one generic unit being made to use in the cheap boom box stereos of today and its specs. aren't very good.

There’s also a new company called “We Are Rewind” making Bluetooth cassette recorders. Tapehead City sells cassette tapes exclusively.  Seems like some artists are starting to release music in this format again.  Everything old is new again?

https://www.wearerewind.com/.     https://tapeheadcity.com/

Last edited by Ixltoo (February 18, 2024 1:24 pm)

I loved my bright yellow, sturdy Sports Walkman. It was the only kind I could use because I'd end up wearing out or breaking the regular kind in a few short months. At one point I remember Sony came out with metallic blue or pink Walkmans, of course it was the 80's.

The joy and fun of going in to the radio station way before my shift, ransacking the music library and pulling around forty albums, then spending a few hours in a production studio making some pretty terrific mixed tapes was one of my favorite all-time perks of the job.

(And now I want a yellow Sports Walkman.)

I have several Walkmans. All are radio only. Most are AM-FM, but one is FM only.

The SRF 59 is a favourite with Ultrlight DXers. I have one. It's a pretty good radio but the dial calibration is too imprecise to be useful for DXing.

Last edited by turkeytop (February 18, 2024 9:03 pm)

Mine all still work but I've had to make repairs to a couple of them. Bad solder joints. Sony's quality control was lacking.

Last edited by turkeytop (February 18, 2024 10:43 pm)

This might happen with ipods soon as they were the replacement of the walkman overall.  I went from my last portable player being the Panasonic Shockwave to an ipod back then and had the yellow Sports Sony Walkman in the 90s!  its somewhere in a box 

Heh, I can't even find my yellow walkman. It must be deep in storage somewhere. 
I also had a really cheap tape player (no radio) from an unknown brand. So cheap it had no rewind. Just a play, stop and fast forward button to choose from.
(I used to have to flip the tape over and press fast forward to do my rewinding with that cheap thing, lol)

I also have a walkman that records radio stations onto cassette, but I don't think it works anymore. 
It was a battery guzzler anyway. lol