Long before the iPod regaled music fans, the Sony Walkman pioneered the concept of music on the go. Prior to this there was no concept of privacy while listening to music. In many households, the entire family huddled together to listen to the radio or the gramophone which blared out songs and news to the entire neighbourhood!
But on July 1, 1979, Sony offered a new way to listen to music. When it introduced the Walkman, Sony revolutionized the way people engaged with the outside world.
In 1978, Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka requested that a simple, playback-only stereo version be developed of the bulky TC-D5 stereo cassette recorder, so that he could listen to music on the go. Sony engineers got to work creating a prototype by replacing the Sony Pressman tape recorders recording circuit and speaker with a stereo amplifier. Ibuka was pleased with the prototype and pursued it as a new product.
The Walkman would be paired with Sony’s new H-AIR MDR-3 headphones, which were much lighter than conventional headphones used at that time. Because the device was much smaller, it was less expensive than the TC-D5 and could be marketed to young people.
Although the Walkman debuted to relatively dull sales during the first month, it went on to become one of Sony’s most successful brands of all time.
Sony went on to sell nearly 400 million Walkmans in the following years with this little cassette player forever changing how we imagined sound.
Picture Credit : Google
