Appreciation post: Old Sony Walkman vs. a cheap MP3 player from 2005

I had to choose between carrying my dad's old Sony Walkman with a mix tape or a $30 MP3 player that held 128MB. I went with the Walkman and the tape got chewed up on the bus ride to school. Did anyone else pick the wrong one and regret it?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancyjones1mo ago

That tape chewing up is honestly the worst feeling, still remember the sound it made. But man, at least with the Walkman you had that physical connection to the music, rewinding with a pencil and all that. Those cheap MP3 players from back then had such terrible battery life and you had to delete songs just to fit a new album. So really, you might have dodged a bullet even though the tape died, because that MP3 player would have let you down in other ways too.

river9521mo ago

Oh man, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I still have a little travel case with a pencil sharpener and a spare pencil just for rewinding tapes. That sound of a tape getting mangled is burned into my memory, like a bad song you can't forget. But you're right about those cheap MP3 players, I dealt with that exact headache. I actually kept a little notebook of what songs I had on them so I could figure out what to delete when a new album came out.

the_anthony1mo ago

128 megabytes, actually most of those cheap 2005 MP3 players held 128 or 256 megs, not 128MB like you said. I remember because my friend had one and it held like 30 songs at that bitrate nobody used. Stupid little detail but it always bugged me.