Why Sony can't bring back its classic Walkman models

Post by tonyhart7 » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:47 AM UTC

SirHackalot wrote: post #209

tonyhart7 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is the primary reason people just want it but not enough people to buy the thing same happen with physical games

Does that mean capitalism is not an efficient system to meet the needs of well-informed consumers? Why am I being lumped in with an 8 year old who asks their parents to buy them an online game? There should be a market for physical media and devices with physical buttons if people exist who want them. These companies won’t work on anything that doesn’t bring them a gazillion dollars, so billion/million dollar venture…

Post by SpecialistK » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 4:18 AM UTC

phire wrote: post #175

SpecialistK wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking at the Pico first when writing that, but you would need a SD card header. Small issue - I use one for my Dreamcast controller Maple>USB bus.

You already need to add a decent quality DAC/Amp, might as well add a SD card slot at the same time. On top of the lower power consumption, another advantage of the pico is that you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB.

Post by williamDafoe » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 5:38 AM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #182

nine_k wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IOW, it was also technically hard for Sony to launch the original Walkman, but they overcame the difficulties, because they expected a huge market success (which followed). Now the product would be niche, and what had been originally built for its production became unavailable. The effort to stand up it all over again would not pay off.

The first Walkman from the late 70s was just an existing Sony portable cassette recorder (the TCM-100B), but with the mono head replaced with a stereo head and the recording functionality removed. Once that first unit proved there was a market, they were able to continually re-invest the money into miniaturization and new features so by the mid-90s Walkmans (Walkmen?) were high-quality cassette players that were bare…

Post by NewsaHackO » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #188

trencedamp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be "some sort of enthusiast audiophile flac player thing that costs way too much" The entry level Walkman is $400 and only has 32gb internal storage. It's all about flac and hires audio but you're paying through the nose for the brand

In 2005 the iPod with 30 GB of storage was $299 ($511 in today's dollars) so the entry level Walkman is actually fairly comparable to Apple's pricing from back then. You can use some of the $100 you're saving to buy a 256 GB MicroSD card to load more music onto.

Post by phire » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC

SpecialistK wrote: post #223

phire wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already need to add a decent quality DAC/Amp, might as well add a SD card slot at the same time. On top of the lower power consumption, another advantage of the pico is that you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB.

I was investigating this further and found Tangara ( https://cooltech.zone/tangara/ ) You may need to build it yourself, but it looks like everything a HN-using MP3-buyer would want.