Portable audio devices before the iPod

[Todd Anderson]

I owned this bad boy:

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Ooh it was 3D before it was cool to be 3D.

I used to own an Aiwa cassette deck. They made decent gear at one point.

I think what's most amazing looking back at boomboxes like this is that the sound quality was so bad, as compared to what you get from far smaller Bluetooth or wifi speakers today.

I'd love to measure the response, distortion, and peak output of one of those along with some modern alternatives. I bet it would be eye opening.

 

[tripplej]

It is amazing how far we have gone technology wise.. Just amazing..

 

[Todd Anderson]

Ooh it was 3D before it was cool to be 3D.

I used to own an Aiwa cassette deck. They made decent gear at one point.

I think what's most amazing looking back at boomboxes like this is that the sound quality was so bad, as compared to what you get from far smaller Bluetooth or wifi speakers today.

I'd love to measure the response, distortion, and peak output of one of those along with some modern alternatives. I bet it would be eye opening.

Most certainly... I'm sure a few trips to eBay would net a boatload of these relics. That would be a fun exercise.

 

[tesseract]

I had a Panasonic Walkman-type cassette player on the 80's, made many tapes on my Soundesign casseiver. The supplied 'phones were absolute junk so I bought a pair of bubble packed Numarks.

Flash forward 25 years, I had an FM-only receiver and a Sony CDP w/ Koss Porta Pro 'phones.

Flash foward another 10 years, I have thoroughly enjoyed the Samsung S6 and S8 streaming Tidal HiFi. 1MORE Triple Driver 1001 or Audio Technica ATH-M50x 'phones, with Periodic Audio Be on the "next audio purchase" list.