Sony Walkman Cassette Player
Can you believe a portable cassette player costs $30 these days?
I couldn’t either but I got one anyway. It’s been a well-used and valued companion ever since.
First, I suppose I should explain why I wanted a cassette player.
I can’t read while on moving transportation. I get motion sick on trains, buses, cars, airplanes, etc. if I try to read text. In order to get my “reading” in, I rely on audiobooks.
I find that digital files and CDs are extremely unreliable and hard to use. Each recording is broken up into hundreds of tracks, and I can never remember where I’ve left off. I waste a lot of time skipping forwards and backwards to find my place and often spoil myself as I hear things that I shouldn’t have gotten to yet.
And since I depend on the library for my book fixes, the quality of CDs is often problematic. It’s so frustrating to get into a book only to find the fourth CD scratched beyond playing. Now I’m stuck in the middle of an unfinished story.
A cassette is so much simpler. Push Stop. That’s where I’ve left off. Push Play and I’m back to where I should be. The cassette tape goes right in my bag, and I don’t have to think about protecting it.
And thanks to the Chicago Public Library, I haven’t run out of books on tape yet.
Ok, back to the product.
This player feels cheap and flimsy. For $30, I was certainly expecting a lot more. But, it has been going for more than a year without any problems.
One of the best things about it is that it uses only one AA battery, which goes for hours and hours. I often have two hour commutes during a workday, and I change the battery about once every three months or so on this machine. That’s really economical.
The radio tuner is pretty weak, and I have no idea what to do with the weather tuner. Sometimes there is interference (buzzing or ringing) when I go by banks, and that probably has something to do with it.
It’s funny what comes back to you at times. For example, the first time I hit the end of a tape, I had to take it out and turn it over. “What!,” I thought, “I don’t even get automatic reverse?” I don’t even know when the last time was that I even thought about automatic reverse. Plus, the protective case comes with a Velcro closure. There’s nothing like unleashing that classic Velcro rip during a deathly quiet morning bus commute.
Great, now I’m missing my jelly shoes.
Other than these issues, I’m really getting the worth out of this thing. Everyone else on the trains and buses has his/her smart phones and iDooDads, but I’m still chugging along with my (official name now) Sony Walkman Digital Tuning Weather FM/AM Stereo Cassette Player
Yeah, that’s right. Don’t forget it’s FM/AM and in stereo. Make fun of me at your peril.