The Walkman - portable music play device

The transistor radio came out in the 1960s but it was the Sony Walkman, introduced in 1974, that turned the compact cassette into the purveyor of hi-fi quality music, of your choice, on the move.

Without a built-in speaker people listened via headphones shutting out the world around them.

The ultimate model of the walkman is the Sony WM-D6C Professional corder, that had a production run from 1984 until 2002. In a world used to seeing changes in design and features of everything and fashion changing by the season this is an unsually long production run.

The WM-D6C was used by radio stations, recording studios, professional musicians, natutralists and a decerning public. It was renown for it's extreme high quality recordings that rivaled non-portable cassette decks.

It is also an elegant design -'a small object of desire' than has a timeless feel and look.