Sony by that point, had turned into specialists in developing and supplying well-manufactured, miniaturized electronics into the market as early as 1955, when they first brought in transistor radio which made a run of fairly thriving portable cassette recorders. But the release of music tapes that were pre-recorded in the 1960s created a complete new market (Rohter, 2005). Individuals still sometimes to pay attention to vinyl records as opposed to cassettes at their homes, but the size of compact tapes enabled them to be more favorable to mobility and car stereos compared to 8-tracks or vinyl (Meaghan, 2009).
1980s could be considered as the Walkman era due to domination of music industry by the arrival of Sony Walkman. The status of Sony's gadget — and those from other companies such as Panasonic, Aiwa and Toshiba which followed in Sony's dominance — assisted this Sony brand cassette tape outperform vinyl records since 1983. Haire (2009) claimed that in the course of furious competition, mostly from Panasonic (the MiJockey), Toshiba (the Walky) and Aiwa (the CassetteBoy) by the late “80”s, Sony increased their game once more by manufacturing the playback-only WM-DD9, introduced in 1989 at time when Sony was celebrating 10th anniversary of Walkman which turned out to be the holy grail for a market for a set of cassette Walkman customers (Du Gay, Hall et al. 1997). It is was only Walkman of auto-reverse in history to apply a two-motor, disc drive system similar to high-end home cassette decks and quartz-locked to make sure correct tape speed for both.
Power usage was lessened by involving just either one gumstick-type rechargeable or one AA battery having possible AC adaptor input. 1986 witnessed the word "Walkman" introduced into Oxford English Dictionary (Meaghan, 2009). Its introduction corresponded with the beginning of aerobics craze and millions of people employed the Walkman to enable their exercises a lot more entertaining. Between 1987 and 1997 that marked the peak of the Walkman's fame, the number of individuals who stated that they walked for work rose by 30 percent.
Niall (2010) maintains that Sony continued enhancing various themes on its devices, adding improvement such as AM/FM receivers, auto-reverse and bass boost on later prototypes. Sony went ahead to make even a solar-powered Walkman, devices with two cassette drives and even water-resistant Sport Walkmans. With the release of compact discs (CD) in 1982, the format started to go change to the 8-track itself. Sony transformed the music sector in the 1980s with the Walkman number of tape recorders.
With existence of innovative and well-developed products like Walkman, Sony rapidly grew in wealth and size in the subsequent decades. The Sony Walkman did not just become a part of human culture, but a very marketable brand (Du Gay, Hall et al. 1997). It made a unique culture in its own right attracting customers across the globe. Revolving around Walkman a unique set of definitions, practices and meaning have been developed. The particular word -WALK – MAN juggles up an idea or an image- the concept- of the gadget (Rohter, 2005).
Therefore, the Walkman is cultural since human have made it up as a significant object. People can think, talk concerning and imagine Sony walkman (Erlmann, 2004). It is also became cultural since it relates with a unique set of social practices such as paying attention to music whilst travelling on a train which is specific to a way of life or human culture. Erlmann (2004) asserts that it went cultural since it was connected with particular categories of population; young people, for instance, music fans among others.
It was also identified with particular places such as the open air, city and around a museum because it was given or attained a social status. The Sony and Walkman Technological determinism gave the society a new perception on remaining active, which certainly assisted the brand sell. The Sony Walkman' ultimately became a true symbol of its impacts on the sector (Erlmann, 2004).
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