Word: walkman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Didn't get that CD player you wanted for Christmas? That's all right. Amble down to the local audio vendor -- the one with all the fancy futuristic stuff -- and check out the digital-audiotape machines. Inquire particularly about the DAT Walkman, a palm-size dynamo that puts compact-disc-quality sound onto a cassette tape. The store should be receiving its first limited shipment this week. The DAT Walkman is guaranteed to cure CD envy. And clean your ears, and your wallet, right...
...decks made by Sony, JVC and others were sold in 1990 -- up from 60,000 in the previous three years combined. "We sold out of the home units," says Arnie Shurofsky of New York City's Grand Central Radio. "And we can't wait to get the Walkman. That's what's going to push DAT into the mass market...
...DATman, as the new small unit is nicknamed, is Sony's ultimate weapon in the DAT wars, a 1-lb. Walkman that will do just about everything the larger home deck will do, and one thing more: record with a microphone. Digital nirvana. The DATman is about the size of a Stephen King paperback, but rather less thick. It uses the same DAT cassette (which is less than half the size of the traditional analog cassette), records up to two hours of digitized splendor and plays it all back with impeccable fidelity. It makes conventional analog tape sound by comparison...
Among the crucial features of the home deck available on the DATman is the ability to find any track with pinpoint accuracy within seconds. At $849.95, this will be Sony's priciest Walkman ever. "Like all new consumer products, the initial price is high," admits Michael Vitelli, president of Sony Personal Audio Products, who expects that the first purchasers of the DAT Walkman will be the "high-end audiophile market and music enthusiasts." But, he adds, "the prices tend to come down when the demand is great enough, and the portable capabilities of the DAT Walkman will help popularize...
Unlike portable CD players, the DAT Walkman isn't susceptible to skipping when the going gets rough. (Sony has also introduced a DAT deck for cars.) The catalog of prerecorded DAT tapes (typical price: $20) is just beginning to build up, with only about 175 titles available. But as Hirayama Toshikatsu of Panasonic's audio division points out, "The majority of users want to create their own tapes with their own selection of music." Sony spokesman Tsutomu Imai agrees. "Software was important because the CD player was a playback- only machine," he says. "It had to have prerecorded music...