Here's my vintage portable CD player

It belonged to my father-in-law. I asked him how much he'd take for it. He said I could just have it. It was pretty dusty and the hinge was sticking. I put a little bit of lube on the hinge and lid arm. Now it pops open just fine. It takes 9 volts to drive this bad boy. This is from a time that CDs were genuinely cool, new, and exiting.

Manufactured April 1990. This thing is a full 2 years older than me.

I'm listening to Blue Weekend at the moment. Incredible album. Ellie Rowsell has a beautiful voice. Here's my favorite song from it played live.

37 points · 11 comments · view on lemmy.world

11 Comments

mounderfod@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 2y

Thank you for the interesting post, happy to see people participating in this community :)

gridleaf@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

rad

cobysev@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (2 replies)

I had this exact model when I was a kid. This takes me back.

I had CD players all through my youth, then iPods in my early adult years. I liked to run with music, but they all skipped if you jostled them around too much. I had to wait for smartphones to become a thing before I could listen to music on the go.

spicytuna62@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Really? That's cool as hell because I can find NO documentation about this model ever existing anywhere lol!

I had a Sony Walkman. I think it was this exact model

::: spoiler Sony D-EJ010 PSYC :::

I also daily drove CD players through my youth. My family never had the means to get me something like an iPod. I got my first cell phone in '09, when I was 17. It was a Motorola RAZR ve20. It featured such wild technologies as Micro USB and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. It had an SD card slot and could play MP3s. I was probably one of eight people on the planet using a dumb phone as a music player lol But hey, it was way better than having to lug around what CDs I might feel like listening to on the school bus.

Portable was a bit of a misnomer. Even with anti-skip, it happens if you're too rough. If you're moving at all without anti-skip, eh, forget about it lol

cobysev@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

I had a Sony Walkman.

I might be dating myself a bit, but when you say "Sony Walkman," I think of portable tape cassette players (what Starlord uses to listen to his '80s hits in the Guardians of the Galaxy films). They were the technology before CD players were a thing. I've never heard a CD player called a Walkman before. Like Starlord, I was a child of the '80s and started out with the old tape cassette players. And the Sony Walkman was the "iPod" of that generation; the most famous brand of tape cassette players.

bigbadmoose@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Damn that's slick

spicytuna62@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Thanks! This thing absolutely reeks of the 80s and I love it. It's kind of hilarious dropping music made 30+ years later in it.

sqw@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 2y (2 replies)

how’s the sound? some of the early cd players had pretty amazing DAC circuits while cost was no object as they were the new high end toy.

spicytuna62@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I don't consider myself a true audiophile, but I think it sounds pretty fantastic. Snares, cymbals, and hi hats really sparkle. It's got a bunch of Sony chips on back. Make of that what you will.

::: spoiler spoiler :::

I'm using ATH-M50s, for reference.

sqw@lemmy.sdf.org · 0 pts · 2y

and Lots Of Jumpers, heh

ininewcrow@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 2y

Beauty ... I like this because it keeps items that were built decades ago in good use.