Bought a Walkman MP3 player last evening. Like the Walkman products of old, the venerable cassette Walkmans (Walkmen?), the quality is outstanding. As far as mp3 players go, the sound quality on this little 2G player (the now-discontinued NWZ-B135) is far better than that of any other player I've owned so far (and I've had a few). Better than the iPod Shuffle? Check. Better than the RCA Lyra? Hell, yeah. I bought and returned a Lyra about a year ago because the sound quality was so flat and tinny. Not this little SONY baby, though.
But, SONY, oh SONY, why do you insist (why does anyone even make?) in-ear headphones where the cable to one of the earbuds is shorter? I guess the assumption is that you will put the longer cable around the back of your neck. But I don't wanna! I hate wearing headphones that way! What's wrong with the nice, symmetrical pairs you still make and sell separately? Why package sub-standard headphones (I'm talking design, not sound quality hear) with your players? A bit of creative splicing/soldering is in order.
Overall review: a great little machine for $59.99. Not bad at all when you consider I paid $212.99 in 1987 (or the about 1/4 of my university tution that year, or nearly $400.00 in today's dollars) for a compact cassette Walkman which I must have played for a couple of hours every day for nearly 2-1/2 years. Another nice feature is the rechargeable battery on this new device. I don't even want to contemplate how much I spent on AAs for the cassette Walkman, nor how much mercury I've put into the landfills and the water table.
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