History of Portable Audio Players
Portable audio players are any mobile devices that are able to play digital music tracks. These can include MP3 players, cell phones or mini-disk players. The majority of portable audio players relate to those devices able to play music files, although technically a handheld digital voice recorder could also be considered a portable audio device.
Todays generation takes current portable audio players for granted without realizing the stages that technology had to move through in order for them to have the players they enjoy today. Not so long ago the only form of portable music available to older generations was the AM/FM radio. It wasnt until the early 1970s that the emergence of the 8-track cassette gave people the first taste of being able to take music with them in their cars. These bulky cassettes resembled VHS video tapes and the technology used to record music tracks left a lot to be desired. Not only did the spool track-readers clunk and whir audibly over the sound of the music, but the lengthy silence between each track as the readers shifted from one to the next was unwelcome.
During the 1980s the 8-track had morphed into the cassette tape. These were smaller and had far more capacity to hold more songs. These became the first real form of portable audio. While boomboxes were manufactured with inbuilt cassette players through the late 1980s and 1990s, by the mid-1980a the first forms of walkman player emerged. These allowed people to play one cassette at a time in a rather bulky, but portable player and listen through headphone-speakers.
By 1988 compact discs had arrived on the market. These digital discs meant that music lovers no longer had to spend time rewinding or fast forwarding unwieldy cassette tapes to find the track they wanted to listen to. Compact discs also didnt have the problems of the tape breaking or wearing out or coming off the spools. They were also much smaller than the unwieldy, fragile vinyl records.
The only real down-side to compact discs was the true portable aspect. As CDs required laser light technology to read the digital files stored on the disc, they were able to be bumped or jolted when played in portable audio players like disc-man players. This meant they were unsuitable for cyclists or joggers, who stuck firmly to the stability of the cassette walkman.
Throughout the 1990s as advances in computer technology leapt ahead and the capacity of flash memory drives increased, the advent of the MP3 file made its way into portable audio players.
Manufacturers quickly realized that MP3 files and flash memory sticks had the capacity to create the first truly indestructible portable audio player that didnt suffer any of the drawbacks of its predecessors. Thus the MP3 player was born. No bigger than a pack of gum and able to continue playing music files even during heavy activity like cycling or jogging, MP3 players became truly portable. Able to store entire music libraries of music and with the ability to transfer files on and off the device easily meant that these portable audio players enjoyed a rise in popularity previously unseen.
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