# Portable audio player > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Portable_audio_player > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Portable_audio_player.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_audio_player > Source revision: 1288586858 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|none}} {{refimprove|date=August 2022}} thumb|250px|A personal mono device as science fiction (Albert Robida, 1894) A '''portable audio player''' is a personal mobile device that allows the user to listen to recorded [audio](/source/sound_recording) while mobile. Sometimes a distinction is made between a ''portable'' player, battery-powered and with one or more small [loudspeaker](/source/loudspeaker)s, and a ''personal'' player, listened to with [earphone](/source/earphone)s. ==History== Portable battery-operated [reel-to-reel tape recorder](/source/reel-to-reel_tape_recorder)s were introduced in the 1950s,{{Cite web |title=Tape recorders for playing and recording sound |url=https://www.1900s.org.uk/1960s-tape-rec-r-ro-r.htm |access-date=2022-08-05 |website=www.1900s.org.uk}} initially tending to be high-priced units for reporters, produced by [Uher](/source/Uher_(brand)) and [Nagra](/source/Nagra). Lower-priced units became available later. In the mid-1960s [Philips](/source/Philips) introduced the battery-operated [compact cassette](/source/compact_cassette) recorder, originally used for recording speech. At about the same time the [8-track](/source/8-track_cartridge) player was introduced. It was very successful at the time, though bulky and inconvenient to use. There was a pause at the end of each track as the program changed. The compact cassette, although physically much smaller than the 8-track cartridge, became capable of good{{Clarify|date=August 2009}} sound quality as the technology developed, and longer cassette tapes became available. [Cassette deck](/source/Cassette_deck)s (not portable) were introduced for home use, and this encouraged the production of pre-recorded music cassettes.{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} ==Personal stereo== {{Main|Personal stereo}} [[Image:Panasonic Stero Cassette Player RQ-JA63.jpg|thumb|[Panasonic](/source/Panasonic) Stereo Cassette Player RQ-JA63]] The first portable audio player available to the general public, the [Sony Walkman](/source/Sony_Walkman), was introduced in 1979 and sold very well. It was much smaller than an 8-track player or the earlier cassette recorders, and was listened to with [stereophonic](/source/stereophonic) [headphones](/source/headphones), unlike previous equipment which used small loudspeakers. Unlike small loudspeakers, headphones were capable of very good sound quality. All previous compact cassette devices could record as well as play back; Walkmans and similar devices often had no recording facility, but took advantage of the pre-recorded cassettes that had become widely available. ==Disk players== {{Main|Portable CD player}} Early personal CD players can play commercial CDs; later models can play recordable [CD-R](/source/CD-R) and [CDRW](/source/CDRW) media either copied from a pressed CD or containing MP3 and similar files.{{Or|date=August 2009}} ==Media players== {{Main|Portable media player}} In 1998, digital audio players (DAPs) based on [flash memory](/source/flash_memory) or [hard disk](/source/hard_disk) storage became available (The [Rio PMP300](/source/Rio_PMP300) from Diamond Multimedia is widely considered to be the first mass market DAP). Files are usually compressed using [lossy compression](/source/lossy_compression); this reduces file size at the cost of some loss of quality. The [trade-off](/source/trade-off) between degree of compression and file size can be varied, although this is not an option for existing compressed files. The advantage of solid-state DAPs over hard disks and CDs is resistance to vibration, small size and weight, and low battery usage. Early solid-state DAPs had capacities of a few tens of kilobytes; {{As of|2009|lc=on}} capacities of many gigabytes are available.{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} == See also == *[Waterproof audio player](/source/Waterproof_audio_player) == References == {{Reflist}} == Further reading == * Erlmann, Veit (ed.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=wRdj0p0BpBIC ''Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity''], New York: Berg Publishers, 2004. Cf. Chapter 9: "Thinking About Sound, Proximity, and Distance in Western Experience: The Case of Odysseus's Walkman" by Michael Bull. Category:Portable audio players Category:Japanese inventions --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Portable audio player](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_audio_player) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_audio_player?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.