the Cloneman mission

I do not see this Casio as a clone, but the AS-320R is a pretty simple plastic model, and it's in the same batch so here it is.
Casio's attempt to take market share in the overly crowded market of portable stereo cassette players... so many brands tried, only a few got >1% market share, and one company got the vast majority of share... the reward for Akio Morita's vision.

 

Another SuperTech, the WK-4
It stated the TYPE OF PRODUCT in case you had no clue what it was that you just bought.

 

This OHAYO SPC344 has a really cool feature... a 4 key system. A 4 KEY SYSTEM. That's a big step up from the 3 KEY SYSTEM from most ultralow end clones.

 

Who doesn't know the AKAMITA CPR400? It's one of the most produced model of all times.

And I happen to have all of them it seems. Here's my AKAMITA CPR400 collection!

 

To be honest, these are actually not so bad. They feel pretty solid and have some features like an equalizer, a tuner, and... another pretty unique feature to be mentioned on the lid: "METAL DECK - JAPAN". I guess this was mentioned to differentiate from the all-plastic mechanics of the low end models.

 

A real Technostar... wow.



Yes, it's the CR5006 in box. I have no clue why, but I happen to have a few of these too.

 

Dario, the brand that was going to take over Sony by storm!

 

Yet another SuperTech, the DH-850. I think the design is relatively good for a budget player.

 

Another Casio in box... they were better off sticking to watches, this was nothing special at all.

 

Remember Realistic? It was Tandy's brand name back then. I didn't realize they also made walkmans, but apparently they did. Can't really call this SCP-20 a clone, it has an equalizer on top next to the mechanical buttons. I don't think any other model had that, so this STEREO-MATE is not a clone if you ask me.

 

Sanyo also gave it a try with their MGR-701. It's not the most desired collectable, but it does collect something itself. Dust that is.

 

The Crown CS-22. At least it's a nice red color.

 

The Yoko YWM-372. Yes it's a budget thing. Yes it's bad. Yes the plastics are crappy. Yes it's ugly. But... it's still cool. Because of the blue indicators of the equalizer.

 

Remember the Neckermann warehouse? They had their own branded cassetteplayer, a pretty lousy thing, and somehow I had 2 of them in my boxes of "forgotten devices".

 

This fantastic no-name walkman is said to easily outperform the Sony WM-DD9. It's built like a tank with the highest quality materials and just feels so super solid. Gotta love the endless amount of engineering love that went into creating this absolute masterpiece.
The ultimate collectable!

 

I realize I'm polluting this thread a bit with all these shitty devices, but I was inspired by the great Cloneman collection.
So let's finalize for today with an interesting design from Elta.

The Elta 5822.

Now you can have all the drawbacks of a discman, like its impractical size, combined with all the drawbacks of a shitty budget cassette player.
The Worst Of the Worst is actually WOW. Wow! This makes sense!

The idea was likely that you could show off with a portable CD player... when it wasn't. And that was pretty obvious, so it would not really have impressed anyone.

After all these years nobody bothered to unpack the Elta 5822... it's a sad story of a lonely cassette player that wanted to be born as a decent Sony discman.

 

And here's the original Lego Walkman:

 

Wow, a REAL Singon. Amazing.

 

Never heard of that one before.