Legendary status among older members, at least two of them that I can find, the Sony SOUNDABOUT WA Series is pretty cool and I've got at least two now. The Sony WA-55 might be the cornerstone, I've seen it popping up for years for sale but never jumped on it. I finally grabbed one and after unpacking didn't realize how big these things are. These really are the bricks of personal cassette players, made years after the first generation bricks when Sony had some really small portables and knew what they were doing. Billed as a personal entertainment system they have cassette, radio and some can record. The antenna is a very nice touch, machined and chrome plated for that little extra bling. The massive WA-55 has so many nice features including the green tuning light, maybe the only one on a portable cassette player. I've also got the Sony WA-33, one of the more rare versions of the series, cassette, radio and tape counter, just a hair smaller but without recording ability. Some of you might think....Mister x, you have to have an M-80, they're everywhere....nope, that's one model that eludes me, they were pretty cheap a few years ago but now they're rare and expensive. These are really nice, I know the rest of the series goes for some good money but they are also fairly rare. I'm not sure where the micro-boombox, Walkman line is drawn but these may be on the front line (the speaker is on the back).
I didn't know Sony sticked with the Soundabout name after the TPS-L2. This must be US market only, I presume? I've seen my share of those WA-55 but with "Stereo" instead of "Soundabout" on the door.
Strangely ,there is one now for sale from a seller in Greece .I am debating whether to take the plunge .Apparently the word Roundabout was changed for sales in Europe to Stereo as this one shows on the front of the case SONY SOUNDABOUT WA-55 CASSETTE PLAYER,VERY RARE NEAR PERFECT 1982
Great pick up Philip Taylor, take some photos of that case, I don't think I've seen one before. We have several members in Greece, for some reason that was the hotbed of boombox sales and they have all kinds of boombox variations over there. Deech has posted so many photos of all of his finds for several years, awesome eye-candy. I still haven't gotten the other two units yet, hopefully someday they'll pop up.
Thanks Mister X .Yes it was the case which attracted me to go ahead and pick it up .I will post some pics when it arrives,hopefully safely .Philip
I was given a soundabout when I was very young, lost it several years later (When I was older, I got a WM-GX322, but it wasn't quite the same). It took me a while to figure out which model it was because I assumed it was a Walkman. After years of looking through photos, in 2017 I found out it was a Soundabout WA-33 and while I was never able to work out where my Soundabout went, I did decide to buy a similar model for nostalgia sake.
Great find PJ0688, I really like the way these look and I've also picked up the Sony M-80 since I first posted this! The whole line-up that year was stellar including the F40 and F70 Boomboxes. I've got my eye on that little microphone that goes with these, that would be a nice addition and the WA-11 would complete the collection.
