Sony releases the TC-42 "Action Corder" in 1974. Marantz (Superscope) had US Distribution rights to Sony's Tape Lines back then.
April 1975, Uher introduces the CR134 with a mention of the Hitachi's TRQ-10, the Sony TC-55 and TC-1525D (the first battery operated cassette machine with Dolby Noise Reduction)
Making Live Recordings At Home 1975. Home taping with compact cassettes was starting to get extremely popular, everyone had the piano key mono player, these new "portables" were very expensive back then and something parents wouldn't let the kids play with.
This is an interesting story from a neat book on the Internet Archive, this talks about the Bone Fone going against the Walkman in the early days of portables. The book looks really interesting, I'll have to read it tonight it covers the JS&A Mail Order Company, they used to have these long write-ups for their products, the Bone Fone is one of them. https://archive.org/details/marketingsecretsofamailordermaverick
The MiniDisc Revisited from 1997, there's a lot of thought about why it didn't catch on in the US; for me they were very expensive, just for the portable, add in a stereo component and the price skyrocketed.
Casio DA-R100 1991 Stereo Review. Casio's Boomboxes and Personal Cassette Players were pretty much junk but for some reason they put a lot of money into DAT, they had at least two players that listed for over $1000.00 USD. It was an interesting time DAT, DCC and MD, none really took over the consumer market here but I feel like MD was the least expensive but had more features.
Toshiba KT-R2 Mini Stereo from 1982. This is one of my favorites, interestingly it's identical in size to the Sony WM-D6 which was also released in 1982. Was this the "poor man's Walkman Pro?" The main difference is the metal body of the WM-D6 and the KT-R2 has built in stereo mics. Mine has the very rare optional red AM tuner pack (RP-A2), the blue FM (RP-S2) tuner pack was included. The tuner packs can only be used with the same brand and the player must have a radio setting, these have a pins on the back that connect with the player. Modern bluetooth cassettes transmit the sound through the heads, the tape deck is engaged. Recording portables were always a favorite of mine, 20 years ago they were nearly impossible to find, now they are much more common, this is a great model if you like these units.
While small Walkman Style Headphones were accepted, larger cans and radio headphones were still thought of as goofy. These are pretty cool but I never see small AKAI Electronics over here. AKAI Bandearo from 1984
