This presentation places the portable audio equipment of the 80s into the larger context of consumer electronics and music listening practices. In the late 70s and 80s, two technological changes occurred: miniaturization, and the transformation of cassettes into a high fidelity medium -- changes exemplified in the Sony Walkman of 1979/80. However, it was not technological breakthroughs, but rather marketing considerations which led to diverse “product families” centered around three types of audio designs: the cassette recorder, the combination unit (“boom box”), and the personal stereo. Both the producers of audio equipment, and audio equipment users assigned new meanings to these sound machines and to the practice of listening to music. To elucidate this reshaping of audio electronics, the paper brings out the ways in which consumers were conceptualized by producers, and the ways that consumers themselves embedded various audio equipment into their lives. My main sources are German and American consumer and technical journals, advertising, marketing studies, and media coverage.
For the producers, portable designs offered a means for further expansion, as the traditional, non-portable audio market had stagnated around 1980. This non-portable market was comprised of high-fidelity components for the living room, aimed at the skilled (and mostly male) audiophile. With manifold portable and often cheap models, such as waterproof models for the beach, slim-lined, pastel colored items for housewives, and even designs for toddlers, producers sought to gain access to new user groups which lacked high-tech aspirations. Furthermore, with frequent model changes, the industry responded to upcoming fashion trends and lifestyles.
Users made diverse statements through their public display of audio technology. The practice of listening to music was re-negotiated between producers and users in many ways. Teenagers, often males, pumped up the volumes of their boom boxes as their “voice” on urban streets. Accordingly, boom boxes tended to neglect high fidelity in favor of bass and volume. Many contemporaries, and non-boom-box-users, viewed boom boxes as "weapons to infuriate the staid and proper". The slang term “ghetto blasters” emerged, which, in addition to its racist overtones, also reflected the affection that African-American teens felt for their newly affordable sources of loud music. Personal stereos also were “message machines". Initially, they bore the negative connotation of anti-socialness. Some communities even restricted the headset`s outdoor use because of potential traffic risks. However, their popularity and the many ways users integrated them in their daily routines, e.g. while jogging, commuting, and even on the dentists` chair, endowed them with the meaning of a fun and fashionable tool of an up-to-date, fit person.
Just as users created unexpected uses for these technologies, they also rejected some intended functions. Consumers rarely used the recording capabilities of their equipment for the functions that the producers had anticipated, such as taping a diary, recording the sounds of holiday trips, or for personal voice training. The fun of personal recording, once an amateur’s hobby, remained largely an activity for children and for teens who created tape compilations of their favorite pop songs with their radio recorders.
In conclusion, with the new technology, listening to recorded music became an integral part of daily life for people of all ages. It intruded into nearly all social spaces: the social sphere of childhood, all domestic spaces back home, and public spaces like the urban streets or subway trains where it often challenged traditional conceptions of acceptable behavior. Boom boxes and personal stereos became a distinct element of urban culture - the former as a means of enhancing the urban soundscape, and the latter as a tool for controlling which sounds to hear or ignore.