Umpteenth attempt to come-back for the Walkman? With its M-132 WM portable analog cassette player, the Muse company is perhaps not claiming to rewrite History, but at least to extend the story. The one that fiercely recalls the famous Walkman launched by Sony 45 years ago now has a little extra something. 20 Minutes pressed play.
Surfing on nostalgia
Rewind ! You may not have been born, but on July 1, 1979, a tsunami swept away everything in the world of music: the Sony Walkman had just been born!
Long before smartphones, music on the go, it was Him! The heyday of the CD, the arrival of the Apple iPod (in 2001), then that of the first smartphones (with the iPhone in 2007) got the better of the small analog player, quite incapable of standing up to the digital and MP3.
Surprise 45 years after the first cassette players, the Muse company is launching a new model, the M-132 WN. The device, sold for only 50 euros, in no way wants to compete with certain digital players, like those that Sony still manufactures (and sold from 99 euros), but simply rides the wave of nostalgia. And the curiosity aroused among the youngest, many of whom discovered the analog cassette in the series Stranger Things sur Netflix.
With a design that is quite pleasing to the eye, covered in soft-touch plastic, the M-132 WN is a basic that accommodates all audio cassettes. It has Play/Stop Rewind/Forward buttons.
On the side, a 3.5 mm mini-jack socket, a USB-C to charge the player (approximately 5 hours of battery life), “+” and “-” keys to adjust the Volume. And a Bluetooth button.
By activating it, it is possible to connect the M-132 WM to headphones or a wireless speaker. An orange strap recalls the color of the foam earpads which once protected the ears of the first Walkman users.
-Recordings that have not aged
Given its low price, the device, of very honorable quality, will allow older people to listen to their old audio cassettes again. And, oh! surprise: these have not deteriorated over time, as we were able to see by exhuming some recordings religiously preserved in a shoebox…
The youngest, for their part, will be able to have fun with the little reader. They will slip in their elders' old cassettes, second-hand cassettes to buy for a few euros online or at a flea market, but also new releases, like Impostorthe latest album by Julien Doré recently released on this medium. Like what…
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Downside: we would have liked to find a small wired headset in the box, even of average quality, so that the equipment was complete (Muse nevertheless provides the USB-C charging cable).
So nostalgia is still what it was. Muse's initiative with its M-132 WM risks attracting fans of the eighties who, without denting their savings too much, will be able to afford a small iconic device, but whose use will necessarily remain anecdotal.
To go further, two young French people launched We Are Rewind in 2022, a cassette player also Bluetooth, but with a design redesigned by former Thomson employees (for optimal audio quality) and much higher manufacturing quality. Still sold for 149 euros, it can also record in stereo.
