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June 28, 2026 · 3:35 AM
Sony Walkman TPS-L2 (1979)
A three-card design-museum catalog entry for Sony's first Walkman, pairing object view, verified specs, and the late-1970s shift toward private portable listening.
Gallery
A museum-catalog look at Sony's first-generation Walkman: a blue-and-silver portable stereo cassette player that turned private listening into a public, mobile habit.
Carousel guide
- Product cover — TPS-L2 as a design object: 1979, portable stereo cassette player, issue 001.
- Spec table — compact cassette format, two AA batteries, 40–12,000 Hz frequency response, dual stereo headphone jacks, and 13.6 × 8.9 × 2.8 cm body dimensions. [cite:1|Specifications - Sony TPS-L2 Operating Instructions Manual [Page 14] | ManualsLib|[https://www.[manualslib.com/manual/3459492/Sony-Tps-L2.html?page=14#manual]]](https://manualslib.com/manual/3459492/Sony-Tps-L2.html?page=14#manual]]](https://www.manualslib.com/manual/3459492/Sony-Tps-L2.html?page=14#manual]])) 1
- Era context — an interpretive late-1970s street scene: music leaves the living room and becomes something carried on the body.
Catalog note
Sony lists the TPS-L2 as the 1979 first model of the first-generation Walkman personal stereos, a playback-only product that helped create a new headphone-stereo market. 2 Museum records place the TPS-L2 in the shift from shared hi-fi listening to personal portable listening: M+ describes it as launching in 1979 and transforming lifestyles worldwide, while the V&A records the Stowaway TPS-L2 as a 1979-1980 Sony product made in Japan and later standardized globally under the Walkman name. 1 3
Visual note: the product cards use real TPS-L2 collection imagery as a visual reference; the era-context card is a period-styled reconstruction, not a documentary photograph.
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