Collection:
Sony Design Gifts
In 1979, Sony released the TPS-L2, which the world came to know as the Walkman, and changed the human relationship with music for ever: for the first time in history it was possible to take it with you — into the street, onto the train, into your own head.
Personal audio as a category was born in Tokyo, and Sony has never fully let go of it since: through the Discman, MiniDisc and the MP3 era to today's wireless headphones with noise cancellation that rank among the market's benchmarks.
The reason is still the same, and refreshing in an era of re-badged logos: Sony develops its sound in-house, decade after decade, from transducers to algorithms, and its noise cancelling grew in part from long experience with how the human ear hears and what disturbs it.
In our selection, Sony is the pragmatic choice: no lifestyle story, no limited edition, simply technology that is meant to work every day — in the rush-hour tram and on the plane.
Sometimes the biggest extra step is a thing doing exactly what it promises.
Fifty years running.
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