Audio

The Sony Walkman TPS-L2 went on sale in Japan in July 1979 with two headphone jacks, so two people could listen at once. Audio is about the machines that made listening personal and the ones built to look good doing it in a living room. Apple's iPod arrived in 2001 and put a music library in a pocket, followed by a decade of models that changed size and storage almost every year. Bang and Olufsen, founded in Struer, Denmark, in 1925, worked with designers such as Jacob Jensen to make stereo equipment that looked like sculpture, including the Beogram 4000 turntable of 1972. The Technics SL-1200, also from 1972, became the DJ standard thanks to its direct-drive motor and steady pitch control. Teenage Engineering released the OP-1 synthesizer in 2011 and has kept making compact, strange audio gear since. Reviews and histories here explain how the hardware works and whether an older model is worth buying used. The SL-1200 is a good test case, since a well-kept one from the 1980s can still hold its own in a booth.