Portable audio players are any mobile devices that are able to play digital music tracks. These can include MP3 players, cell phones or mini-disk players. The majority of portable audio players relate to those devices able to play music files, although technically a handheld digital voice recorder could also be considered a portable audio device.

These days younger people tend to take portable audio players for granted, but theyre a relatively recent addition. Not so long ago portable music for previous generations used to exist only in the form of AM/FM radio. Back in the early 1970s 8-track cassettes were all the rage. They looked a little like VHS video tapes, but back then they were considered to be a huge step for portable music. These days we can look back and realize that the technology was basic at best. When songs ended the cassette had to shift to the next track, which left several seconds of silence between the seams that were usually accompanied by the clunking of the internal mechanisms shifting.

It wasnt until the 1980s that the cassette tape arrived on the scene, allowing people to realize a truly portable audio device. These smaller plastic cassettes usually fit into plastic protective covers no bigger than a deck of cards and could be played in portable music players called walkmans that could be heard by plugging a set of headphones into the player. Boomboxes were also popular in the late 1980s, small stereo systems with inbuilt cassette players that allowed people to carry around their music players.

By 1988 compact discs had arrived on the market. These digital discs meant that music lovers no longer had to spend time rewinding or fast forwarding unwieldy cassette tapes to find the track they wanted to listen to. Compact discs also didnt have the problems of the tape breaking or wearing out or coming off the spools. They were also much smaller than the unwieldy, fragile vinyl records.

The only real drawback to the compact disc was the fact that sporting enthusiasts couldnt enjoy portable music with the CD walkman as the laser light reading device was easily jolted, causing the music tracks to skip or jitter. For people wanting to jog or cycle or skate, then the cassette player, like the walkman, remained the portable audio device of choice.

Throughout the 1990s as advances in computer technology leapt ahead and the capacity of flash memory drives increased, the advent of the MP3 file made its way into portable audio players.

Manufacturers quickly realized that MP3 files and flash memory sticks had the capacity to create the first truly indestructible portable audio player that didnt suffer any of the drawbacks of its predecessors. Thus the MP3 player was born. No bigger than a pack of gum and able to continue playing music files even during heavy activity like cycling or jogging, MP3 players became truly portable. Able to store entire music libraries of music and with the ability to transfer files on and off the device easily meant that these portable audio players enjoyed a rise in popularity previously unseen.

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Tags: audio players, electronics, gadgets, ipod, Ipods, media players, mp3, mp3 cd players, mp3 players, personal audio, sandisk, shopping

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