As Sony retires milestone music player in Japan, "The Conversation" looks back. Oct. 25, 2010 — -- The Sony Walkman is about to go mute, but it's not because the AA batteries are running out.

Attention, the 160 million or so owners of an Apple iPod MP3 player: take out those white earbuds and listen for a second. Before the iPod became ubiquitous — way, way before — there was the Walkman.

The Walkman was just as big a change in the way we listened to music as the iPod was in the early 2000s. Ex-movie theater projectionist Steve Guttenberg has also worked as a high-end audio salesman, ...

In today’s world, smartphones are the go-to devices for remote music listening. But decades ago, the iconic Sony Walkman was the preferred choice for listening through headphones to music on walks, ...