The term portable audio player refers to a personal, electronic device that allows the user to listen to recorded or broadcast audio whilst being mobile.

=Technology= Techonlogy in portable audio devices has heavily grown since the 70's.

8 Track

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The 8-track was first introduced in the 1970s as the first actual portable audio device. While it did have large success, it was heavily critized as not only bulky but lacking. It could only play eight tracks so a majority of tapes had to be seperated in two or even sometimes three. Also, the actual 8-track system was bulky and in general a pain to carry around.

Cassette Players

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The personal cassette player was brought out to public in 1979 and sold very well. While it did have much to critize since eight-tracks weren't compatable with cassettes, it was still much better than the eight-track. It was much smaller, the tapes were easy to carry around, and the sound quality was very good.

CD Players

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Personal CD players were first introduced in the 80's, but didn't get big until the 90's when anti-skip players were sold. At first, most people thought of personal CD players to be no more portable than the cassette player. Also, since it had no anti-skip, there was no way to actually use them in any portable manner. But in the early 90's, companies made shocks to minimize the skipping, which while making them useless for heavy activities, could be easily used to take around, which then a majority of people used CD players rather than cassette players. Then in 1997, Electronic Skip Protection was used on portable CD players and then eventually were possible for heavy activity use.

MP3 Players

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In 2003, MP3 players were starting to hit shelves. But like CD players first started, there were many issues. MP3 files generally don't have better sound quality. Normal CDs play at 1411kbps while MP3 files can only go to about 800kbps. The files are listenable, but don't produce the same sound when used with good ranged headphones. This is still an issue today. Also, people found it a pain to have to transfer files, even through programs. However, as versions of iTunes got more simple, it was less of a pain. More companies were able to introduce their MP3 players as well when RealPlayer released their MP3 compatable program in May of 2004. Microsoft released their MP3 player compatable program Windows Media Player 10 in July of 2004.

Consumer electronics