Talk:Stereobelt

How does it work?

So how does it actually work? is it based around cassete tapes?

Photographs

http://www.beemo.net/text/before-walkman-there-was-stereobelt

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253,l%253D241888%2526a%253D241884%2526po%253D1,00.asp?p=n — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.152.168.44 (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in Andreas Pavel's account

Not sure how to resolve this. There are inconsistencies between what Andreas Pavel has told the press regarding past events and his own recorded answers under oath in a British courtroom. The general story he tells the media is encapsulated in this New York Times article dated December 2005, which has for the longest time formed the backbone of our article:

Mr. Pavel still remembers when and where he was the first time he tested his invention. [...] It was February 1972, he was in Switzerland with his girlfriend [...] "I was in the woods in St. Moritz, in the mountains," he recalled. "The snow was falling down. I pressed the button, and suddenly we were floating" [...] Over the next few years, he took his invention to one audio company after another -- Grundig, Philips, Yamaha and ITT among them -- to see if there was interest in manufacturing his device. But everywhere he went, he said, he met with rejection or ridicule. "They all said they didn't think people would be so crazy as to run around with headphones, that this is just a gadget, a useless gadget of a crazy nut," he said. In New York, where he moved in 1974, and then in Milan, where he relocated in 1976, "people would look at me sometimes on a bus, and you could see they were asking themselves, why is this crazy man running around with headphones?" Ignoring the doors slammed in his face, Mr. Pavel filed a patent in March 1977 in Milan.

The story of early setback and ridicule is told by authors and journalists elsewhere, furnished with similar quotes by Pavel. The story is reasonably summarized in our article this way:

Pavel approached electronics manufacturers such as ITT, Grundig, Yamaha and Philips with his invention, but said the companies felt that no one would ever want to wear headphones in public for listening to music. Frustrated with his lack of progress, and learning that it was important to protect his idea, Pavel filed a patent for the Stereobelt in Italy in 1977, followed by patent applications in Germany and the United Kingdom in 1978, and later the United States and Japan.

Pavel attempted to sell the audio industry on his invention. He was entirely unsuccessful — all thinking his idea, if not himself, crazy. Frustrated but undeterred he pressed forward, wearing his prototype in public and attracting peculiar looks from passers-by. Pavel subsequently recognized the importance of protecting his invention and submitted a filing to the Italian patent registrar in 1977.

Reading over court documents dated March 1996, however, a different story emerges. British Judges wanted to know exactly which companies Pavel contacted and when. I will copy a small section of the court transcript below while being sensitive to Crown Copyright.

Court transcript

Judge: We know that you took it to Bang & Olufsen? Pavel: Yes. Q. We know you took it to Beyer? A. Yes. Q. Did you take it to anybody else? A. Yes. Q. Who else did you take it to? A. I took it to -- Q. Or send it to, including sending? A. Yes, I only sent it, in fact, to the manager as well. It was first Beyer; then I wrote to Yamaha. Q. Yamaha in Japan? A. Yes, Nippon Sakki who wrote a very polite answer thanking for the offer for your unique item or something like that, but they didn't have the kind of distribution for the portable market or something like that. Then I made a brief visit to Uher. Q. You took it to Uher? A. Uher. But I didn't know Mr Seifert. I didn't talk to any technical people. I talked to some assistant of the management who didn't get the idea at all and I could see immediately he wasn't the right person to talk to. I gave that one up. Then Bang & Olufsen; so we have four. I think that's it. At that time we were only four companies. Q. That is in 1977? A. That's up to January 1978, yes. Q. Can we just follow it through in 1978; did you take it to anyone in 1978? A. Now, you put me in a difficulty because I can't tell you who the others were but it would be hard to improvise the exact date. I can give you the approximate. Q. That would be helpful. We haven't got any documents, you see. A. Right. There was some contact maybe even before Beyer actually when my father spoke to people from ITT. .... And he just got a very short answer saying they -- I think they didn't believe this. The sense of it was it was too much out of the ordinary. Q. Too much? A. Out of the ordinary. They didn't want to dare. Q. Right. You don't have any letters from ITT or anything? A. No. Q. Your father would have been giving ITT this document The Coming of Audio Revolution? A. No, no. Q. I see. A. It was just a quick informal talking. Q. Anybody else? A. Yes, two more. Well, even three more. And that must have been around 1979, 1980 when Garrard had been bought by the Brazilian company Gradiente, the main hi-fi and communications manufacturer in Brazil. And so I gave a call to the owner of Gradiente in Brazil and sent them the material but I didn't get any reaction. Q. The material being this Coming Audio Revolution document? A. So much so I couldn't swear it, but probably and then couldn't get any reaction. I guessed they had some more serious problems getting their finances together even to survive. And then there were two more to come. One is Blaupunkt. Q. Blaupunkt? A. Blaupunkt, yes. And I found from the top manager of consumer management of Blaupunkt a very open and interested attitude. Q. So he had the document, he had this document? A. Almost certainly he would, yes. Q. Right. Next company or last one now? A. You want to know the result of Blaupunkt? Q. Well, I gather they didn't take it up? A. Yes. But I didn't pursue the matter with them too. They invited me to come to Hanover and paid for everything and I went to dinner with this top manager and chief engineer who seemed to be slightly, at least that's the way the manager put it, slightly jealous about this thing that suddenly pops up that had been feasible for so many years and they also had not thought about it. And I got some nice letters but for some reason that I don't recall I didn't pursue the Blaupunkt line, and instead turned to Grundig and there was an important reason to turn to Grundig. By the way, I missed out one thing: independently of this early contact between my father and ITT in 1977, around 1980 I approached ITT directly and had a very good response there. In fact the top manager, Mr Rosenbaum said 'Let's work together'.

We learn from Pavel's testimony that from 1977 to 1980 he reached out to Beyer, Yamaha, Uher, Bang & Olufsen, Gradiente, Blaupunkt, Grundig and ITT. He does not appear to have contacted any company until after filing for patent in 1977 (which forms perfect understanding since why would anyone negotiate for his "invention" if he had not first protected it; they could simply construct a modular audio player fixed to a belt without his approval or involvement). The timeline shared in court is not consistent with the New York Times reference that says Pavel filed for patent after having "doors slammed in his face".

Secondly, almost all of the companies contacted were polite and a majority receptive to his pitch. It was Pavel who walked away from promising leads to peruse better offers elsewhere. The same court document later shows that two companies sought to enter negotiations. ITT Europe in particular — Pavel, his brother Claus, and their father all believed — was readying an offer of 10 million deutschemark, but eventually got cold feet as the market and doubts about the strength of the patent advanced past them. The current version of our article again references the New York Times quoting Andreas Pavel in good faith saying everyone dismissed him as "a crazy nut," but Pavel's own 1996 court testimony shows this narrative to be incompatible.

What action can be taken to improve the page? We could annotate the timeline to reflect the answers provided in court by use of note template but I'm not sure how to do this without casting a shadow over the New York Times reference and drawing attention to Pavel's conflicting account. Wikipedia does allow original sources in limited circumstances and court documents are referenced in other pages describing court affairs. Does anyone have a better idea? — Niche-gamer 16:09, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

False claim of origin of the first Walkman

All the available references state that the name was derived from the Pressman (no problem here). However: none claim that the actual design was derived from the Pressman. And indeed it could not have been because he Walkman bears no similarity to the Pressman whatsoever. A far better candidate is the TCS-300 with which it shares most of its features, not to mention, physical design - even down to an almost identical circuit - including the presence of the unused auto level circuits for the non existent record mode. It even has two headphone sockets. 86.164.128.201 (talk) 17:18, 12 July 2021 (UTC)