WM-22

The WM-22 was one of the most commercially revealing budget Walkman models of the early 1980s, helping push the format into genuine mass-market territory in places such as the UK. Its upright plastic body used thinner colored rear and door panels to reduce cost, but Sony kept the belt-driven transport, dual headphone jacks, and mechanical controls intact so the player still felt like a proper Walkman rather than a disposable imitation. It ran on AA batteries and omitted only the features Sony considered non-essential.

The WM-22 belongs to the phase when the Walkman became affordable enough to stop feeling aspirational. It was not a glamorous model, but it may have done more for everyday adoption of the format than many better-known flagships. This is one of the points where personal stereo stopped being special and became normal.