When you see websites like CassettePlayer.net celebrating the culture of the cassette player and companies like We Are Rewind developing innovative cassette players and even Amazon having a cassette player category you might ask yourself: Why, but why?
The popularity of vintage audio tapes has increased in recent years. This year, the cassette will even make a comeback on Christmas wish lists as notable singers like Coldplay, Robbie Williams, and Liam Payne all release albums in the revived format. Even now, though, as more consumers and musicians value the nostalgia of CDs and digital downloads, cassette tape culture is beginning to resurface.
Most of us old enough to have grown up on cassette tapes have fond memories of recording from the radio, duplicating albums, or making mixtapes. We have foggy memories of fighting cassette players to save nibbled-out tapes, and spending hours piecing them together with a pencil. What made younger generations curious about the tapes was their desire to experiment with another method for listening to music.
Long before the first cheap, low-quality recording compact tape was introduced in 1963 (followed in 1965 by the commercial music cassette), experimental composers had been considering the cassette as a potential musical tool. In the 80s, cassettes were how most people got their music, and were good enough to tempt listeners to Madonna, Prince, and the sounds of Kenny G. In fact, some audio professionals argue that formats built on tape, such as the cassette, possess a compelling sonic warmth. While offering even mainstream music, cassettes became extremely popular during the 70s and 80s. Blank cassettes were also invaluable tools for spreading music by unsigned acts, particularly in the cassette-trading networks.
The idea came to We Are Rewind after one year riding a wave of 1980s nostalgia, started initially with movies, even the TV series “Stranger Things”, and then decided to make tape players again. Today, you can easily pick up a used cassette tape for less then $1, making the cassette the cheapest way to hear music nowadays.
CDs are cool, but there is just something about cassettes that cannot be topped. We have tons of Walkmans and other cassette players stashed in our closets. It is not that we cannot fix them, it is the limitations in how many replacement parts are available.
Some might say, since we are not really using tapes anymore, Walkmans must be going extinct.
But shops started getting questions every day about re-stocking the Walkman, specifically about the Walkman–WM-8–that Max has strapped on his belt for almost every scene in the movie. The requests started rolling in before they realized that season four of Stranger Things had even released.
Depending on the kind of cassette player you want — an old-school kind, or a modern one — you also need to look at if the cassette player has a USB port, and whether or not you can pair a smartphone with it over Bluetooth. Apart from being able to play tapes, CDs, or radios, you have got an aux-in port, meaning that you can plug other devices like MP3 players in and have the music played out via speakers. Keeping all of those reasons in mind, we have collected a considerable amount of different players which are capable of playing both CDs and cassettes, and decided to put them through their paces.
Source : https://cassetteplayer.net/ , https://www.wearerewind.com/ , https://www.amazon.com/cassette-player/s?k=cassette+player
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