While cassettes and CDs are now staples on artists' merch tables, tech companies are starting to make physical media players again. But are they any good? The Verge’s Andru Marino finds out why today’s bulky cassette and CD players may not be able to compete with the innovative designs of the 2000s.
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00:00Okay, let me show you what I got in at The Verge HQ.
00:06I have here two portable cassette players and two portable CD players.
00:11Two are from the early 2000s and two are from this year.
00:16There's been a resurgence of retro tech lately.
00:18Cassettes are back, CDs are now full on nostalgia, and we're getting some cool gadgets as a result.
00:24This is a brand new player from a company called We Are Rewind.
00:28It's a $159 fully operational portable cassette player with recording capabilities, updated
00:34with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and Bluetooth.
00:38And this is a brand new Bluetooth enabled CD player from a company called Feo that just
00:42came out this month for $180.
00:45But look at these compared to the ones from the 2000s.
00:48The Sony WM-EX910 is an ultra compact Walkman, almost the same size as the cassette itself.
00:54This Panasonic CD player from 2001 has got a nice slim round design.
00:59I love these little hand grips here.
01:01These new models of music players have a cool aesthetic, but look at the size of them.
01:06They're bulky, not pocketable, and seemingly less advanced than what we saw by the end
01:11of these gadgets' reign.
01:13So what happened to that progress?
01:15Why is it that in 2024 we can't just continue where we left off in the 2000s and innovate
01:21from there?
01:22To try to answer that, I wanted to talk to the companies making these things.
01:29My name is Romain Boudruche, and I'm the founder of We Are Rewind.
01:34We Are Rewind is based in France, and debuted its version of a new cassette player in 2022,
01:40calling it the Cassette Player Reinvented, a Bluetooth enabled USB-C charging tape machine.
01:46I was just wondering how people are going to be able to listen to cassettes again.
01:51Because there are still cassette players available on the market, and I actually could only find
01:56two possibilities at the time.
01:59There was the cassette players made of plastic for maybe 30 bucks that you could find, and
02:04there was also the other option, which was on eBay with really amazing cassette players,
02:10but it was sold for like 800 euros.
02:12It was crazy.
02:13And so I was thinking about maybe we should work on an in-between, with maybe some modern
02:19functions on it.
02:23What I immediately noticed about We Are Rewind's cassette player is if you compare the dimensions
02:28to Sony's first ever Walkman from 45 years ago, they're almost identical.
02:34And Romain said that was intentional.
02:36We want something which is going to look like the first TPS-L2 from Sony.
02:42It will have to be made of aluminum, because we wanted to make a distinction with the plastic
02:46cassette players that we could already find.
02:48But why not make a more compact version of it?
02:51Yeah, I mean, are we able to make anything this small anymore?
02:55At this point, this is absolutely not doable.
02:58We should have to ask Sony to open again the old manufacturer and buy all the machines
03:06who gives you the possibility to create that.
03:09Sony, the pioneer in portable music players, and the best who have ever done it, stopped
03:14selling Walkmans in the US in 2004.
03:17So the equipment to build and assemble those technically more advanced designs are just
03:22not even around anymore.
03:24And then there's also one other huge factor that keeps these new cassette players this
03:28bulky.
03:29Actually, everyone in the world right now is using the same mechanism.
03:32Everyone.
03:33Because there's only one available.
03:34This is kind of shit, actually.
03:36This is made in China.
03:37There is not many things that we could be proud of.
03:42Romain is referring to the main component of the cassette player that moves the tape
03:45through the tape head.
03:47Without that stock mechanism, you would have to rebuild the cassette player from scratch
03:51and basically open up your own manufacturing plant, a daunting task for a startup making
03:56a device that has already existed many times over.
03:59There are some super informative videos from some of my favorite YouTube channels Techmoan
04:03and VWestlife that go through a bunch of newer cassette players to compare tape mechanisms.
04:08And it's true, all modern cassette players are using cheaply made rip-offs of an older
04:13cassette player mechanism made by a Japanese manufacturer, Tonoshin.
04:17Take a look at this cheap cassette player I got as a free giveaway.
04:20The tape transport is exactly the same as We Are Rewinds, as opposed to the ones from
04:25those vintage players at the height of cassette technology.
04:29Cassette players are considered a sunset industry.
04:34Another audio company putting its own twist on a new cassette player is Fiio, which is
04:38based in China.
04:40This cassette player, the CP-13, also utilizes an aluminum shell with a lithium battery that's
04:45chargeable via USB-C. And of course, Fiio is using the same mechanism as well.
04:50Fiio confirmed it ran into the same issues We Are Rewind had.
04:54Materials for cassette players are gone, and no one is willing to make them.
04:57There have been continuous cutting costs, leading to a decline in quality standards.
05:06Under this situation, producing a product with high quality is very challenging and
05:12requires more communication and costs.
05:16Fiio reached out to manufacturers that technically could make a new cassette mechanism, but it
05:20wouldn't make sense for them.
05:22They have more profitable things at larger volumes than they could be making.
05:25So the teams at Fiio and We Are Rewind made the best with what they had.
05:29This is why we worked with French engineers who used to work for Thomson for 30 years.
05:35They just picked this existing mechanics and said, OK, what can we do with this?
05:41We are going to change different parts, change the flywheel, use a brass flywheel instead,
05:47and many things like this to make it as good as we could.
05:51Swapping out the plastic flywheel in the belt drive, which is what's found in these stock
05:56mechanisms, with something sturdier like brass, decreases the amount of wow and flutter
06:01you get on the tape playback.
06:02So you get a lot better sound than something like this.
06:05Fiio says the CP-13 uses a large copper flywheel, a different playhead, and an integrated balanced
06:11circuit.
06:12So these companies could tweak some stuff, but they couldn't shrink the design due to
06:17the physical limitations of the mechanism.
06:19This is just what every new portable cassette player in the market has to deal with.
06:23Because the mechanism is actually pretty big, there are some alignments with the buttons
06:27that have to be respected.
06:29We have many, many things that don't give us the possibility to find something really
06:35close to the best ones you could find in the early 2000s.
06:40The same thing goes for modern CD players.
06:43Fiio's first portable player, the DM-13, just came out with a large square design,
06:48quite a contrast with the slim portable CD players of the early 2000s.
06:53According to Fiio, finding a good laser head was the biggest obstacle making the DM-13.
06:58You know, it's not very easy to find a good CD laser head supplier in China.
07:03We spent a lot of time and money to communicate with the supplier to improve the quality of
07:09the CD head.
07:11Combining that large CD head with the multiple audio outputs, a screen, a long-lasting battery,
07:17and Bluetooth, you can see why it gets so big.
07:20Fiio says that's the reason why we have this square design, instead of the circular one
07:24we saw on portable CD players in the past.
07:27So because we had this large decades-long gap between manufacturing flagship cassette
07:32and CD players, any company who wants to build a new model would basically have to start
07:37from zero or use the limited parts that are available.
07:41And the latter is always going to be cheaper and more sustainable.
07:44So with those sacrifices, are these gadgets any good?
07:51Though We Are Rewind's cassette player is bulky, it's a pretty sturdy gadget.
08:00Same goes for Fiio's CP-13.
08:02The aluminum shells are an appreciated feature for something portable like this, which is
08:07more likely than not to take some hits to the ground.
08:10Which has already happened, but I don't see any scratches on this thing.
08:14One thing I do wish they had is some kind of clip or belt loop to keep the cassette
08:18player attached to something.
08:19We Are Rewind does sell a belt clip for this you can buy for $32, but these used to have
08:24clips on them.
08:26Let's not dismiss the design, though.
08:28We don't see this metal orange a lot, and I really love the green version We Are Rewind
08:32makes as well.
08:33Anytime I show this cassette player to my colleagues in the office, their eyes widen
08:37at the minimalist design.
08:39Oh, it's, I mean, that thing is a chump.
08:43As for the modernizations, We Are Rewind promises that their rechargeable battery can last up
08:48to 12 hours of use, and Fiio's promises 13, which are actually not as long as some
08:54Sony Walkmans, but you don't have to deal with that weird gumstick battery or double
08:58As.
08:59For what it's worth, I've been using these on and off for a month or two, and I rarely
09:03ever have to charge them.
09:05Adding Bluetooth on a cassette player is sort of a silly idea because audio will get worse,
09:10but I love that it exists on the We Are Rewind model.
09:14Something that excites me is being able to pair this to my car stereo if I want to listen
09:17to some old mixtapes.
09:19I've had no issues pairing via Bluetooth.
09:21We Are Rewind's site says wireless earbuds are not compatible.
09:25I was able to pair these $40 CMF earbuds to the player, but I dealt with some random dropouts
09:30at times.
09:31When I'm having it in my pocket, the signal just starts interrupting.
09:35Ramat clarified that earbuds from some manufacturers like Bose had trouble pairing, but using AirPods
09:41should work just fine.
09:44FiiO's CP13 doesn't have Bluetooth or recording capabilities, which in turn allows it to be
09:49a little shorter in size.
09:51As for audio quality, I actually found that when playing the same tapes back to back on
09:55the FiiO and We Are Rewind players, FiiO's audio output does sound a little bolder and
10:00cleaner, though I'm not sure you're going to get anything to sound as good as when Sony
10:03was dedicating their best engineers to these things.
10:14As
10:41for recording quality, I was initially going to run the audio from the whole review section
10:45through the tape player to let you hear how it sounds, but the quality was actually not
10:49good enough to do that, so I did it for these two sentences.
10:55With We Are Rewind's player at $160 and FiiO's at $99, I'm not sure it's really an impulse
11:01buy for someone looking to listen to cassettes, but considering how much vintage is costing
11:05now, it might be a cost saver.
11:08This Sony Walkman from 2000 cost us over $200 in working condition, and that's more than
11:13any of these new cassette players.
11:15Compared to everything else in the market, these are your best bet for a modern cassette
11:19player at this point, though I'd sort of prefer FiiO's CP-13 because of its sound and it's
11:25a little more compact, but if you want Bluetooth, this is what you're going to go with.
11:32As for FiiO's DM-13, this CD player feels a lot less portable.
11:37This square design does not fit easily in a coat pocket, immediately when I go outside
11:41I just want to put it in my backpack, though that's not really much of a problem when you
11:45have a wireless CD player.
11:47I was easily able to pair the DM-13 to both my Bluetooth speaker at home while cooking
11:51and then pair those CMF buds on my commute this morning very quickly.
11:56One issue with this is the Bluetooth output is not loud enough, I had to crank up my speaker
12:00and my headphones just to get to a volume I was used to with my phone.
12:04I've had no skipping issues when listening to CDs on my commute, FiiO recommends you
12:09turn on the ESP switch when traveling for a more stable sound.
12:13Where the DM-13 really impresses me are those other multiple audio outputs.
12:17It's got a regular 3.5mm output, a 4.4mm balanced power output for some high-end headphones,
12:24a 4.4mm balanced line out, a 3.5mm 3-in-1 line out coax optical output, and get this,
12:32a USB record out.
12:35Which means you can record the output of this via USB-C into your computer for some reason.
12:41Like you can't rip songs from a CD onto your computer, you can just play them into your
12:46computer.
12:48I tried this on both Mac and PC and it worked, but it didn't sound great.
12:52🎵 Come on baby, it's not too late 🎵
12:58You can hook this up to pretty much anything.
13:01Sounds like a real music gadget.
13:03And that gets to my overall point about this.
13:06It's a good desktop CD player that you can also just put in your bag and bring with you.
13:12I put this in my bedroom and played a CD and listened to it in my kitchen on my kitchen
13:17speaker.
13:18That's really cool.
13:20I've had so many friends over the years ask me what CD player to get for their home, and
13:24I might actually recommend them this.
13:26It's a big portable CD player, but a pretty good compact one for your desk.
13:34So while companies are making these gadgets, the innovation feels a bit limited.
13:38So is there really a future for any of this?
13:41Something Fio stressed to me was that these retro gadgets do not yield much profit, and
13:46it's highly likely they can incur losses.
13:49But they are committed to continue making them, and trying to make them slimmer.
13:53Both Fio and We Are Rewind have told me they're spending time on some less niche products
13:57as well, like a handheld FM radio and a Bluetooth boombox, respectively, which I can imagine
14:04is significantly easier to make.
14:06I'm not too optimistic about the future of these music players.
14:10Since these gadgets are niche at this point in our gadget timeline, making a small volume
14:15continues to keep that price up high.
14:18There's not a lot of incentive to invest in innovation with not much demand or competition.
14:23The prospect of an ultra-compact cassette player coming back might actually be doomed.
14:28Also, I'm sort of skeptical people are actually listening to cassettes and CDs they buy.
14:33A 2023 study by music sales data company Luminate reported that only 50% of consumers who have
14:39bought vinyl in the past 12 months actually own a record player.
14:44And that's a technology that never truly went away, while also having an audio quality incentive.
14:49I haven't even mentioned that cassettes just don't sound great most of the time.
14:53Physical media is mostly a fun way to support artists.
14:56However, I do think we should worry about some technology like this sunsetting production.
15:02Maybe the cassette player and the CD player is a low risk, but if we need them in the
15:06future for, like, preserving and archiving media, it's only going to get harder and harder
15:11over time to boot up these devices.
15:14Look how fast it took for us to lose this progress.
15:17So, maybe if these companies are restarting production of cassette players and CD players,
15:23maybe they're resetting the clock on the expiration date of this technology as well.
15:29Thank you for watching this, I really appreciate it.
15:32I'm just trying something new, and I just love this stuff, so, um, let me know what you think.