Doesn't seem like this "cassette comeback" is going to happen until somebody starts manufacturing decent cassette mechanisms.

"I suspect that I was going around carrying number of pictures of Korean ladies, Misses would be wondering what is going on" hahahahaha made me laugh. Thank you worth wile video already

If only Sony started re-releasing a Walkman with actual cassette compatibility..

Amazing we've become a world where something is destined for e-waste before it ever makes it to production!

The design looks like Braun developed a walkman for Ikea ...

There’s probably like 1 factory left in China that makes all of the cassette mechanisms.

The last and best Sony Walkman that I ever bought was from around 1989-1990, and it had a digital tuner. It never broke or wore out, and it STILL works! Peace.

Techmoan having to describe KPOP history made my day.

That thing gave me heartburn. Sony really did make one hell of a product, didn't they?

That era of Sony was all engineering marvels of miniaturisation, especially those Walkmen. Brilliant industrial design, the curves, etc

I just wanted to say that I'm terribly sorry it ended up like this. This wasn't cheap ($104.58) and I naturally thought they must have put a lot of money to the R&D. I can see now it all went to the artists' royalty. How did they got the RWD and FF in the wrong way? Unbelievable. Just so you know, I was the guy who sent this to Mat.

So pretty much modern cassette mechanisms are the Crosley of the tape world.

"If the motor's on display, better run away" is a good way to remember it

My daughter caught me watching the video and recognised the people on the poster straight away.

I'm not into K-pop, but I like how you went the extra mile to explain the significance of the special edition tape. I thinks it's cool having something that is a kinda flashback nostalgia.

Seeing an old British man open up K-Pop merchandise is quite a fun thing. And tbh the market they're aiming here which is the K-Pop teens who like the groups that are included in the mix. Most of them will probably not care about quality or even listen to it too much. Most would buy these for the novelty and merchandise factor, like owning the product and supporting their favourite groups. So yeah, the people behind these items know who they're targeting at.

"Sony knew what they were doing." So do you, sir. Thanks for yet another comprehensive review, and for your advice and experience. You help us appreciate old equipment even more.

You've motivated me to dig out my old Sanyo personal stereo and see how it does. It was nothing too special, but did always sound good. One innovative feature was it came with a "tuner pack", which was a cassette-shaped tuner module that you could drop in and listen to AM/FM stereo. It had contact pins for power and it didn't use the tape head for the audio signal, and the case of the player had cutouts for the thumb wheel for tuning and switches.

I have my mom’s old Walkman, a WM-FX425 from approximately 1988. While its original belt had failed and had to be replaced, it works incredibly well. Additionally, I bought one of those cassette-to-MP3 machines before I knew it was just the belt in the Walkman, and it was defective. It would just play regardless of what you did with the buttons.

It’s a shame that the impressive box didn’t have a impressive cassette player in it. The young generation will never really appreciate what a good quality portable player was like even if they get their hands on one it likely won’t be in good shape.

How is it the I haven’t owned a tape or vinyl for 20 years and haven’t played a cd for 10 years yet I watch at least 3 Techmoan videos a day? Love it, keep up the good work

It's the shame about the quality, as I really love the design. It kind of reminds me of 70s design but miniaturised

Gotta love the branding of the "It's OK". At least it doesn't pretend to be better than fair to middling.

Thank you for this video. I still listen to Classic FM with a 90s Sony Walkman with headphones through the night. The sound quality is streets ahead of the DAB radios around the house, and is amazing that it all runs off a single aa battery. The cassette still player still works, which is a testament to Sony’s quality. A shame this one tested does not come up to scratch. Thanks, once again Mr T.

Never thought I would see a kpop unboxing on this channel lol.

Despite its quality, it just brought back all those feelings as a kid getting a new walkman through the years as things update. My first auto rewind walkman and then the trolly nice Aiwa silver one that was not much bigger than the tape! I felt so smart on the bus! Great stuff!

mat’s reaction to kpop is the best thing i’ll see this week

3:40 honestly that's a really neat idea conceptually, modern artists to cover versions of old songs all the time but it's neat to see it made into a bigger project like this that also has some historical significance considering K-pop is huge these days.

You can’t beat a mid to late 90’s Sony Walkman for personal cassette players. I still remember how good Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins sounded!

The fact they were able to compress a tape player to the size of a case is a technological feat in my book.

Matt please keep up the good work and be critical where it matters, honesty is the best policy!

I love the thumbnail. "It's crap but that's normal" I had a good laugh. It's also very true! Thanks for all of your great videos.

I really like the look at 5:34 with the cassette inside, even though the player is rubbish.

Kinda cool, with the huge wow and flutter you virtually have two different cassettes between the two devices. Double the music with just one cassette!

It's a real shame the quality isn't great because I really like the design of this one, boxy with the clear plastic cover. Something about it appeals to me.

I had this same discussion with my mom today, only it was about a new mystery-brand pressure cooker she ordered to replace the mystery-brand one that broke (it only lasted about two years). Different "brand," but the exact same components. Buttons were in the same place, albeit a different overlay. Even the old lid connects. And I'm sure in another two years, she'll replace it with another mystery-brand variant...

9:56 just love to see the TDK SA 90's . Brings back so much memories .

Finally! My insomnia is good for something! It is 4:09 AM in the Central Time Zone, and I am wide awake, and ready for an awesome video. As usual, Techmoan does not disappoint.

The downgrade in quality of consumer electronics especially more affordable ones is really shocking!!

I watch this channel to know what equipment NOT to buy. I appreciate what you do.

I still have my Sony Professional Recorder Walkman, from about 1993. I haven't used it in years, but it's rock-solid. For digitizing my old cassettes, I gave up on USB walkmen, and got a used 1990s JVC stereo cassette deck for $25. Works beautifully.

FYI, regarding the “We are rewind” Walkman, they claim in their recent newsletter that it will be based on the Tanashin mechanism that they are trying to optimize for better sound quality. However the mechanical parts they want for a good record functionality are not manufactured anymore so they will ditch the record functionality in the first version of their device (which is yet to come). So it looks they’re just not trying to fit one of these crap mechanism into a new case.

I think the take-away from this video is this: If you're in the market for a portable cassette player, do yourself a favour and find one on eBay that was made in the 1990s by one of the recognised brands of the time, and preferably Sony. You won't get a shiny new deck that will be pleasing to the eye, you won't get any fancy Bluetooth stuff, but your ears will thank you.

I recently repaired my TEAC V-900X cassette machine and have stored several hundred tapes away in sealed boxes. I have also bought a Pioneer QX8000A 4channel receiver/amplifier. All I’m lacking is some decent speakers and I’ll be back in 1989. I understand the nostalgia for the cassettes, I’m excited to hear those tapes again! Some of them are recorded in dbx discrete, I remember those as sounding particularly good.

That blue cassette player was honest about itself, at least. "IT'S OK"

I recognize that mechanism as the ones you can buy on eBay for about 15 quid that look and feel like somebody has slapped them together with cheaply moulded plastic

In addition to wow and flutter problems, the new machine also runs fast, about a quarter tone sharp.

I’ll be honest, I became a fan of your videos after trying to get an understanding of sound systems. I currently have a Sony receiver connected to my tv, PlayStation, and a record player. I’ve never had one, but I’ve learned my fair share of information on this channel. But what also helped was your previous cassette player videos. Funnily, what ties this video and my journey with you is kpop! I needed a cassette player to listen to a new album that came out on a cassette. The sound system, to enjoy my music (kpop). I feel like we’ve came full circle. By the way, I would love go take the kpop merchandise off your hands 💗 thank you!

"One that wasn't actually properly broken." hee. Also dang, that Walkman the size of a cassette case, WTF, Sony?

Well that's confirmed that I won't be buying a modern one any time soon.

I remember having an Aiwa personal cassette player /recorder/ AM/FM stereo tuner , metal case unit , pricey around $300.00 back in the 80's. Probably a little smaller than the Ksette unit on review ,but it was a workhorse. Auto reverse, you could record lectures or directly off the tuner.

Sony used "printed circuit" motors in their walkmans that were only a few mm thick!

"Hopefully it's all right" - I thought we hoped it was Stereo? 😂

That Sony Walkman still sounds like a gem, almost as good as the day you bought it probably. The Sony I had took enormous abuse but always sounded great. They always strived to get it ‘right’ for sure

Thanks for the vid, Matt. I always respect your opinion on this type of thing. Surely the resurgence of CC's will lead toward someone making a decent mechanism at some point. My guess is it would sell like hotcakes!

The design is not bad, it looks like a cassette player that the Japanese company Muji would sell. Shame about the mechanism, though. Really it goes to show - if you want a walkman, buy a Walkman. Or an Aiwa. Or Sanyo.

Conclusion: Don't bother with portable cassette players in general. Use a proper home deck (an old, high quality one) and digitize any cassettes you have into a high bitrate lossless format. Then you can have your entire library on your phone, your computer, your home audio system, your car, or anywhere else you want. Ditto with vinyl. People think that any differences, real or imagined, between records and CDs are because CDs lose information. That is false. CDs are lossless. However, the tonal balance is often different because vinyl has compensating equalization that is (because it is done with analog electronics) not identical even between identical models and batches of turntable. Then there are differences between cartridges, styli, and the list goes on. Bottom line: vinyl is a long, long way from being "superior" to digital, especially lossless formats like CDs and FLAC, but if your personal taste prefers vinyl there's nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with somebody who likes to turn up the bass or down the treble. The truth of the the matter is that an audio recording and playback that was truly "accurate", with absolutely flat frequency response and zero artifacts introduced by equipment, format or media, would sound "flat" and "lifeless" to most people. All that is to say that audio is extremely subjective and while there are some things that would be universally perceived as bad, what constitutes "the best" is very different for different people. So if you like analog formats and fiddling with all the huge, clunky mechanisms and media then be my guest, but you can in fact take the audio quality with you in a digital format for use on the go. Don't get me wrong, I'm as nostalgic as anyone and do enjoy fiddling around with old audio equipment and media, but when I'm serious about quality and portability I go digital. And yet, I admit that I still really want one of those Sony "professional" Walkmans from the 1980s that I could never afford at the time. 😉 They were only slightly larger than a cassette without the box. When there was no tape inside they collapsed quite a bit smaller than any of the ones Mat has shown us. They had autoreverse, recording, metal tape compatibility and Dolby B and C. They were absolutely amazing, and extremely expensive. Of course, by the time I could afford to buy one of those, there were high quality portable CD players that had IR remote controls and were only slightly larger than a CD, and I got one of those instead. I think I may still have that in storage somewhere.

I love it! The 22-year-old, sat in a drawer for a year, cassette player, works so much better than a brand-new one.

I guess I'm glad I lucked out and found a old Sony sports Walkman for 3 bucks that still plays things perfectly

The solution is really simple, they just need to improve the cassette mechanism and bring it back to a decent quality. I like the idea of having bluetooth in a cassette. In the meantime, I am using a bluetooth transmitter on my WM-D6C so I can use my bluetooth headphones. That said, i hate built-in speakers on portable cassette players. That is one feature that I don't mind them not bringing back.

I wished someone would start to make the old, good mechanisms again. Like they did with vinyl plates. There has to be a market for it.

I'm listening through the built in speaker in my phone and even I can hear the massive difference in sound quality between the two machines. Wow

I still have my original SONY WalkMan from my childhood that my father bought for me. It was by no means a high-end model but it's still far superior than what can be bought today. I didn't have very many cassettes as a kid, but it does have an FM-Tuner built into it so I was able to listen to the radio anywhere I wanted to bring it. As long as there was good reception that is. I also still have both of my portable Philips cd players as well and still use them when I feel like listening to a cd from time to time. :)

I've said this before and I'll say it again. For most people, the cassette comeback is a novelty. They get nostalgia from listening to a tape and aren't looking for super high quality audio, if they wanted high quality audio they would buy expensive headphones and listen to high quality audio files. However most people don't care about high quality audio anyways because they just stream Spotify or KZfaq to their $5 pair of earbuds or $40 bluetooth speaker. All that being said, these mechanisms don't cut it. I don't mind the tape hiss, I grew up with that in the cheap old player I had as a kid, but the speed is so wrong. I bought one of those boomboxes with the tanoshin mech and was fine with that, yes it had hiss and wow and flutter, but the speed was okay. Eventually though it stopped being consistent with the speed, trying to record tapes with that machine was a nightmare, because the speed fluctuated while recording and during playback. This caused drastic changes in tape speed, and was not pleasant to listen to (unless you are a music masochist like me). Last little comment is about the "new" tapes, they are all bad. I have a new tape from an indi band I like, but I could make a better sounding tape by recording the digital .WAV files onto tape with dolby on my RCA SCT-570. Listening to old tapes on new machines isn't that bad, listening to new tapes on old machines isn't that bad, but listening to new tapes on new machines is less than ideal.

One does ponder, if building a mech oneself might be possible. Stepper motors for accuracy, direct drive, arduino for control, 3D-printed chassis and such.

Side note: I love that blank tape with the metal reel-to-reel looking wheels on the inside. Where did you get that?

My 2001 Honda HR-V came with a Sony Cassette player. Instead of replacing it, I bought a 90's Cassette recorder and a few cassettes (choice partly because of this channel). The joy of making mix-tapes, selecting the songs you don't want to skip (skipping takes forever), the fidelity ... It makes the 90's driving experience all that much more.

The cassette deck is performing perfectly. What you are hearing is the tremolo effect popular in cassette and turntable players these days. It gives your old, dull music that new, hipster sound.

13:22 that player probably has the most honest brand name of any of these junk piles. Shame about the main focus of the video though because I really like that aesthetic.

The Techmoan Army: 1. Should 'get together and make a proper, good cassette mech' (per CBits Tech), and 2. After we succeed in that monumental task, we must gather together and build Mat a large studio with ample storage space.

It's too bad it sounds terrible cause it's simply beautiful imo. I love the see-through door, colors and just the all around design of the whole device.

Yep, that's the same mechanism used in all the current "tape to USB" clones with auto reverse. I took one apart and was actually amazed at all the parts used in the mechanism. You'd think it was a solid little machine..... Nope unfortunately...

Most likely you can resell those sticker on ebay 😅

Wow, the comparison between the two cassette players was incredibly telling.

We are like dark age Europeans looking at the Roman ruins and wondering how they did it.

I really kind of dig that case aesthetic. Also I never realized the WOW and FLUTTER being so obvious on piano music. Now I need to go back and listen on some of my older stuff and pay attention.

Weird -- I would never click a red button on a cassette deck in order to play. I'd be too worried I was about to record.

A bluetooth walkman. Never thought I'd see that combination. That's intresting.

it's so perplexing that in these thing in the 1990s were smaller and better quality.

I have new levels of respect for my yamaha kx580! Thanks for a great vid 👍

So the fact that I listened to this on a crappy mono only work phone computer headset didn't really take anything away from the experience? That's almost sad :D

Sad. I really want a decent cassette player to return. Hopefully with time someone will eventually develop their own product.

Classic Sony is unbeatable. I took your advice and dropped some money on a refurbished DD model a few months ago, and couldn’t be happier with it! I’ve used one modern personal stereo that was my friend’s sole player, and I felt so bad for him I bought him a Sony for $1 and he loved it

It's kind of unreal, some executives at Sony could be sitting in a boardroom right now with one of these on the table and say, "Gentlemen, this is our competition." .. and after they all finish laughing, they would say, "How about we re-release an old design we came out with in 1992, make it look 80's retro and sell it to that market?" .. "What a great idea!" .. There's so much tech that Sony is sitting on that they could re-release with very little cost, since all of the R&D has already been done, they'd just have to re-create the tooling and put something back into manufacture again... and they'd completely wipe the entire market.

I'm quite surprised that, considering there is a market for audiophiles who would like to play cassette tapes with a modicum of quality, or even fans of new-retro novelties, no manufacturer has stepped in with a decent product.

to be fair it's hard to compete with Sony at the height of their hi-fi powers. Manufacturing something high quality at scale is no simple task. Best bet is Sony or Panasonic or someone just doing it themselves once again, and probably at a premium price

This reminds me of a computer keyboard I bought back when the only type you could buy from most places was the standard, huge 104/105 key type, and only in the standard color, beige. The only choice you got was whether the key action felt adequate poor or abominable, largely depending on price. I bought a black 86-key keyboard called a Shortboard from a specialist supplier. I needed it because I was typing all day every day, and a standard keyboard puts the mouse so far to the right, it was painful to use. The Shortboard cost me £60 which was at the time the price you'd pay for a top-quality but standard keyboard for the office. (Cheap keyboards could be £4 or less.) The Shortboard wasn't a disaster, but it was substantially below my expectations. The keys had rubbery end stops, resulting in a touch of RSI in the final knuckle of each finger at the end of a day's typing. It felt solid but the keys rattled like crazy. The right-side control key acted strangely with some operating systems. The keytop legends looked cheap, and as it got old they wore off faster than any other keyboard I've ever owned. The built-in USB hub only just-about worked. Worst of all, something rattled about inside, and when I opened it up, I found it was a bit of metal from one of the USB sockets. However, 10 years later, keyboards were available in all sorts of shapes sizes and colors at all sorts of prices, and even some quite cheap ones have decent key action. There's hope yet!

There's gotta be some money to be made with an actual, decent cassette mechanism. If vinyl can remain relevant, surely decent cassettes can.

I've always kept maximum quality digital audio files. I love the freedom of all my music anywhere I like. I dreamed of this as a kid. I waked away from vinyl in 1985 and cassettes in 1990. Kids want this stuff back because thy were never FORCED to use the alternatives. They never knew what it was like to try to find "imports" or alternative and having them be scarce and nearly impossible to get. Or to having their media wear out with age and time simply by being played. The answer isn't to go backwards to highly artifacted analog, its to get away from digital formats invented in the dark age of computers and make a REAL digital audio standard. Not to have to buy Dark Side of the Moon every four years because the grooves wear out. Or to sit and claim that pops and hisses are "warmth" not just bad tech.

I never understood any of these format comeback devices. Formats moved on for a reason, they're never going to go mainstream again, they just seem like cheap cash grabs at nostalgia with devices that will almost instantly turn into e-wsste. More puzzling is this habit of manufacturers in these nostalgia fads are obsessed with adding Bluetooth to everything. It's this strange gimmicky tosh that cheapens the whole thing and confuses the experience. You can own a genuine piece of that era but you can't ever bring back a time that once was. They don't build things like they used to anymore and there's good reason for that, it's unaffordable. Collectors and the nostalgic should look to own pieces of history, not attempt to recreate it.

Now I know positively not to buy something I wasn't going to buy to begin with. Yet I keep watching

There won't be a decent personal cassette player made until a quality mechanism is manufactured such as the mechanism in the 80s, this is actually a great video which really highlights the terrible awful attempt these mechanisms make at playing back cassettes

They only added a rewind button so they didn't have to change the name to 'Turn Over The Tape And Fast Forward Blossom'

I have to think it's intentionally like this, just for the 80's ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ

What’s inexplicable to me is the existing consumer electronics companies (Sony, Matsushita, and JVC) can’t or won’t license their cassette deck designs to the companies that are still manufacturing cassette mechanisms. If they don’t want to manufacture them let the companies that do it now do it legitimately. I don’t think there can be a “true” cassette resurgence without chrome tape and DNR (Dolby chips are dead) so I’m happy to have a Sony TC-FX4 dual head deck from the early 80s that takes all tape types and at least has Dolby B. The only new things that are close to good are the decks from Teac/Tascam. They can play and record to types 1 and 2 and can at least play type 4, they have DNR, have legitimate electromagnetic erase heads, good auto reverse with pivoting heads, and real auto stop. The only problem I can see is they’re using knock off Mabuchi motors. VWestlife said he was going to make a video where he replaces the knock off motor with a real one. I hope he does that. If he does, I may buy a Teac deck and do the same thing.

5:50 "Yeah, it really sounds terrible" - Perfect automatic atmosphere machine

You know what? I've read my last "I kind of like wow and flutter for aesthetic purposes" comment; I'm done with it. Not because I think it's an invalid stance to take or way to feel, but here's the actual answer to that, and not just someone insisting that it's not the way it's meant to be played. Build a system with as little wow and flutter as possible under normal operation. In a recessed bay of controls under a hatch, include an extra switch and some roller wheels that lets you manually add and adjust irregularities to your liking. Everyone wins. (There's probably a music player program out there somewhere that can digitally simulate the effect as it is, and even add some hiss and dropout if you're feeling frisky.)

never in a million years did i think i would see iz*one in a techmoan video lol but i do appreciate this review. i wanted to buy it as a collectible for the group and was actually wondering how it stacked up against various other walkmans

They don’t really down your video they down the bad equipment lol you are doing great man

Just 3 weeks ago, I dug up my 30y old Panasonic, really flat + black anodized stylish gem, fitting in the trouser pocket. Later on, I got a disc player, which of course sounded better, but instead of say 3 mix tapes, you had to carry around the 3x larger player + disc bag, so, a mixed feelings progress. Anyhow, these (expensive) devices had style and haptics. Nowadays, you stick a 5$ (micro)SD card into some random player, and depending on the speakers/headphones, you get decent sound, but during some moments, enjoying music like that also lost most of its soul. So, sometimes, a nice living room with a big classic amp that won't choke at the hint of bass + sophisticated arranged speakers + subtle tuning of the surround mode plus maybe a hint of EQ + some CD or even LP + a looong afternoon incl. chilling into the mood will get you back to the ancient experience music + a really good original voice had once.