Are all new personal stereos doomed?
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- I was hoping to have better news - but nope, it is what it is. I have to call it - the likelihood of ever seeing a good new cassette 'Walkman' ever again is so close to zero…I’ll just say it’s zero.
I have to thank YoungSung Jeon (our man in Korea) for going to all the trouble of making a two hour round trip to pick this up from a store and then sending it on to me.
While I had hoped that this would have shown that it's still possible for a company to make a reasonable quality cassette "walkman' type device in 2021 - it demonstrated the opposite. However this result does have a value of its own. Rather than fruitlessly buying each new device that comes out only to get the same results - we can see that the problem lies with the mechanisms that remain available.
Since it seems extremely unlikely that anyone is going to start making a new high quality personal stereo cassette transport ever again - we can now draw a line under this period of history. Finding a newly manufactured high quality cassette 'Walkman' has now become as impossible as finding a newly manufactured high quality Edison Cylinder player. Things move on. These devices have passed into history. As a result you now either choose to buy an old one with the understanding that you deal with whatever issues come from making that decision - or you just don't get one.
00:00 Old man
01:54 What’s in the box
03:49 Buttons
05:14 First impressions
07:10 Quirks
08:14 Bluetooth
08:53 Audio Tests
11:19 You can’t polish a …
15:52 Wow & Flutter & more Wow
16:41 How to spot & avoid these
19:52 The truth hurts
20:49 Patreon Credits
CORRECTION:
The test audio track used was misnamed - the correct track details are
English Country Garden by Aaron Kenny
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Regularly asked question
Q) Why are there comments from days ago when this video has just gone live today?
A) Patrons / techmoan usually have early access to videos. I'll show the first version of a video on Patreon and often the feedback I get results in a video going through further revisions to improve it. e.g. Fix audio issues, clarify points, add extra footage or cut extraneous things out. The video that goes live on youtube is the final version. - Věda a technologie
The design looks like Braun developed a walkman for Ikea ...
Now that would be nice.
I was thinking of Dieter Rams' classic Braun designs.
But in this case it is more "Weniger, aber scheisse".
It does look quite nice but that's it, it would be interesting to see if someone can swap out the motor for a better one
What a piece of garbage. Tho, who is using cassettes.
Well, thankfully it comes preassembled and without a hex key...
Doesn't seem like this "cassette comeback" is going to happen until somebody starts manufacturing decent cassette mechanisms.
There are still boatloads of cassette decks available on the 2nd hand market, most of which are easily fixed with a couple of new belts, a squirt of contact cleaner and a lick of grease.
But it sure would be nice if there would be some semi-decent cassette mechanism on the market, because if cassettes become very popular, the cost of a refurbished deck will go through the roof.
Yes, it's odd. With the resurgence of vinyl, we pretty much (with some exceptions because of the pro DJ market) had godawful Crossleys at first, until decent decks made a bit of a comeback. Perhaps if we wait long enough...?
Casetes only for nostalgija
@@nuznikas I have no nostalgia for cassettes. It was awful format.
or tape
Amazing we've become a world where something is destined for e-waste before it ever makes it to production!
😳 Indeed.
So damn true, I’ve bought manufactured trash a few times - straight to recycle bin - this is the absolute worst part of capitalism, makey money by producing recycle bin material - it’s like paying someone to spill a bucket of oil into the sea
Absolutely sad. I bought an adapter for my car from Wal-Mart several years ago that turned out to spend more time making whirring noises than charging any of my electronics.
If only Sony started re-releasing a Walkman with actual cassette compatibility..
They wont. Cuz its unprofitable.
@@theone3776 Not really, if they made it in China the manufacturing costs would be dirt cheap. Or they could license their old designs on the cheap if they never intend to make them again.
@Bee Eff The manufacturing costs are cheap, the profits of the muiltinationals large
@@hugodrax1674 nobody will set company in China recently no more
@@theone3776 you're right. Sony wouldn't be able to use the mechs in these kinds of devices, because they aren't made in the volume a multinational corporation would need. They'd have to make their own mech, and their own chassis, and their own board. It would no doubt cost a few million USD to get production started. It would likely cost about... $20-30 to manufacture. Then, the cost would probably need to be around $40-100 US, and only a few thousand weirdos would really want to buy one. I doubt they'd be able to move more than 50k worldwide in a year. It'd be a major loss for Sony.
And I'd be one of those weirdos. I'm installing a 1993ish JVC Digifine tape deck and CD changer into my old convertible next week.
"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
@ykkfamily I was thinking that if he carried around only the pictures of young Korean boys, it might make her wonder even more...
🤣
as an asian, i can honestly say , Kpop is the worst thing happened to humanity.
Not misses - the missus. His wife.
@@newchannel1220 Are you Korean?
There’s probably like 1 factory left in China that makes all of the cassette mechanisms.
Or perhaps several factories, but all working from the same limited number of blueprints. That would explain why there are multiple variations of essentially the same design.
Yes probably some anonymus Won Hung Lo factory next to the bloody Shenzhen market...
I wonder why they cant just clone sonys mechanism...chine clones everything, and if i were china i would have started from there instead of making my own model.
pretty cool they still exist, they made cassettes into the late 2000s pretty sure
@@laharl2k most pre-recorded cassettes are actually made in USA, if you can believe it. There's like one company who bought all the machinery needed.
Techmoan having to describe KPOP history made my day.
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.
My Sony Walkman would've been mid 90's but I liked it. One of those "sports" models with the sturdy construction.
What model was it? I have a wm-f2085, but people still consider it cheap
@@randomperson7443, it was black, had auto reverse, a digital tuner, and was a bit on the large side. I don’t have access to it right now, or I’d check. Peace.
@@ChristopherSobieniakSame here got a sony wm-sx34. It still runs perfectly 1994
My daughter caught me watching the video and recognised the people on the poster straight away.
Did she ask why you were watching videos of young korean girls?!
@@annother3350 no. But she had no idea what a cassette was.
@@stephenmumford9629 I actually bought a couple of cassettes this week in a Charity Shop. The young man on the till, probably doing work experience, had to ask the manager what they were and which category they should be put under.
"If the motor's on display, better run away" is a good way to remember it
Sounds like the slogan for a 1970's UK TV public safety advert warning of a paedo sitting in a car outside a school
One might think a cheap motor so close to where the magnetic tape is supposed to loop onto would partially erase a tape, or introduce hum in the recordings that won't go away?
LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had a Toshiba with the motor like that ... Man, the best walkman I ever had.
@Lookup what?
@Lookup I understood what you said, just can't believe it
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.
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.
It's good to know about the quality of modern players, especially if they suck. Thanks for sending it to Mat.
Yes, a well done expose on what basically amounts to fraud. In the pre-globalization markets run the world era this type of crap would have been put out of business
Still made for an entertaining video at least!
The RWD and FF is actually turning in the right way. The DIR is on side B. (If you Don't know what the DIR is, It is the one that switches to side a to side b with a button
That thing gave me heartburn. Sony really did make one hell of a product, didn't they?
I was never impressed by Walkmen, but in comparison, it's a Corvette vs a Geo.
@@kenmore01 Ouch. I thought a Yuno car would be on the lists. At least the Geo have AC. Sorta sorta like a reverse turbocharging charging a AC, not horsepower.
As for me. YAMAHA NS A636 was gold find to get a studio bookshelves speaker. Three way!! It like Godzilla walk into Scorpion concert Live on 97.5 KLT The Rock Station. I love my local station.
That era of Sony was all engineering marvels of miniaturisation, especially those Walkmen. Brilliant industrial design, the curves, etc
2 years ago, I bought a new Sony Blu Ray player, but it skips the occasional random frame no matter what disc I play on it! I watched Trolls and The Secret Life of Pets on it, but I could tell when the odd word sounded incomplete! How could this happen? This is SONY! A company whose tech is usually really good!
@@adultmoshifan87 can be a lens problem or maybe pay special attention to the way that you clean your DVDs and BDs Don’t really know, just trouble shooting.
The fact that today's manufacturer's that excels at miniaturization of digital electronics yet have a hard time replicating analog technology from over two decades ago demonstrates the complexity of the technology (both mechanical & electronics) of the Sony Walkman. You can't get Samsung, who makes the best digital electronics today, to try to build a portable stereo cassette player that could rival Sony Walkmans of the 80s & 90s (and early 2000s). Sony's forte was definitely in analog electronics.
@@adultmoshifan87 RIP Sony
SOny still makes decent headphones, earbuds, and bluetooth speakers, and for a lot cheaper than ripoffs like Beats and Bose and so on, but their best headphones are actually 80s designs that are still in production.
So pretty much modern cassette mechanisms are the Crosley of the tape world.
The what?
@@Locutus Crosley cruiser. Basically, it's a turntable that fits into a briefcase-like shell, with speakers built in. It's really infamous within the "vinyl entuhusiast" community, due to it's laughable sound quality, terrible stylus and overal "bargain bin" feel of the whole unit.
It's reputation isn't helped by the fact that factories in china have copied the deign and are pumping out even cheaper and worse copies of the original en masse.
@@kamulecPL12 Thank you.
The sad thing about that is that Crosley used to be a respectable name once many years ago, but now it's just a licensed trademark used by Chinese crap factories. Same with old brands like RCA and such.
Audio-Technica and others still produce pretty decent turntables I believe.
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.
"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.
I like the TechMoan 🌈
in short, these cassette players are as horrible as K-pop itself.....
@@fffwe3876 yepp,wobbling harlots jumping around waving them skinny asses. end is near...huh
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.
that sounds cute as hell!
I have the same Sanyo model with the blue tuner pack that I bought when I was a kid with the money I saved from delivering newspapers (couldn’t afford a SONY) lol…
I wonder why not use the tape head? It's right there, after all.
@@iamnobody2 not vary cute then, at least from my understanding hell isn't vary cute...
Cool! Toshiba also had that accessory so as a couple sonys. I like the sanyo because those look like tanks and it still has the old sanyo logo
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.
"old"
jesus christ, mate, you didn't have to murder the poor guy.
he's middle-aged at most
Who you callin' old!?
I'm late here, but my sister had this set imported as she's a big kpop fan, and she was really into the blossom era revival they did.
The magazine that comes with the Kassette, states that it's for fancy dress use, to dress as a blossom era kpop fan. Even the magazine says its just to look good. They don't expect anyone to listen to it
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
Completely the same for me.... I'm 33 and to be honest I've never bought any vinyl, MC or CD player during my adulthood... Still love the channel :D
I've never owned one in my life lol
You will soon break and you buy a casette or vinyl machine 😀
You have been warned!
Cos this isn't really a review channel. I mean he does reviews of both modern and vintage tech, but the vast majority of people aren't watching the videos for that. We're watching them because they're fascinating, he writes scripts in a way that convey loads of information yet are very easy to understand for a layperson, and he's a good speaker, and be throws in enough humour too.
It's like how there's plenty of channels I watch that review movies, or video games, but I'm not watching them because I want to know which movies to watch and which games to play, most of the time I already have seen/played the thing being reviewed. The point is that they're entertaining to watch. And some of them go so deeply into the fundamentals of movie/video game development that it's almost like film/game school or something. Like how Folding Ideas reviews mainly movies, but he's a guy with undergrad and postgrad degrees in film theory and has worked in the film industry for years. So he thoroughly explains why certain techniques are used and why they're effective at getting across a feeling or a plot point without the characters needing to even say a single line. He's not just like most film review channels that go "I like this movie cos this happened in the story" or "I hate this movie because this happened in the story" etc. He actually goes deeply into the film theory of framing and cinematography and editing and screenwriting etc. Like this video on the Kuleshov Effect that he made: czcams.com/video/Vy2Vhnqtu8I/video.html
Techmoan is the same kind of thing. People don't watch his videos because they want to know which record player or Walkman is the best. They watch them because he's more of a tech historian, who really goes into more depth about these things than nearly any other channel. And he takes them apart and shows the insides and explains how every little piece works. I've never bought anything after watching any of his videos. But I've watched all the videos multiple times because they're just so fascinating
There's a handful of other tech channels that are as good as Techmoan like Technology Connections. But the vast majority of them don't even come close to how good Techmoan videos are. He really has a knack for making just about anything fascinating
Same here lol
It's the shame about the quality, as I really love the design. It kind of reminds me of 70s design but miniaturised
mat’s reaction to kpop is the best thing i’ll see this week
Gotta love the branding of the "It's OK". At least it doesn't pretend to be better than fair to middling.
Never thought I would see a kpop unboxing on this channel lol.
Pleasant surprise, I didn't even know this product/project existed before this video.
He's more a hip-hop man.
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!
To be fair, your hearing was probably better back then as well.
@@fredbloggs5902 My ears are worn but the difference heard here was night and day at its most stark.
Crazy to think that the cheapest department store knockoffs that I had back then would be 10x better than the remaining junk you can get today!
Those bands were my existence in 1996.
I think Sony Walkmans from the 1980's were even better. Built to last a long time. Fewer plastic parts than the 90's Walkman players, which made them relatively heavy.
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.
Here in Mexico they did the same with the "90's pop tour": czcams.com/video/pTnJpbuXEHY/video.html
They should do it more in general. And obviously release the covers onto the media formats that were common when the original versions came out. Sure, also do all the fancy digital formats, but there is something special about period correct hardware and formats.
ugluteen harlots jumping around crazybiachh.can no sing.
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.
The fact they were able to compress a tape player to the size of a case is a technological feat in my book.
Walkman was the pinnacle of technology in the early 80s. I couldn't afford a genuine Sony myself so I had an Aiwa. Which I thought was pretty decent.
look up the sony wm-10. when it doesnt have a cassette in it it’s actually smaller than a cassette!
@@1pcfred imo Aiwa did end up making the absolute pinacle of personal stereo systems with devices like the hs-jx505 and variations.. but that was in the early 1990s, just before they completely stopped making anything worth having. Your early 1980s AIWAs were probably relatives of the 'real' Sony walkmans which would appear a year later.
@@c128stuff I think the Sony Walkman was the first Walkman. After it came out it was so wildly popular everyone made a copy of it.
Components specifically designed and manufactured for each model for maximum compactness rather than generic off-the-shelf components was the key.
9:56 just love to see the TDK SA 90's . Brings back so much memories .
...and that's the new one. I really liked the design from the 80's - when they came in that black/white wrapping.
I bought it in early 2000s in kiosk and record some music from radio stations. It's still sounds great after years.
I've got a cupboard full of them unwrapped.
The sound takes me back to woolworths late 60’s early 70s
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.
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!
My best friend in HS had an Aiwa that made me envy him. It was the only personal cassette deck I ever saw that recorded and came with a stereo mike the plugged in.
@@andymerrett My mum used to do that, when copying off tapes. She's sitting In silence for fear of recording herself over Cliff Richard! 😅
@@greendryerlint I still have mine, somewhere. But there was a higher end version that we never got here in the US. And same as you, I was in envy of a friend who got one overseas. Besides the stereo mics, digital tuner, BBE, super bass, all the bell and whistles, mostly, I remember it had such an amazing quality of FM tuner. Looked similar to HS-J880, but I swear it had stereo mics built in, which the 880 doesn't?
I really like the look at 5:34 with the cassette inside, even though the player is rubbish.
The downgrade in quality of consumer electronics especially more affordable ones is really shocking!!
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.
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!
Experimental Microtonal Edition!
Instant boardsofcanadizer!
That's the attitude!!! Glass half full.
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.
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...
I guess I'm glad I lucked out and found a old Sony sports Walkman for 3 bucks that still plays things perfectly
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.
Every Saturday morning at the same time he drops a new video. It works out for me that when I'm about to leave work after Friday night there's a new techmoan video to watch.
@@JaredConnell yeah, I work 8 to 5, normally 6 days a week, but labor day weekend and such, so at least I don't have to be at work in a couple hours.
That blue cassette player was honest about itself, at least. "IT'S OK"
If it's the same quality as the device tested I thinking calling itself OK is still overselling it...'
Maybe if the O stands for obviously and the K's for krap.
Sony used "printed circuit" motors in their walkmans that were only a few mm thick!
Matt please keep up the good work and be critical where it matters, honesty is the best policy!
Well that's confirmed that I won't be buying a modern one any time soon.
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.
Meanwhile in Sony HQ, "Oh no we are missing on 20k euro supercontract to Tanashin q_q" Dunno what “We are rewind” team were thinking launching KS campaign without checking available tech.
But he Tanashin mech is just as much of a heap of shit as the mechs discussed in this video?
@@ChristopherHallett Yep, they have a long history of producing cheap and bad audio stuff.
@@ChristopherHallett there are different versions of the tanashin clones (since tanashin does not make them anymore since a decade). For instance the mech in the
Another manufacturer that cannot manufacture. You don't go looking for mechanical parts, your MANUFACTURER them.
In other words, avoid this 'we are rewind' crowd, they are clueless.
I watch this channel to know what equipment NOT to buy. I appreciate what you do.
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.
In addition to wow and flutter problems, the new machine also runs fast, about a quarter tone sharp.
It's worse. The motor is very sensitive to voltage as the flywheel is basically non-existent due to price cutting it to virtually weightless plastic.
What it tells me is, if a cassette deck has adequate voltage regulation, it would have more consistent speed, but yeah, it looks like this pos couldn't even do that correctly.
LOL .... just wait until the belts get break in .... chipmonks
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
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!
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.
i got 1985 Aiwa ad-f 770 highend deck. Also Aiwa walkmans were premium guality back inaday. Looks cooler than sony ones. Before when sony bought aiwa away.
"Hopefully it's all right" - I thought we hoped it was Stereo? 😂
I see what ya did there
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.
@SR212787
*I learned some decades ago that not only isn't "newer" always better, newer today usually means worse performance and lower quality* lol
It depends from many factors. There was budget products back in the day that sounded like this korean player. And if we talk about old devices it depends how worn is mechanism.
@@panadolf2691 Except you had mid line options back then that had very good quality and very reasonable prices, today it is all poor quality with cheap and cheaper prices, that is China for you.
@@watershed44 And nowadays the only mechanisms produced are the cheap ones. So every new player will sound bad compared to even affordable ones from 20 years ago
Side note: I love that blank tape with the metal reel-to-reel looking wheels on the inside. Where did you get that?
He did a video on it.
Maxwell put those out as a stunt to promote some metal tape formulation. Extra $$$, of course.
That is awesome, I came here to say that too!
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
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.
Nakamichi Dragon?
But doing so, NEVER forget to give your old quality-deck some tender loving care now and then, remembering: there is no suitable replacement.
"Don't digitize, just enjoy "
But I can't listen to a proper home deck while I'm out hiking or whatever.
"One that wasn't actually properly broken." hee.
Also dang, that Walkman the size of a cassette case, WTF, Sony?
Sony made some nice stuff before they went all cheapo.... I presume they also nearly went bust making the nice stuff too... Progress is not always a good thing.
I had a Sony Walkman that was SMALLER than a cassette case. It collapsed down when it had no tape in it (FM radio still worked) and open to accept a tape. It ran for hours on a single AA cell.
@@John_Ridley a wm-10? my dad has one (and it’ll be mine at some point i guess) and it does that
@@John_Ridley Yeah, I had a Walkman WM-10 which is the model you are describing. It's still somewhere in a storage box somewhere in the house. It ran on a single battery for many hours, though if you used the Dolby NR the battery life was shorter.
@@dougle03 It's pathetic that so many large companies make such garbage products these days and charge you a mint for them.
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. :)
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.
Or Panasonic. My elder brother used to own one, but I was the one whom always listening to it most of the time. The sounds were amazing, and I was really impressed!
@@NANCYDREWCHANNEL Yes, I forgot Panasonic - they were also popular and they made a lot of models. There were also some companies which tried to get into the walkman business, but they didn't make many models, like Grundig, Hitachi or Toshiba.
My Aiwa cassette tape player is awesome.
Yeah, players from the mid-80s up to the late-90s from japanese manufacturers just have that quality. And some early 00s also did fine, but that was already when the medium was starting to be phased out and quality was less important. Pretty much the same timeframe as with floppies. The old ones are often better than the newer ones.
Reminded my mom loved her Aiwa stereo she had with Dolby Surround speakers.
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.
Nah, with that mechanism, the name will probably still be a lie! 😂
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.
The idea of modularity joining different generations of gadgets and tech is appealing, but after decades of observing tons of ideas, I have to say: Mostly it doesn't make sense or the border between different devices was drawn in the wrong place = via an interface that doesn't make sense.
Sure, the D6C was a gem of its generation, but what's the point of a BT cassette? This idea introduces 10x more problems than solutions.
Btw - they DID improve the cassette, in various ways (DAT, VHS HiFi, and in this case: DCC) but all failed being a followup the the compact cassette for one reason: price or price/performance ratio compared to upcoming solutions like the CD / CD-R and the first MP3 players.
I miss the feeling and haptics of older tech, too, but on the other hand: we forget the drawbacks, that were blown away by the digital era, like poor sound quality, noise, wobbling sound of vinyl and tapes, poor handling, dropouts when shaking, battery lifetime, no random access, many media to take along in the car or bag, ....
Anyone could go back, but just as small number of people does, for a reason.
And yes: current devices should develop back to better haptics and usability, and also connectivity (analog, digital, wireless), but that one, too, is a decision of the buyers.
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 CZcams 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.
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.
Giving away your age there 🤣
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.
Cassettes always had a kind of "bad" reputation for quality even when they were popular. I imagine the market for them is mostly nostalgia. As such I am not so optimistic that there is a market beyond these cheap devices. High Quality Blank cassettes are only available as new old stock as far as I know.
I'd like to be proven wrong. Maybe an enthusiast will reverse engineer an old design and find a way to manufacture it well enough on DIY equipment. That is the only real avenue I see.
@@timseguine2 sadly, reverse engineering old mechanism probably wouldn't cut it. It was designed as simple mess of plastic gears and stamped aluminium, cheap in mass production, but pain in the butt with replicating with reasonable price in small series. But i bet that you could slap some nice but chunky direct drive mech using off the shelf electronics and cnc cut parts for a reasonable price...
@@paveloleynikov4715 Yeah, modern brushless/stepper motors and controls _should_ make brute-forcing a consistent and steady tape speed a pretty simple affair.
If there really were a market for them, they would exist. Cassette tapes were always bloody awful, even by the standards of the time.
The problem is that a turntable is fundamentally a simpler piece of kit, so new affordably-priced ones could be created from nothing once demand for them picked up again. It's "just" a steadily rotating platter and a tonearm with smoothly operating bearing. Walkmans aren't like that. A good one relies on a large number of precision mechanisms that are expensive to engineer and assemble. If you do it badly you end up with a tape destroyer instead.
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.
Another great video as always, I enjoy watching how you critique stuff and showing how everything works. I think this Walkman is more for a piece of nostalgia then actually Play ability. Here in the United States We do get cassettes made but they’re more for anniversaries of a bands album single etc . I like that they come out with these things from time to time to show kids of today what we grew up with from yesteryear But that’s all there worth. Instead of bringing the past back work on the future maybe bring CDs back but smaller more compact then 5 inch discs I’ll be up for that.
Most likely you can resell those sticker on ebay 😅
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
And flutter.
same here.
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.
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 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.
Have you tried Crossley cassette players they are better thin this on screen
@@hoshimaruhajime7933 what mech do they use? 99% use the exact same cheap Chinese mech.
@@meeder78 I have one of these and it has great speaker quality auto stop and 4 bands of radio
@@meeder78 and it's made in the USA I think
i bet he wouldn't want one. been watching for a few years and i think he might be the type of person who would happily turn down free money.
A bluetooth walkman. Never thought I'd see that combination. That's intresting.
They don’t really down your video they down the bad equipment lol you are doing great man
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
The problem is these days even buying name-brand doesn't guarantee you anything. I bought my mother a small Panasonic radio alarm clock couple years ago, just a small AM/FM bed-side thing and it's completely crap. Difficult to get tuned to the right station and when you do get rid of the crackly noise, you get muffled voices and background hiss. It's so utterly depressing. And it's not the fault of bad reception / placement because I also bought her a small hand-held radio to carry out to the garden and that works just fine. I paid extra for Panasonic wanting a half-decent device without odd user-interface quirks that would be hard to explain to an elderly parent in her 80's - but for what I got I would have been as well going to a discount chain store and picking up their cheapest $5 unit.
Yup, bought a pair nuggetphones from Grunding and they sound awful compared to the pieces of plastic that came included with a recently bought mp3 player.
Seriously, how can you own a known and trusted brand and mess up that bad in comparison with a freeby from a 20€ player that doesn't even has internal memory and needs a microsd to play anything.
On the other hand I have a blutooth speaker for around the same price as the headphones from a company called "JAY-tech" that is really good for a small wireless block and beats the brand name headphones in every regard.
@@chocolate_squiggle my mother had a Panasonic VCR and TV and they were awful. I had to go to reset things in it all the time. Remote was horrible - tiny buttons. Launch nuclear weapons right next to the lights on type stuff.
When she upgraded to a DVR and LCD TV, and went and bought a .... Panasonic. Same sorts of problems. They don't seem to want to work together at all.
I used to have Sony. No problems with it. Easy to set up and use, VCR was easy to program etc. Now I have a Samsung TV. Next I'll get Sony. Pricy, I know, but never had any problem with any Sony product i've owned.
@@donrobertson4940 I guess it depends on the model, my parents bought a Panasonic VCR from the NAAFI in the early 80s and we never had a problem with it though I don't remember what TV set we had as it wasn't the same manufacturer. When I left home my mother had a more slimline model and I took the old one till it expired around 2000 and I had to use the controls on the mechanism as the remote had long since been lost. I get you had problems with your set up and yes Sony was and is high quality and pricey too but you get what you pay for, cheers.
Trouble is there is no real name-brands anymore. They're just logos pasted onto whatever rubbish you'd get from a no-brand. The expertise and will just isn't there anymore. It's like a hundred years of technical development has already become as buried as archaeological fossils, with the youngsters relying on new-tech understanding as much about what was possible 30 years ago as they do about the Palaeolithic period.
I'm even amazed that these days they even know the tape has to go across the playback head. I've seen dramas and adverts where open-reel tape machines are depicted, and the tape is just threaded from one spool to another, not touching any of the tape path - and even laced from the top of one reel to the bottom of the other. People growing up today can't even see the physical, mechanical cause-and-effect of objects now, their 'learning ability' doesn't hone into such things if it's not something that helps them make TikToks, CZcams Shorts or other way of constantly branding their futile lives, and there's nothing in the media or publishing to encourage people to step out of the digital narcissism cycle, as long as they can program.
Wow, the comparison between the two cassette players was incredibly telling.
could tell the difference even using the speakers on my mobile.
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.
Good luck with that. It ain't as easy as it looks.
I appreciate your saying that.
Nothing you said is productive. Not one thing.
You must own a 3D printer.
@@Tadesan Well good productive day to you too.🤔
Many thanks for the info!
11+ years ago while cleaning out a closet, I came across My shoe box full of tapes.
Which sort of rekindled My appreciation for the format.
Fortunately I had a functional player in a bookshelf stereo and My old Sony FM/AM walkman WM-FX123 was still inclined to play cassettes.
I bought My first pre-recorded tape within this new + glittering century (since the late 90s) a few years ago.
Which happened tp be Mr. Gary Numan's "Savage: Songs from a Broken World" (Btw a brilliantly powerful album, imho).
Anyway, sadly My walkman player started to malfunction several years back and I have yet to have found & taken it to an electronics repair shop, since the unit's casing is fused/sealed shut.
Fortunately, I still have My Teac W-505R dual deck as My sole source for playing My tapes.
I have purchased a few more pre-recorded tapes within the last year and have been curious about the new portable models coming out featured with bluetooth capability.
Although I suspected that they were all equipped with the same low grade mech'.
Could you, or someone more learned than I anout this subject here, reccomend a modern tape player of moderate cost and hopefully offer a near high quality playback listening experience?
Please + thank you
I have new levels of respect for my yamaha kx580! Thanks for a great vid 👍
Wow a brand new video didn’t realize I’ve been watching as soon as it went live I’m glad you exploded the new age cassette players I will continue to just use my Japan made Panasonic RQ 360 from 1986 for recording and listening kn the go all my old Panasonic electronics still work great.
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
Your videos are so good and informative 😃👍
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...
I still can't believe that when they skimped on everything else, they even put in a 4-track head, which is a luxury part in a personal stereo and wasn't even found in most auto-reverse 'desktop' decks. If they'd just used a normal 2-track head they could surely have put the cost saving into a slightly better motor. But again, it's if any such motor in the required form factor is even made.
@@markboulton954 The four track head WAS cost saving. A two track stereo head that flipped back and forth used more mechanical parts.
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.
Probably that market is not big enough. And frankly, it is just gimmicky at this point. If you have an old cassette collection you probably have a decent player. There is sites that help you fix it if something wrong with it. Even in these videos you can see when Mat ordering parts for their old machines.
I'd snap a new one up pretty quickly if there was. Much easier buying a new product than dealing with inflated ebay prices.
Once you develop such a mechanism and set up manufacturing, troubleshoot it to where it actually performs as-engineered, you have to do one of two things. Either you sell it for like half a grand a piece, and then all those people would be like "see you should have just bought an old one, this new stuff is pointless"; or you have to hope that it sells for YEARS in decent amounts, and that just isn't likely to happen. I don't think the niche market is deep enough.
The thing with record players really is that they never went away. There are for one DJs and there's a massive crowd of them who need simple, dependable players which don't perform too badly; and for other it was also the mainstay among audiophiles, with manufacturers charging an arm and a leg, and with a few pillars present, the ecosystem could also support more niche manufacturers. Tape fell into a void where it doesn't have a dedicated userbase, just blips of popularity, plus the devices are several orders of magnitude more complex and need much more tooling and assembly.
I think best case would be to take an existing mechanism and rework just the motor to be brushless and fully electronically controlled.
Well made cassette decks tend to last quite a long time - due to them being quite well made - and any audiophile with any interest in cassettes will have found a very good second hand one, probably fairly cheaply. I have a friend who is an audio archivist, the sound library he works for has every kind of machine for getting the best out of every kind of recording medium, and they're all routinely checked and maintained and will probably outlast everyone who works there. Hence the market for new professional grade machines just isn't that big, and if anyone wanted to put in the time to make a decent one again it would be so expensive as to put it out of the reach of the common consumer anyway.
They won´t sell many of them. There is a market but it is small.
Those mechansisms are very complex anf therefore expensive if not produced in large quantities.
I have to think it's intentionally like this, just for the 80's ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ
Hey Techmoan! Think you incorrectly referenced the song at 9:30 -its English Country Garden, by Aaron Kenny.
Keep up the great work! LOVE your channel!
When you get that level of wow and flutter, ff to end, then rewind to beginning, this puts the whole tape into the correct position for this particular mechanism. I sometimes had to do this if I took tapes to a mates place and played my tapes on his mech
i feel obligated to say that companies like sony tend to stop production on products and never allow for reasonable licensing prices to use any of their old patents. yet they also protect those old patents like they are worth billions even though nobody would ever in the next million years pay that to buy one and they haven't even sold a license to use the tech in most cases. these patent hoarders are the problem for esoteric devices like this, not the creators of the device. i would love to introduce a law that says that if a patent hasn't been commercially used in 20 years it goes into the public domain. it would certainly encourage companies to start licensing their patents at reasonable prices, because they would still own the patent and it would be used commercially.
oh, and this wouldn't effect most products including electronics, even the 8088 wouldn't be at risk of falling out of patent (if it hasn't for other reasons already), the architectural features used in the 8086 are sold commercially every day (x86 instruction set. it isn't just software, it is a physical architecture). and i don't think that law should override any other law to extend or reduce a patent's life. it should just be the baseline, if you invent something, sell a bunch of it, then stop selling it because it is obsolete, i think that after 20 years anyone who wants should be able to look up that unused patent and just use it.
Actually all patents are limited to 20 years (I prefer to consider ir 25 years due to posible extension due to slow processing), after this period they go to open domain. The problem lies in some techniques to extend them like to present a similar patent with a slight improvement or change.
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.
yeah i didn't know that either.
Great demo Techmaon! I would love to see you get lead solder and make coils glued onto the flywheels to se if it helps stabilize the flutter. The extra weight should help.
Reminds me that I bought an extrremely horrible thing about 25 years ago. Very bad, but this is worse - thank you for showing and telling!
Sad. I really want a decent cassette player to return. Hopefully with time someone will eventually develop their own product.
They only added a rewind button so they didn't have to change the name to 'Turn Over The Tape And Fast Forward Blossom'
Well at least ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ ended with the words ‘Please turn me over’!
10:00 oh wow, that fluttery sound takes me back to crappy VHS tapes. They really nailed that 90's sound :D
5:50 "Yeah, it really sounds terrible" - Perfect automatic atmosphere machine
Seriously, it almost sounds like it's an intentional vaporwave prop. I wonder if this is what Gen Z thinks cassettes and VHS were really like!
Ooooh! STICKERS!
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.
No-one says pops, hiss, clicks or muddiness is "warmth". That's a fallacy pumped out by youngsters of today who have no idea.
Analogue warmth is what you get when you play analogue media in great condition on analogue gear that's in great condition that has strong bass, strong treble, minimal or no hiss and next to no, or no scratches or pops.
You completely miss the point. Analogue aficionados don't have affection for bad sound. They have affection for how good this kind of media and this kind of equipment CAN sound when it's of good quality and looked after.
There's gotta be some money to be made with an actual, decent cassette mechanism. If vinyl can remain relevant, surely decent cassettes can.
Loved my classic Walkman and the sports yellow Walkman. That accompanied me in several jungle expeditions. Nowadays, I'm with the Sony ZX507 digital audio player/Walkman with iems. The nostalgic cassette UI is fun, and it actually squeaks and the cassette spools when I fast forward or rewind the "tape" audio on my DAP Walkman