Cassettes

Digital music players and smartphones pretty much caused an extinction event for portable analog audio. But RecordingTheMasters is banking on a comeback for tapes with the launch of Mystik portable audio cassette player.

​If you came of age in the 1980s, chances are pretty good that you loaded all of your favorite music onto a mixtape. Now you can break out your dusty tapes once more thanks to Nimm Lab, which has just injected a portable cassette player with Bluetooth.​

Before pocket-friendly Digital Audio Players or even portable CD players, there was the Walkman. And before playlists, there were mixtapes. Now Crosley Radio is looking to inject some new life into the almost-forgotten cassette tape with the release of two retro players.

Though digital music accounts for much of what we now listen to, old school formats like vinyl and audio cassettes steadfastly refuse to disappear. Professional audio gear manufacturer Tascam is prepping for a cassette tape revival with the release of the 202mkVII dual cassette deck.

Artur Mlynarz collects, repairs and restores classic hi-fi equipment. Sometimes though, units come in that are beyond help. Wanting to bring new life to vintage cassette decks, he mounted a smartphone into a broken player, and the MP3 Tapeless Deck Project soon followed.

​Cassettes might not have the largest capacity or best sound quality, but they ooze retro appeal. Tapping into that hipster market is the Mixxtape, a portable Bluetooth music player that’s not only shaped like a cassette, it also plays in an old-school tape deck – if you still have one lying around.

Scott Campbell has found a new use for the rarely used audio cassette tape. Onde Magnétique's OM-1 analog synth manipulates the pitch and volume of a sound recorded on a standard cassette.

Remember when people carried Sony Discmans in their cars, and used those cassette adapters to listen to them through their tape decks? Well, while a lot of those same cars are still around, the Discman has now given way to the MP3 player. That's why ION has released its Cassette Adapter Bluetooth.

ION's Tape Dock transfers your old cassette tapes to your iPhone, iPod touch and computer.

The compact cassette mix tape of old has been given a modern update by MakerBot Industries with a DIY home 3D print kit that snaps together to make a wonderfully retro tape-shaped Mixtape MP3 player.