Have the gods gone crazy? We don’t know, but we do know that a new portable cassette player(!) has hit the market in the form of the FiiO CP13.
The cassette recorder is 60 years old
The music cassette turned 60 years old last year – a format that most people have dismissed as long dead. Most of the cassette tapes we grew up with have probably been given away at flea markets or thrown away long ago. Maybe we should regret that now. It turns out that sales are on the rise, as evidenced by the fact that artists like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and Rammstein have all released music on cassette tapes in recent years. No, the sales figures aren’t huge, but enough to make some equipment manufacturers take notice.
Not long ago, we saw that a French company called We Are Rewind has created a portable cassette recorder inspired by Sony’s first Walkman. And now FiiO is also on the scene with its CP13. It too is a friendly nod to Sony’s 1979 Walkman.
15 hours of playback time
The cassette player comes in three colors: white, black and two-tone blue/silver. It also has a built-in rechargeable battery with up to 15 hours of playtime and charges via USB-C. As far as we know, the USB-C connector cannot be used to transfer music from cassette tapes to PC. Unfortunately.
While the cassette recorder from We Are Rewind has Bluetooth so you can play music via wireless headphones, the FiiO player lacks this. The FiiO CP13 also lacks a record button, so you’ll have to make your own tapes with other equipment.
FiiO CP13: Price and availability
The price of the FiiO will be “under 130 dollars”. It will be launched later this year.