A portable cassette player in 2023? Yes, you read that right.
The smartphone may have long since taken over as the number one audio source for people who listen to music on the go. But people always expect something new, and in the absence of any significant breakthroughs in recent years, sometimes someone breathes new life into something old and nostalgic and drags it into the modern age. This happened with turntables, for example, many of which now have Bluetooth transfer and compatibility with wireless speakers, including Sonos.
Modernising the turntable is perfectly understandable for most people. After all, a lot of LPs are sold. But music cassette tapes…?
Okay, before you get too far ahead of yourself, you should know that cassette tape sales have actually increased in recent years. Well, from almost nothing, but at least in 2022, cassette sales were the highest in 20 years. In the UK alone, sales rose from less than 4,000 in 2012 to almost 200,000 units in 2022.
Nostalgia trip
Cassette tape sales have been fuelled by a wave of 80s nostalgia, triggered in part by cultural phenomena such as the Guardians of the Galaxy film series and the popular TV series Stranger Things. This has prompted artists to start releasing new music in the 60-year-old format once again.
Billie Eilish, Rammstein, Florence + the Machine, Harry Styles and Arctic Monkeys, to name a few.
Portable cassette player is wireless
In that light, reviving the portable cassette player might not be such a bad idea. The We Are Rewind Cassette Player is visually inspired by Sony’s original Walkman TPS-l2 from 1979, but is a portable cassette player made of high-quality aluminium instead of plastic.
The traditional disposable batteries have been replaced by a rechargeable lithium battery. Perhaps most importantly, the player is Bluetooth-enabled, so you can use it with your noise-cancelling headphones on the go. For true nostalgic cable fans, there’s also a 3.5 mm jack so you can use whatever vintage or retro headphones you fancy.
The cassette player also has a recording function so you can make your own mixtapes! For that, you’ll need the 3.5 mm line input.
We Are Rewind Cassette Player is a portable cassette player that supports all cassette tapes from Type I to IV, the type number indicates the metal mix of the tape.
We Are Rewind Cassette Player: Price and availability
The cassette player is available in three colours: Orange, blue and dark grey. It is available exclusively on the manufacturer’s website and costs 149 euros. Shipping costs an additional 21 euros. You can also order 60-minute cassette tapes for 7 euros each or 65 euros for 10. With a 10-pack of cassette tapes in addition to the player, the shipping costs rise to 25 euros.
More info: wearerewind.com