Cassette Tapes and Walkman Making a Comeback
Remember when CDs first appeared back in the 80s, and you stopped buying vinyl records? Since then, vinyl records have made a little bit of a comeback. While they will probably never be as popular as they once were, true music fans will still buy vinyl because of the “fuller sound” quality.
Now there is a company in France that is producing cassettes and a new version of the Walkman. According to Forbes, the CEO of Mulann group doesn't expect cassettes to compete with digital music, but he believes both can coexist.
The company is launching a new portable cassette player that will cost around $76. They say they have been working hard to improve the sound quality compared the old cassette Walkmans, and they are also planning to make Bluetooth connectivity versions to pair with wireless speakers and cordless earbuds.
The report stated that more than 219,000 audio cassettes were sold in the United States in 2018, that's 31,000 more then 2017. The company believes that with more people buying analog listening devices, more artists will be inclined to start releasing their albums on cassette and vinyl, as well as digital streaming services.
I agree that the song quality on vinyl, and even cassette to a point, sounded better then an MP3 of a song. But, with vinyl came scratching and skipping, and with cassette tapes you always had a hiss. And on top of that, you had to worry about the cassette player eating your tape. Remember dealing with that? You had to pull the tape out of the player without ripping the tape, and then use a pencil or your finger to reverse the wheel to pull all the excess tape back inside. I'm not looking forward to that again.
In the 90's, after CD's were around for a while, I made the mistake of giving just about all of my vinyl albums and 45's away. I still have boxes and boxes of cassettes in a storage room in my basement. Some of them were mix tapes that I made myself. I may have to buy one of these new Walkman type players so I can listen to those again.
Right now, I have a stereo with a duel cassette deck, and a single cassette player, but I really don't know if they still work or not.
[via Forbes]