Last week saw us celebrating the 40th anniversary of the almighty Walkman and it appears that some people have gotten caught up in the nostalgia of it all. A company called Ninm wants to release a cassette Walkman based on the design of the original Sony device, though giving it a modern edge by integrating Bluetooth into it, so that you can use Bluetooth headphones or speakers and not the standard wired ones.
The company currently has its retro nostalgia tech, called the It’s OK out on Kickstarter with a planned price of $75. This is not a device that just looks like a cassette player, but plays mp3 or other modern formats, but is a legitimate cassette player that requires you to have cassettes. So, if you’re someone who still loves the format, its scratchy sound, only being able to listen to music for like 45 minutes and then needing to turn it around and enjoys the fun of untangling cassettes when they get stuck, then it’s the perfect device for you.
As great as nostalgia can be, it is a lot of money for what is essentially something built on a piece of extremely old technology. Aside from playing original cassettes, the devices come with a 3.5mm headphone jack and use AA batteries, much like the original Walkman. The only modern technology that you do get though is Bluetooth, though given that this is essentially the world’s first Bluetooth 5.0 portable cassette player, there will always people wanting to get in on the act, even if it is rather silly.
Personally, I will just stick with using my phone as my personal music player but then I’ve long since gotten rid of my physical mediums when it comes to music. Does anyone still have some old cassettes around that could make use of this new device?
Last Updated: July 9, 2019
Jacques Van Zyl
July 9, 2019 at 11:07
This is dumb to me. $75 for cassette quality music and all the hassles that come with it… Man, the amount of pencils I’ve used to rewind my tapes… Just, no thank you to this.
Dutch Matrix
July 9, 2019 at 11:07
Yeah. And I remember how you stared financial ruin in the face if you forgot your pencil. Which means you had to go buy batteries.
And the walkman for $75?
No.
Dutch Matrix
July 9, 2019 at 11:07
Currently listening to Bride’s Snakes in the Playground album. I had this on cassette in ’94. I screached with it as I rode my bike everywhere.
But I have it on MP3, bought and converted from Itunes.
The cassette tape is gone though.
So no.
Pofadder
July 9, 2019 at 11:39
No Idea why anybody would want this. I understand why people would listen to records. They have a unique sound and still sound very good. Cassettes sound crap. They were just convenient at the time. Now not so much. Only like 20 songs max on a tape. And you have to wait to forward and rewind to a song and it’s trial and error to get to the start of a song. Not rechargeable. And as the batteries start to go down the song starts to draaaag. Broken tapes, stretched tapes. There is literally no upside to tapes compared to modern technology.
HvR
July 9, 2019 at 12:28
Only upside was easy direct radio recording and tape to tape dubbing.
Also a downside since if your friend 7 in the list who got a dub of a dub of a dub of a dub you loudly singing “HEY TEACHER LEAVE THEM KIDS A HOLE …… ALL IN ALL IT IS JUST ANOTHER PRICK IN A HOLE!!!!!” with your walkman on.
Llama In The Rift
July 9, 2019 at 12:05
Screw Walkman’s…give me an $100 8-Track with infrared!!!
Yondaime
July 9, 2019 at 12:43
$75 for a flippin cassette player?!…miss me with that dumb dumb…
D4m@E
July 9, 2019 at 13:52
That’s a bit much, but yeah, somewhere in a dusty box still lies Metallica’s ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, Megadeth’s Youthanasia, Ac/Dc’s Razor’s Edge, Black Sabbath’s Headless Cross…and a whole lot of dubbed stuff. It somehow feels wrong to throw away music. Lol
kieker
July 9, 2019 at 12:05
If I was earning in dollars, then maybe. But that is a big maybe. Unfortunately, I earn in Randelas, so this would set me back R1068.24, at the time of writing, who knows how the rand would tank by the time this makes it to production.
HvR
July 9, 2019 at 12:21
Hey it went down a rand since your comment
kieker
July 9, 2019 at 12:28
O/
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