This will never match my reconditioned Sony decks ....but bear in mind this tape deck is brand new ...and I like this cheeky cassette player ...I used it on my local bus and it caused a lot of interest in the unit ...good result..
I agree with that, its a nice little starter unit. Especially for those young and new to cassette and maybe don't yet have the confidence to fix up a classic unit, or the money to pay someone to restore one properly. Currently my FIIO CP13 is equal to an early 1980s Saisho, worse than my Walkman II but better than my Panasonic RQ SX25 (which suffers from a bit of fluter after I refurbed it but it is slowly settling down).
Ironically I was listening to some music last night on my WM2 and it started to sound noisy mechanically. Then it started to struggle to play and was at risk of chewing up the tape. On close inspection the flywheel/capstan gear had disintegrated with age and have a groove. That's the reality of classic hardware. It was great until it wasn't. So while the FIIO CP13 might be inferior technically it was 100% working with all new (old design) parts so it took up the mantle of my main device again. You literally can't get the part I need! Luckily after much hunting I found someone who will print me the part. We will see how well its made and how long it lasts.
A cassette played on a decent portable cassette player should sound really good through even a decent pair of headphones. In my experience with portable cassette players (and I am an old boomer/gen x person who listened to cassettes on portable players all the way back to the first Sony Walkman in the early 80s.) In my experience, Dolby NR wasn't nearly as much of a difference on the sound quality of the cassette as XDR and HX Pro were. You could get some really incredible sound from a hand held portable cassette player that was in the mid price range, from a cassette encoded with XDR and HX Pro. So if these new hand held portable players are not reproducing really good sound from the old cassettes, then it tells you they are not worth the money being asked for them. But with most people just wanting to listen to a cassette for that old nostalgia feeling, then they probably don't really care is the sound quality is not the best.
Welcome fellow old person.🤗 I'm a mere Gen X. I too grew up on cassette, vinyl and CD. The sound quality using my old well used 80s cassettes is pretty good. The problem as I see it all the higher end expertise from the 80s-90s is literally gone. So these firms making players now are using an old budget designed hardware and trying to improve it rather than building from the ground up. Interesting since finishing this video I've been playing around with a technically inferior early 80s seconds handheld budget player and it's quality to me is about the same. So learning that I've gone down a rabbit hole of furious buying of different brands of "Walkman" from various eras to test out. It's going to be a huge video. Might have to break it down into one main but and review and then a number of follow up videos. Because obviously buying a 30-40 player is going to result in some broken units that I'll attempt to fix. Might take me up to Christmas to complete as I've got some gaming videos planned too. Plus I recently found out my eyesight isn't what it was but now I have glasses I feel much more confident I can't repair the broken units I've got.
That's not something I've tested. But I did recently get round to testing it with a 3000mhz cassette. It comes I at about 0.25DIN for wow/flutter. So pretty decent and it was only 1.16% fast. My classic personal stereos start to rub slow as they discharge so I expect the FIIO will be the same as it's got no special electronics to stop this.
I'll change my FIIO up this afternoon and give it a long test and report back exactly what happens although I expect it'll just slow as the battery gets low. Unless there's a decent protection circuit on the battery and it cuts power to mechanism.
It's aluminium. Not sure glue would be a sufficiently long term solution. It's quite heavy for its size too. If you're handy though I've got a video you might be interested in. Will be a couple of weeks until I've got the items and parts to make the video though.
Can anyone please tell me why my FiiOs sound quality changes as I tip the unit over at various angles? It sounds muffled. At first I thought it was improper seating / the plastic clip/spring at the rear not holding cassette in place properly but that's not the issue. Adjusted azimuth screw, that isn't the issue. Playback speed is fine and the headphone port is sturdy 🤷♂ Cheers
@@handheldgaming4life I noticed from your first comment on this thread, you have the same issue as me. You tilt this thing up or stand it on its side, the sound changes. Honestly purchased £20 players (bankrupt sealed stock) better than this, it's a piece overpriced **** going straight back to China.
I think that's mostly the case. But with FIIO rather than race to the cheapest they've tried to improve the mechanism with metal parts like the flywheel. It works to a degree but from my experience its not as good as the mid-range from the 80s-90s. But then you do have zero risk when buying, it'll be fine. Retro units might be great or they might be worn or broken.
@@FennecTECH Its not bad though in the FIIO CP13, but its performance as I've found is patchy. Some cassettes play fine and some have a lot of wow/flutter. Now all my collection is pretty old and likely worn, but on older hardware all cassettes play well. Plus the mechanism is pretty noisy depending on how you stand the player on a desk, which is weird.
This will never match my reconditioned Sony decks ....but bear in mind this tape deck is brand new ...and I like this cheeky cassette player ...I used it on my local bus and it caused a lot of interest in the unit ...good result..
I agree with that, its a nice little starter unit. Especially for those young and new to cassette and maybe don't yet have the confidence to fix up a classic unit, or the money to pay someone to restore one properly. Currently my FIIO CP13 is equal to an early 1980s Saisho, worse than my Walkman II but better than my Panasonic RQ SX25 (which suffers from a bit of fluter after I refurbed it but it is slowly settling down).
Ironically I was listening to some music last night on my WM2 and it started to sound noisy mechanically. Then it started to struggle to play and was at risk of chewing up the tape.
On close inspection the flywheel/capstan gear had disintegrated with age and have a groove. That's the reality of classic hardware. It was great until it wasn't.
So while the FIIO CP13 might be inferior technically it was 100% working with all new (old design) parts so it took up the mantle of my main device again.
You literally can't get the part I need!
Luckily after much hunting I found someone who will print me the part. We will see how well its made and how long it lasts.
A cassette played on a decent portable cassette player should sound really good through even a decent pair of headphones. In my experience with portable cassette players (and I am an old boomer/gen x person who listened to cassettes on portable players all the way back to the first Sony Walkman in the early 80s.) In my experience, Dolby NR wasn't nearly as much of a difference on the sound quality of the cassette as XDR and HX Pro were. You could get some really incredible sound from a hand held portable cassette player that was in the mid price range, from a cassette encoded with XDR and HX Pro. So if these new hand held portable players are not reproducing really good sound from the old cassettes, then it tells you they are not worth the money being asked for them. But with most people just wanting to listen to a cassette for that old nostalgia feeling, then they probably don't really care is the sound quality is not the best.
Welcome fellow old person.🤗 I'm a mere Gen X. I too grew up on cassette, vinyl and CD.
The sound quality using my old well used 80s cassettes is pretty good.
The problem as I see it all the higher end expertise from the 80s-90s is literally gone. So these firms making players now are using an old budget designed hardware and trying to improve it rather than building from the ground up.
Interesting since finishing this video I've been playing around with a technically inferior early 80s seconds handheld budget player and it's quality to me is about the same.
So learning that I've gone down a rabbit hole of furious buying of different brands of "Walkman" from various eras to test out. It's going to be a huge video. Might have to break it down into one main but and review and then a number of follow up videos. Because obviously buying a 30-40 player is going to result in some broken units that I'll attempt to fix. Might take me up to Christmas to complete as I've got some gaming videos planned too. Plus I recently found out my eyesight isn't what it was but now I have glasses I feel much more confident I can't repair the broken units I've got.
My biggest question is, does it play tapes at the right speed fully charged and all the way through? That's mainly the big deal breaker for me!
That's not something I've tested. But I did recently get round to testing it with a 3000mhz cassette. It comes I at about 0.25DIN for wow/flutter. So pretty decent and it was only 1.16% fast.
My classic personal stereos start to rub slow as they discharge so I expect the FIIO will be the same as it's got no special electronics to stop this.
@handheldgaming4life thank you so much for this information!
I'll change my FIIO up this afternoon and give it a long test and report back exactly what happens although I expect it'll just slow as the battery gets low. Unless there's a decent protection circuit on the battery and it cuts power to mechanism.
I was planning on buying one and supergluing a belt clip on the back, do you think that would work with whatever material this is?
It's aluminium. Not sure glue would be a sufficiently long term solution. It's quite heavy for its size too.
If you're handy though I've got a video you might be interested in. Will be a couple of weeks until I've got the items and parts to make the video though.
@handheldgaming4life good to know
Can anyone please tell me why my FiiOs sound quality changes as I tip the unit over at various angles? It sounds muffled. At first I thought it was improper seating / the plastic clip/spring at the rear not holding cassette in place properly but that's not the issue. Adjusted azimuth screw, that isn't the issue. Playback speed is fine and the headphone port is sturdy 🤷♂ Cheers
Probably the cassette moving slightly in the player. They're never pinned in very tight.
@@handheldgaming4life I noticed from your first comment on this thread, you have the same issue as me. You tilt this thing up or stand it on its side, the sound changes. Honestly purchased £20 players (bankrupt sealed stock) better than this, it's a piece overpriced **** going straight back to China.
looks like a tenashan tape mech well knwon for being trash
I think that's mostly the case. But with FIIO rather than race to the cheapest they've tried to improve the mechanism with metal parts like the flywheel. It works to a degree but from my experience its not as good as the mid-range from the 80s-90s. But then you do have zero risk when buying, it'll be fine. Retro units might be great or they might be worn or broken.
@@handheldgaming4life basically they polished a turd.
@@FennecTECH Its not bad though in the FIIO CP13, but its performance as I've found is patchy. Some cassettes play fine and some have a lot of wow/flutter. Now all my collection is pretty old and likely worn, but on older hardware all cassettes play well. Plus the mechanism is pretty noisy depending on how you stand the player on a desk, which is weird.