News New portable cassette player comes loaded with modern features like Bluetooth, USB-C, and a rechargeable battery

[Admin]

Maxell Japan has launched a portable ‘Walkman’ cassette player, but its retro audio tech is boosted by modern convenience.

New portable cassette player comes loaded with modern features like Bluetooth, USB-C, and a rechargeable battery : Read more

 

[punkncat]

Really surprised that market research would indicate and audience for something of this age. These were obsolete long before many folks were born. I could not say the last time I saw a cassette tape (blank) available, but at the same time I haven't been looking either.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Maxell Japan has launched a portable ‘Walkman’ cassette player, but its retro audio tech is boosted by modern convenience.

New portable cassette player comes loaded with modern features like Bluetooth, USB-C, and a rechargeable battery : Read more

Horrible audio. Might as well bring back 4 & 8 track players. Three awful formats can be yours!

 

[Findecanor]

There will always be people wanting to play back old formats, if only for conversion to digital files.
I hope the USB interface supports digital audio transfers and control, and isn't just for charging.

Techmoan on Youtube has tested a bunch of recently manufactured cassette players ... but most of them have had the same Chinese-made mechanism and the quality has not been very good.
I hope that this one has something better.

 

[USAFRet]

Really surprised that market research would indicate and audience for something of this age.

Glomming on to the resurgence of vinyl records.

 

[Rob1C]

This is a new product: https://www.maxell.jp/consumer/mxcp-p100.html

Japanese Manual: https://www.maxell.jp/consumer/assets/pdf/mpcp-p100_manual.pdf

They already make a Cassette/CD FM/AM player recorder: https://www.maxell.jp/consumer/mxcr-100.html

Both sold to a limited Japanese market

 

[wakuwaku]

In the west, Maxell was best known for its tape and disc media, not player hardware.

You mean best known to old people. You would more likely find people in general know Maxell more for their button batteries, something that they still produce to this very day.

 

[Flayed]

I need one of these to play a Slayer tape I found in the back of a cupboard

 

[TerryLaze]

You mean best known to old people. You would more likely find people in general know Maxell more for their button batteries, something that they still produce to this very day.

No no, old people would think that they make coffee.

 

[Dr3ams]

I bought my first portable tape player in 1983. I was in the Air Force and at the BX I saw this Sony Walkman (WM-R2) that was all silver and had dual microphones...I had to have it.

I think I still have it in a box somewhere in the basement.

 

[TerryLaze]

dual microphones...

Dual headphones, one mic.

 

[Dr3ams]

I need one of these to play a Slayer tape I found in the back of a cupboard

I'd throw some holy water on it, or something, before slapping it in a tape player. 👀

 

[USAFRet]

I had a JVC CX-500
https://reverb.com/item/14889833-jvc-cx-500-tape-cassette-radio-color-tv-player
AM/FM/cassette/color TV.
Battery powered if you had to.

On battery (10x D cell), you could get a whole 45 mins of TV before it died.

 

[Dr3ams]

Dual headphones, one mic.

Yeah that's it. Those are dual stereo microphones for recording not playback.

Sony Walkman WM-R2

 

[JeffreyP55]

There will always be people wanting to play back old formats, if only for conversion to digital files.
I hope the USB interface supports digital audio transfers and control, and isn't just for charging.

Techmoan on Youtube has tested a bunch of recently manufactured cassette players ... but most of them have had the same Chinese-made mechanism and the quality has not been very good.
I hope that this one has something better.

Exactly! More than 60 year collection of LP's, tons of CD's. Rip all to FLAC. Very portable putting favorite tunes of the week on a thumb drive or whatever your fancy is.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Maxell Japan has launched a portable ‘Walkman’ cassette player, but its retro audio tech is boosted by modern convenience.

New portable cassette player comes loaded with modern features like Bluetooth, USB-C, and a rechargeable battery : Read more

Owned a FM Walkman. Recently recycled.

https://imgur.com/a/0FJu73B

View: https://imgur.com/a/0FJu73B

 

[TerryLaze]

Yeah that's it. Those are dual stereo microphones for recording not playback.

Sony Walkman WM-R2

Ah ok, so the third phone labeled mic is for "less stereo" or monophonic?

 

[Dr3ams]

Ah ok, so the third phone labeled mic is for "less stereo" or monophonic?

It's to hook up an external mic. The two built in and very visible silver mics, record in stereo.

 

[dimar]

This is not Walkman.

 

[ravewulf]

I hope Techmoan manages to get a hold of one 😁

 

[Sluggotg]

I had an Astraltune in 81. It was the Original Personal cassette player. It was huge, designed for Skiing and sounded excellent. Some Sony executives saw them while skiing in Colorado and decided to make their own version, the Sony Walkman. It was vastly smaller, vastly cheaper and vastly Lower sound quality. But the Atraltune was too impractical due to its size. (Basically a car cassette play with a battery pack blasting 5watts into your ears. It has a carrying case that strapped to you).

 

[Li Ken-un]

There are a lot of modern features one would want. I don’t agree that a rechargeable battery is one of them given that most are non-replaceable and the lifetime of the product is tethered to the lifetime of the battery. Give me back my rechargeable AA batteries…

 

[Elusive Ruse]

Design looks quite cool, too chunky to warrant being used as a portable device but those who want one won’t care I assume😆

 

[Misgar]

I've still got my Sony WA-55 with two microphones and a Sony WM-R700 mini disc player. The WA-55 did not contain Dolby noise reduction, but mini disc provided better quality digital audio. I used a TosLink optical cable to copy CDs to disc.

https://walkman.land/sony/wa-55

https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-r700

These days I use an Astell & Kern SR35 (quad-DAC 4.40mm balanced output) with a pair of Sennheiser HD-820 cans. I've not tried any DSD content yet. I doubt I could hear the difference!
https://www.techradar.com/audio/portable-media-players/astell-and-kern-aandnorma-sr35-review

SR35 sampling rates:

PCM : 8kHz ~ 384kHz (8/16/24/32bits per Sample)​

DSD Native: DSD64(1bit 2.8MHz), Stereo /​

DSD128(1bit 5.6MHz), Stereo / DSD256(1bit 11.2MHz), Stereo​

https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/sennheiser-hd-820

This is not Walkman.

I thought so too, but when I looked up "Walkman" I discovered Sony lost exclusive rights to trademark the name back in 2002.
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/sony-loses-walkman-trade-mark-as-too-generic
https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/article/walkman-has-become-generic-rules-supreme-court

 

[Findecanor]

Japanese Manual: https://www.maxell.jp/consumer/assets/pdf/mpcp-p100_manual.pdf

Thanks! I ran some of that through a translator. I could not find that the USB port could be used for anything but charging unfortunately.

There are a lot of modern features one would want. I don’t agree that a rechargeable battery is one of them given that most are non-replaceable and the lifetime of the product is tethered to the lifetime of the battery. Give me back my rechargeable AA batteries…

Rechargeable AA are underrated. I used to use them all the time.

Their only downside was that you needed a separate charger. You couldn't charge them in the same device that you used them in — probably because of the risk that someone could try to charge non-rechargeable batteries by mistake.
I wish there was a standard for in-device rechargeable batteries with a form factor engineered so that a device could fit either these or standard AA batteries, and thus avoid that problem.