Thanks for the in-depth review... Regarding the speaker magnet aspect, they are actually an upgrade, moving from weak/large/heavy ferrite magnet to neodymium which applies a higher magnetic field to voicecoil at a much smaller advantage. With the speakers in an open cabinet like that with massive air leaks, the drivers front and rear waves cancel... Providing a 'bass' knob is futile. Huge thanks again for your efforts.
This is actually pretty cool! Nice to see that they went from a mono-only deck with questionable components to something that actually sounds quite good! For a started deck, if it was still like the older model, then someone might just think that they all sound bad. However, now that they can playback in stereo, alongside with the decent wow and flutter, this is nice to see! You can't expect too much out of something like this, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
If only it had a decent amp and speakers. I can't stand tinny speakers with no bass, and I will use a real deck if I want to connect it to other components.
True, but at least the direct output is good. A speaker and amp upgrade would certainly help but at least you can always connect it up to something else.
Really hopeful to see more and more artists release their things on cassette. As it is, I think maaaaaybe 10% of the albums I like from the last 10 years had cassette releases, and most of those were within the last 3-4. I'm younger, I wasn't really around when cassettes were mainstream, and a lot of the music from that time isn't the sort of thing I listen to a lot so there's no real nostalgia reason for me to get into them. I just think they're neat :p
Even though I don’t recommend these cheap brand boomboxes, I’m glad they’re finally making something good enough for decent cassette playback! Especially we want to be able to buy brand new boomboxes that actually work!
@@josearqco yeah, there needs to be manufacturers like Sony, Technics, Phillips, even Pioneer, which I don’t know if they still make audio equipment anymore because Audiovoxx bought out Pioneer.
You always show/demonstrate some very interesting electronic equipment! Connecting that boombox to some powered/active speakers could've giving you a better sound experience, would've been nice if you did that. Keep up the "fun" video's!
That's pretty impressive for such a cheap and nasty boombox. The wow and flutter really surprised me. I didn't even catch the similarity between the boombox featured on Techmoan with the Riptunes until I watched your video. Nice video!
Great video as always, and thank you for introducing me to Slug Bug. 'Truck Life' and '0xBAADF00D' are both amazing albums that I'm happy to have in my catalog.
Hey thanks for the video. Also, a while back you reviewed a radio by Retekess and liked it. I was a bit inspired by that and bought a Retekess TR618 and just love it. Best radio I have had in ages and I have been so disappointed in mass market stuff the last decade or so. The sound is amazing for such a small radio and here in California I am picking up SW stations in Maine, Japan, China and Russia. I am near the Bay Area and on AM at night can lick up stations in LA and OR & WA state. Just love it! Thanks for putting me on to them.
Speaking of Retekess, I actually found a video of someone demoing a Retekess CD, radio and cassette player, and the cassette player had a manufacturing defect where it would eat tapes, because a bit of solder got into the gears driving the mechanism.
@@RealEpikCartfrenYT Retekess sent me a CD/cassette boombox for review but I didn't end up making a video about it because the FM radio and cassette were mono. I briefly demonstrated it in my video about the TEAC W-1200 cassette deck.
@@vwestlife Yeah, the guy who demoed it, also took it apart to inspect it, the FM radio board is literally the size of a credit card, and is held in place by the tuning dial. Very underwhelming for what it is.
I got a V115 and the sound is pretty amazing. I think they are using speakers similar to those full sounding ones in the mid tier tablets these days plus a few amp filter/EQ tricks. Direct entry shortwave for under $40 is pretty kewl!
I quite like the design of it - combines retro styling with a modern colour scheme. If they did it in black with either teal or red accents that would be cool. Nice that it plays tapes in stereo. In Aldi, they started selling the 'Techmoan' version for Father's Day. This model looks like it would be kinder to your dad's cassettes! I wonder whether you can upgrade the speakers (even at only 3W there's some pretty good options). Perhaps the circuit board restricts how deep the speakers can be.
Audio signals are quite easy. You can probe with headphones like a doctor and hear it all (instead of a multimeter). Maybe have some resistors around if you check the amp parts.
Actually - a minimum of three speakers (three channel stereo) would suffice as then these would be genuine 3phase electrical circuits, and transmit all the sounds of the recording, using the least amount of battery power. Balance power usage it's called, not unbalanced two phasing that normal two speaker stereo units like these are only capable of. Two phasing a three phase supply will NEVER turn a three phase motor, yet two phasing the audio devices called boom boxes, was supposed to give good (booming) bass? Yeah right - NOT.
@@QUIX4U The AC inlet is only single-phase though. No 3-phase power for you. Though I'm sure if you put 440VAC 3p into this, it would definitely go boom.
I found a Brooklyn branded unit at a company called Supercheap Autos here in Australia. It was essentially the same model as the second Aldi unit critiqued by Techmoan a year or two back. While it is still a mono unit I found it wasn't completely terrible, and had no problems with wow and flutter, in fact I found it was very good. I checked the speed with a frequency counter and it was within what I considered to be acceptable range, although I don't have a calibrated tape. Recording was OK but being mono it was nothing to shout about, but for AUD49.00 I have no complaints with it. Perhaps some of the manufacturers are listening to youtubers like Techmoan and VWestlife and making these improvements.
This is exciting! I'm really happy to hear that these manufacturers are paying attention to feedback. For $45, it's quite impressive. If only they could increase the recording level a bit....
All LPs produced since 1979 (at least in the UK) have been mastered from a digital source - a digital "cutting delay" was inserted into the mastering chain at this time.
@@lucasRem-ku6eb Even when they used analogue recording in the studio, from 1979 onwards the signal was passed through a digital stage (the "cutting delay") when the vinyl master disk was being cut. So for those who want to hear genuine analogue audio, listen to LPs from 1978 or earlier.
@@lucasRem-ku6eb You're not going back far enough. In the 1970s, digital recording systems did exist. It wasn't until the late 1970s that they produced audio of high enough quality that could be used for mixing and mastering (sometimes in analog). One system in particular was 32-tracks of digital recording and some of those recordings were either nominated for or won Grammy Awards. That was in 1978 and 1979. The sample rate was rather low on those systems compared to today; the highest sample rate of those early systems was 50 kHz. As an aside, nearly all remasters I've seen released in the last 30 years to consumers are worse than the originals. They almost all have severe issues, most of which are flat lined positive and negative DC samples caused by clipping and phase cancellation. Remastering is not a bad idea if done correctly. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have been most of the time.
It'd be nice to see you review more of their products. I really want to see cassettes avoid the crosley treatment for their revival, and posting more info about what's out there helps with that I think.
With this, and a previous video of yours, it's good to know that there are still decent (even if not excellent) cassette mechanisms out there. I have a lot of home-recorded cassettes in storage in my brother's loft since 2008, and my requirement is for a cassette player, I have no desire to record. Just something with a decent line level output or a headphone socket that can be used as such, to play into my computer to digitise these cassettes when I get them back. My stereo system has a front-facing socket that can be used to input from headphone outputs.
Such a gem! And that battery part of the video. Good to see better units showing up - that single speaker unit you shown made me think of an old National-Panasonic or Sanyo radio for some reason, question is, is it close or as good as the originals?
I never thought I'd see the day... Whoever this CSG company is must be breathing a sigh of relief that sticking with these mechs is finally paying off.
I quite like the "piano-white" finish 😉 What a shame the speakers are below average. It otherwise seems like a decent modern-day cassette player (for the price)!
Another thought just crossed my mind. Today JBL manufactures some decent sounding Bluetooth speakers with plenty of bass. Other companies make decent digital tune radios and compact disc players. With this cassette mech, now it is possible to combine some of the better equipment together into one decent boombox that people like you and Techmoan would not be disappointed with.
I have that JVC deck. Bought it in 1989. Still going strong. This little boombox is better than expected. Too bad they can't do better with the speakers...
When you’ve got a major label release on vinyl for $35+ and the cassette releasing for more than half that price, it does make sense that cassette sales have jumped so high.
Howdy! enjoyed this video. I would indeed love to see a review on RS-M50M3 radio. Love watching these reviews. On fishing trips up north I always bring my tapes along as part of tradition for the last 40 years. But finding working units at garage sales are rare these days! Reviews like this help me find a good recently manufactured unit. Cheers from Montreal!
I notice the red RS-M50M3 features "AC BTILT-IN" in addition to UM-1 Battery ... I wonder what that's all about? Terrific video as always - love your work!
I love your strange music! It's so bad it's good. Seriously, it's so nice to hear something different. And that player sounded surprisingly tight and bright so someone is doing their job right.
Wow, finally, someone is making a very decent cassette player. Pair this with decent speakers and Bluetooth and you’ve got a very viable device. Tbh, I can’t imagine many users would be that concerned about the lack of decent tape recording
It's amazing how similar this looks inside to its predecessors, a better mechanism and motor really make a lot of difference. I obviously don't know how much more the new version cost to produce but I doubt it's more than a few cents
I'm not a lawyer, but the specific phrasing "avoid it never eating tapes" could be interpreted that it avoids "never eating" meaning it does eat them. The "Never eat tape" in a large font at 13:02 could also just be a public safety announcement, like "Hey kids never eat tape!"
This video was very helpful in deciding which boombox to buy. I grew up in the 80’s and have tons of cassettes and singles from the 90’s but no player to play them on. I really love yellow but after hearing your review on the Riptunes it’s a hard pass for me. However, it seems Audiocrazy has a yellow colorway now with green accents on the buttons so it’s perfect for me. I can’t wait to get it so thanks for the review! ❤❤❤
I can remember when portable stereo system often had the word stereo printed on the device, often in some rathe eye catching and arguably speaking hard to read font with capitalised letters. Yes I would like to see a review of the other AudioCrazy portable radio you showed there.
I would like to see a full review of the radio and cassette mechanism shown at 15:29. Maybe you could also buy the other models Audiocrazy made and review those as well. When it comes to the modern cassette players, I'm always curious to see what type of motors and mechanisms they use.
To be fair to AudioCrazy, they did say "avoid it never eating tapes". 😝 As soon as you hooked it up directly to the headphone jack it was quite obviously a _vast_ improvement over the old model!
Wow, nice to see that people who simply want an easy way to play their bought band merchandise now have an option that actually sounds pretty good and doesn't destroy the tape within a few plays. People who want to record on tape probably go for a cassette deck anyway, so I'm not too worried the record function is not working very well. I never thought I'd see the day again. This might actually help people enjoy merchandise cassettes, which in turn will increase the demand for these better boomboxes. Hopefully these mechanisms will find their way to the Crosley all in one systems too. Here's hoping...
Yes, it's nice to see a new product being quite decent. Now in addition to the colors schemes, if they could do a proper cassette deck too, with record level adjustment that would be great.
I just got a Rotel RD-400 cassette deck from 1981 in perfect condition (the original RRP was $600 in 2023 dollars), with brand new belts, for $70 off eBay. Second hand is still the best way to go, until/unless they ever start making decent mechanisms again.
@@yorkemar My 1970's (Sony) WALKMAN cassette player with an FM stereo radio section, had more BOOM than these useless units, as they at least had a better bass filter section, plus with their stereo 3.5mm phone headphone/line-out sockets you could at least get all THREE usable stereo channels, if feeding these correctly through a two-phase to three-phase splitter, to regain the full-form surround sound these always had. The two phase t three phase splitter was the old original amplifiers with their grounded earth return, common speaker channel / chassis earth, that enabled one to get all three channels from a two channel device (ask your local power board how they get your houses fed with all three of their single line phases, as well as all commercial 3 phase switchboards fed, whenever they PULL one leg out, of their three phase distribution transformers, that then ONLY run two phasing ? It's exactly the same as getting all three channels of audio from your 1970's style Sony Walkman's etc., when given just two phases (audio channels) via the 3.5mm phone outlets. Plus here's a kicker, with the right device IN-LINE with the headphone output - you can even get the FRONT/CENTER MONO (genuine front channel MONO - being the same as an old AM radio's single channel gives you) and the rear SINGLE REAR CENTER surround channel - directly from a 3.5mm outlet when playing back anything stereo. In other words, instead of being a dumb listener, somewhere out in front of the stage (center of house), you can hear what AN ELECTRICIAN HEARS, from either side in the wings, or when up in the GODS (being that area in the rafters of the concert venue where the stage lighting is suspended from) that allows us to hear BACK of stage sounds - as well as those from the FRONT of stage (front of house), where we hear everything that is played both on stage as well as in the studio when remastering takes place, and thus where everything the mics pickup, is recorded in the original recordings, that most commercial outlets / vinyl & tape or CD/MP3 etc., NEVER replay via on-air broadcasts or in TV or TH-cam modes, as they expect you, the listener to not actually know you are ONLY getting 57.7 % of the available recorded medium, instead of it's full 100 % total surround sound. Why do you think the youth attempt to use bass filters and ONLY play very loudly, the bass they are able to hear in the front center channel - when all they need is another (rear center) bass speaker that allows them to amplify all the frequencies of audio - that are 90% out of phase (and thus completely unheard when playing via two frontal speakers)?ALL of the actual reverbs sounds and the better part of bass drums / guitars etc., is played at the BACK of a concert stage, where the band's drum kits are positioned, so why attempt to play loudly - only that which is heard from out front (by filtering out the lead singer and all other front of house sounds) ??? Why not play at the same "loudness" as the front speakers, via even just one of the speakers at the rear - where those bass sounds are made, by having a center rear speaker? One that plays everything you cannot hear in a two speaker headset or a two speaker stereo car set? Even your stereo (two frontal channels) house stereo destroys your ability to hear anything at the rear as even that doesn't replay that area, just the sounds from the front. Having just single speaker at the back of the car, or house room (or on the back of a boom box) allows the listener to hear all sounds that the musicians made on the day of recording, or which were superimposed in the studio before the final mastering? Why not hear the missing 42.3 % of audio - that a two channel stereo device cannot make ? All it would take is for these el'cheapo stereo boom boxes, to have a rear facing center channel speaker at the back.
Mine, that I've had for several years, is branded Reka, and is all black. It has FM, 2 x SW and MW bands and the socket on the end is labelled Phone. I've only ever used it with a USB stick, as that's all I bought it for, so have no idea if the rest of it is stereo or mono. I only use it when I'm doing DIY work in the house, so haven't bothered too much about the sound quality, but it doesn't seem to bad. I think it was only UKP15 on eBay, so at that price, I'm not too fussy!
Is there any chance you could make a video about the different kinds of bias? DC, different tape types etc? I've never been able to work out what all that means. Thanks.
It has been quite an interesting experience to watch this video regarding what I expected from this device. I was prepared to despise it but in a very gradual, perfectly timed way it appeared to be a little better every minute (bar the recording part, but recording on a cheap boombox is something you don't want to do anyway). Finally, I can't help but show my respect for this product at such a reasonable price point. The big elephant in the room is of course the tinny speakers when it comes to using this on its own. Probably you should not expect much better sound for so cheap on the other hand. However, as something inexpensive but decent to hook to an amp or computer if you don't happen to have an old, well-serviced deck, it's probably a good little thing to have. I... kind of want one.
Oh hey, Big Knob. That's my nickname. Also, "Never eat tape", good advice. Seems like a relatively decent little box. I'm guessing there's no particular support for different tapes, never mind NR. I wonder if the speakers might be upgradeable...
Man, that flywheel looks wobbly at 13:42. Kind of crazy that you get essentially the same mechanism in those 850 CAD Tascam 202mkvii decks but those have a proper erase head and digital controls. Just goes to show it's all in the electronics now I guess. Me? I prefer a well built used deck with not too many hours on it at a fraction of the cost but for a new mini radio, that one is pretty nice. Would be interesting to see if putting in a NOS Mabuchi would have any impact.
Can't say much for the sound quality through the built speakers, but the direct feed being played on a computer plugged into a Sony 100 per channel receiver with SSCS5 Core series Sony speakers sound absolutely fantastic. Hopefully these tape mechs can be made available to someone doing a crowdfunding campain that will actually create a stereo cassette deck with AC bias recording and an electric erase head. This mech seems to be as good as the one in the professional Tascam deck that you have shown on this channel. The recording quality seems terrible because of the permanent erase head and the low recording level, but for play back this beats them all in this price range. Would love to see a video comparing playback quality between this device and the Tascam.
The size of speaker magnet is small because there's a neodymium magnet in the new one. And the old one had ferrite magnet. Neodymium magnets are considered more powerful ratio wise and so more good in sound quality.
13:53. Those speakers could have neodymium magnets. I've seen the same type of magnets in modern Toyota OEM car speakers. They look physically anemic but manage to sound 10x better than their looks could ever have suggested.
I very like your honest comments.. I have 500-700 audio cassettes and also use them to convert through teak-1200 which is only cassette player not have radio. I am searching for boom box like teak stereo sound.
I have the old version of this unit and one thing that have been amazingly great is battery life. I can not tell how good it have been. During summers i live where there is no power so what i bring have to last, and it never stoped playing! I wonder how good battery might be on this new one 🤔
While it's still not up to the quality of an 80s boombox, it's good to see that the manufacturers are at least trying to make improvements. Maybe there will be a 2024 upgrade with AC bias and a proper erase head?
So how about upgrading this unit with better speakers, and reviewing the sound quality then? If it were available in my country, I would have bought it just for that exercise, seeing the mechanism is so good.
Well it's good that at last (and at least) there's some improvement and it can even play at the right speed (when tinkered with). Perhaps the older one could 'donate' its shell and then you have the design and colour that you wanted (at least it looks like the front should be mostly the same?). I wonder if a third version will address the 'let downs'?🎧 And thank goodness they gave it a stereo head and playback!
This white AudioCrazy boombox cassette player unit could match nicely (and produce better sound) when hooked up to a pair of powered white Edifier MR4 speakers, for example, or with a white JBL Creature (or JBL Spot) set of speakers with their connecting subwoofer since both the Edifier speakers and JBL Creature speakers use a 3.5 mm jack. That could be fun. :)
Thanks for your review As always very informative Could you please share what unit do you use to measure speed, wow, and flutter ? Is it a stand alone unit or is it a software application on computer ? Also reference to the TEAC test tape please . Much appreciated
It would be nice to see if you replaced the crap speakers for better ones if the sound playback from the player itself would improve since decent speakers don't cost that much.
I can only imagine the joy of the person or team responsible for this product watching your video, even with the few criticisms.
Thanks for the in-depth review... Regarding the speaker magnet aspect, they are actually an upgrade, moving from weak/large/heavy ferrite magnet to neodymium which applies a higher magnetic field to voicecoil at a much smaller advantage. With the speakers in an open cabinet like that with massive air leaks, the drivers front and rear waves cancel... Providing a 'bass' knob is futile. Huge thanks again for your efforts.
This is actually pretty cool! Nice to see that they went from a mono-only deck with questionable components to something that actually sounds quite good! For a started deck, if it was still like the older model, then someone might just think that they all sound bad. However, now that they can playback in stereo, alongside with the decent wow and flutter, this is nice to see! You can't expect too much out of something like this, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
If only it had a decent amp and speakers.
I can't stand tinny speakers with no bass, and I will use a real deck if I want to connect it to other components.
True, but at least the direct output is good. A speaker and amp upgrade would certainly help but at least you can always connect it up to something else.
Really hopeful to see more and more artists release their things on cassette. As it is, I think maaaaaybe 10% of the albums I like from the last 10 years had cassette releases, and most of those were within the last 3-4. I'm younger, I wasn't really around when cassettes were mainstream, and a lot of the music from that time isn't the sort of thing I listen to a lot so there's no real nostalgia reason for me to get into them. I just think they're neat :p
Even though I don’t recommend these cheap brand boomboxes, I’m glad they’re finally making something good enough for decent cassette playback! Especially we want to be able to buy brand new boomboxes that actually work!
And cassette decks with good quality, to be able to build a wonderful sound equipment as well.
@@josearqco yeah, there needs to be manufacturers like Sony, Technics, Phillips, even Pioneer, which I don’t know if they still make audio equipment anymore because Audiovoxx bought out Pioneer.
I have enjoyed your videos since the very beginning! Keep em' coming! Greetings from St. Louis MO!
You always show/demonstrate some very interesting electronic equipment! Connecting that boombox to some powered/active speakers could've giving you a better sound experience, would've been nice if you did that. Keep up the "fun" video's!
So glad to have my 1980’s Sharp. Great video as always. A review of the red Audiocrazy radio? Yes please. All the best from🏴
That's pretty impressive for such a cheap and nasty boombox. The wow and flutter really surprised me. I didn't even catch the similarity between the boombox featured on Techmoan with the Riptunes until I watched your video. Nice video!
I love seeing cassettes making a comeback, even if it’s a small comeback.
Me too
@@9852323 me too didnt know modern songs are coming on to cassets
Very nice to see a big improvement in the cassette mechanism. I’d like to see the other one reviewed too please.
I'm so glad things are starting to improve in the world of cassettes! And I'd be happy to see your review on that mono deck! 👍🏻
The fidelity bar in 2023: Stereo, and less than 10% W&F.
Great video as always, and thank you for introducing me to Slug Bug. 'Truck Life' and '0xBAADF00D' are both amazing albums that I'm happy to have in my catalog.
Hey thanks for the video.
Also, a while back you reviewed a radio by Retekess and liked it. I was a bit inspired by that and bought a Retekess TR618 and just love it. Best radio I have had in ages and I have been so disappointed in mass market stuff the last decade or so. The sound is amazing for such a small radio and here in California I am picking up SW stations in Maine, Japan, China and Russia. I am near the Bay Area and on AM at night can lick up stations in LA and OR & WA state. Just love it! Thanks for putting me on to them.
Speaking of Retekess, I actually found a video of someone demoing a Retekess CD, radio and cassette player, and the cassette player had a manufacturing defect where it would eat tapes, because a bit of solder got into the gears driving the mechanism.
@@RealEpikCartfrenYT Retekess sent me a CD/cassette boombox for review but I didn't end up making a video about it because the FM radio and cassette were mono. I briefly demonstrated it in my video about the TEAC W-1200 cassette deck.
@@vwestlife Yeah, the guy who demoed it, also took it apart to inspect it, the FM radio board is literally the size of a credit card, and is held in place by the tuning dial. Very underwhelming for what it is.
I got a V115 and the sound is pretty amazing. I think they are using speakers similar to those full sounding ones in the mid tier tablets these days plus a few amp filter/EQ tricks. Direct entry shortwave for under $40 is pretty kewl!
I quite like the design of it - combines retro styling with a modern colour scheme. If they did it in black with either teal or red accents that would be cool. Nice that it plays tapes in stereo. In Aldi, they started selling the 'Techmoan' version for Father's Day. This model looks like it would be kinder to your dad's cassettes! I wonder whether you can upgrade the speakers (even at only 3W there's some pretty good options). Perhaps the circuit board restricts how deep the speakers can be.
Audio signals are quite easy. You can probe with headphones like a doctor and hear it all (instead of a multimeter). Maybe have some resistors around if you check the amp parts.
After Kevin's comments about the color scheme I was expecting him to swap the cases.
@@MrDuncl Just what I was thinking (maybe resolder the speakers from the old into the new also?). That might make an improvement - but who knows?
I like that you review these sorts of things on their own terms. This looks like a 'good enough' cassette mechanism and that's fine.
I'm glad to see actual STEREO units being made again, now if they would give it better bass speakers and fix the recording level it would be great.
and the best feature would be a high quality full auto stop mechanism (doesn't just stop in playback)
Actually - a minimum of three speakers (three channel stereo) would suffice as then these would be genuine 3phase electrical circuits, and transmit all the sounds of the recording, using the least amount of battery power. Balance power usage it's called, not unbalanced two phasing that normal two speaker stereo units like these are only capable of.
Two phasing a three phase supply will NEVER turn a three phase motor, yet two phasing the audio devices called boom boxes, was supposed to give good (booming) bass?
Yeah right - NOT.
A/C bias and erase well worth a few dollars more.
Then maybe throw in feather touch buttons? Lol
@@QUIX4U The AC inlet is only single-phase though. No 3-phase power for you. Though I'm sure if you put 440VAC 3p into this, it would definitely go boom.
I found a Brooklyn branded unit at a company called Supercheap Autos here in Australia. It was essentially the same model as the second Aldi unit critiqued by Techmoan a year or two back.
While it is still a mono unit I found it wasn't completely terrible, and had no problems with wow and flutter, in fact I found it was very good. I checked the speed with a frequency counter and it was within what I considered to be acceptable range, although I don't have a calibrated tape. Recording was OK but being mono it was nothing to shout about, but for AUD49.00 I have no complaints with it.
Perhaps some of the manufacturers are listening to youtubers like Techmoan and VWestlife and making these improvements.
And so they should pay more attention to the tech youtubers otherwise they won't be getting my custome.👍
Glad to see improvements. Would be awesome to see a pitch control dial added.
This is exciting! I'm really happy to hear that these manufacturers are paying attention to feedback. For $45, it's quite impressive. If only they could increase the recording level a bit....
All LPs produced since 1979 (at least in the UK) have been mastered from a digital source - a digital "cutting delay" was inserted into the mastering chain at this time.
@@lucasRem-ku6eb Even when they used analogue recording in the studio, from 1979 onwards the signal was passed through a digital stage (the "cutting delay") when the vinyl master disk was being cut.
So for those who want to hear genuine analogue audio, listen to LPs from 1978 or earlier.
@@lucasRem-ku6eb You're not going back far enough. In the 1970s, digital recording systems did exist. It wasn't until the late 1970s that they produced audio of high enough quality that could be used for mixing and mastering (sometimes in analog). One system in particular was 32-tracks of digital recording and some of those recordings were either nominated for or won Grammy Awards. That was in 1978 and 1979. The sample rate was rather low on those systems compared to today; the highest sample rate of those early systems was 50 kHz.
As an aside, nearly all remasters I've seen released in the last 30 years to consumers are worse than the originals. They almost all have severe issues, most of which are flat lined positive and negative DC samples caused by clipping and phase cancellation. Remastering is not a bad idea if done correctly. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have been most of the time.
4:57 Billy Joels "Only the good die young" blending into Gerry Raffertys "Right down the line", can't get any better than that!
Yes, www.softrockradio.net is one of my favorites.
Love this era of music
@@sf-dn8rh 1978
It'd be nice to see you review more of their products. I really want to see cassettes avoid the crosley treatment for their revival, and posting more info about what's out there helps with that I think.
With this, and a previous video of yours, it's good to know that there are still decent (even if not excellent) cassette mechanisms out there. I have a lot of home-recorded cassettes in storage in my brother's loft since 2008, and my requirement is for a cassette player, I have no desire to record. Just something with a decent line level output or a headphone socket that can be used as such, to play into my computer to digitise these cassettes when I get them back. My stereo system has a front-facing socket that can be used to input from headphone outputs.
Yeah! Do the Audiocrazy review, please. Keep the good job!
Such a gem! And that battery part of the video. Good to see better units showing up - that single speaker unit you shown made me think of an old National-Panasonic or Sanyo radio for some reason, question is, is it close or as good as the originals?
I never thought I'd see the day... Whoever this CSG company is must be breathing a sigh of relief that sticking with these mechs is finally paying off.
I enjoy seeing this and Techmoans channel. There are so many things I've never knew existed, and things I had or is familiar with.
Amazing to see. And yes like to see the review of the 2nd model.
I quite like the "piano-white" finish 😉 What a shame the speakers are below average. It otherwise seems like a decent modern-day cassette player (for the price)!
I almost wonder if there's some sort of way to solder in some better speakers....
@@tev866of course you can replace the speakers and even improve acoustics of the case but it might cost more than this boombox itself.
Another thought just crossed my mind. Today JBL manufactures some decent sounding Bluetooth speakers with plenty of bass. Other companies make decent digital tune radios and compact disc players. With this cassette mech, now it is possible to combine some of the better equipment together into one decent boombox that people like you and Techmoan would not be disappointed with.
Absolutely right.
Nice little machine, please review the other ones you find!
Great to see genuine good improvements being made to these things!
Another excellent presentation. The Bass control might as well be a plastic cylinder with a nut and bolt through it.
It would be much more useful if it had a tone control to turn down the treble, just like cheap boomboxes from the 1980s often did.
Yay! I had one of those in silver. A National I believe. Wonder where it is now.
Might consider buying one and replacing the speakers with higher quality ones, could be a fun little project.
Glad they are improved which means they listen to feedback.
Now hopefully they make a AC biased version of it.
They shoul add PWM bias (that is not difficult any more) like it was on on hight speed duplicators in 1990s, that will give 10dB bus with out NR.
Plus A/C erase.
@@georgebliss964 Definitely they need to do away with the permanent magnet head and go A/C head as well?
Definitely agree.
Please do a full review of the one-speaker model you showed. You have some of the greatest videos on this platform.
Yes, it would be good if you make the review of that little monoaural red boombox.
I have that JVC deck. Bought it in 1989. Still going strong. This little boombox is better than expected. Too bad they can't do better with the speakers...
When you’ve got a major label release on vinyl for $35+ and the cassette releasing for more than half that price, it does make sense that cassette sales have jumped so high.
and tbh loads of indee now realse on tape . its cheap^to do and they look unique most of the times.
This is part of the reason I have stuck with CD’s they are less than half the price of vinyl now
I want to see the review of the little mono red cassete radio that you showed at the end of the video! I love the details and the look inside!
Howdy! enjoyed this video. I would indeed love to see a review on RS-M50M3 radio. Love watching these reviews. On fishing trips up north I always bring my tapes along as part of tradition for the last 40 years. But finding working units at garage sales are rare these days! Reviews like this help me find a good recently manufactured unit. Cheers from Montreal!
cool seeing such a good mechanism being put into something modern like this
I notice the red RS-M50M3 features "AC BTILT-IN" in addition to UM-1 Battery ... I wonder what that's all about? Terrific video as always - love your work!
Good to see. I hope we can get this in the UK. Cheers.
I love your strange music! It's so bad it's good. Seriously, it's so nice to hear something different. And that player sounded surprisingly tight and bright so someone is doing their job right.
Wow, finally, someone is making a very decent cassette player. Pair this with decent speakers and Bluetooth and you’ve got a very viable device. Tbh, I can’t imagine many users would be that concerned about the lack of decent tape recording
Woa nice, they actually “listen”!
And yes! Please review the other one.
It's amazing how similar this looks inside to its predecessors, a better mechanism and motor really make a lot of difference.
I obviously don't know how much more the new version cost to produce but I doubt it's more than a few cents
I'm not a lawyer, but the specific phrasing "avoid it never eating tapes" could be interpreted that it avoids "never eating" meaning it does eat them. The "Never eat tape" in a large font at 13:02 could also just be a public safety announcement, like "Hey kids never eat tape!"
Came looking for this comment as soon as I saw that.
This video was very helpful in deciding which boombox to buy. I grew up in the 80’s and have tons of cassettes and singles from the 90’s but no player to play them on. I really love yellow but after hearing your review on the Riptunes it’s a hard pass for me. However, it seems Audiocrazy has a yellow colorway now with green accents on the buttons so it’s perfect for me. I can’t wait to get it so thanks for the review! ❤❤❤
I can remember when portable stereo system often had the word stereo printed on the device, often in some rathe eye catching and arguably speaking hard to read font with capitalised letters. Yes I would like to see a review of the other AudioCrazy portable radio you showed there.
I love everything tape so more reviews is a big yes!
I would like to see a full review of the radio and cassette mechanism shown at 15:29. Maybe you could also buy the other models Audiocrazy made and review those as well. When it comes to the modern cassette players, I'm always curious to see what type of motors and mechanisms they use.
Very fun video. Great job!
To be fair to AudioCrazy, they did say "avoid it never eating tapes". 😝 As soon as you hooked it up directly to the headphone jack it was quite obviously a _vast_ improvement over the old model!
Wow, nice to see that people who simply want an easy way to play their bought band merchandise now have an option that actually sounds pretty good and doesn't destroy the tape within a few plays. People who want to record on tape probably go for a cassette deck anyway, so I'm not too worried the record function is not working very well. I never thought I'd see the day again. This might actually help people enjoy merchandise cassettes, which in turn will increase the demand for these better boomboxes. Hopefully these mechanisms will find their way to the Crosley all in one systems too. Here's hoping...
"ooo, oh dear"
that was beautiful
I really like that little boombox, its a nice little player. I think it would be good for people who are new to cassettes.
i love cassettes ! i found a box full in a dumpster recently .. there was rolling stones / the beatles /elton john / phil collins ... so many greats
Yes, it's nice to see a new product being quite decent.
Now in addition to the colors schemes, if they could do a proper cassette deck too, with record level adjustment that would be great.
I just got a Rotel RD-400 cassette deck from 1981 in perfect condition (the original RRP was $600 in 2023 dollars), with brand new belts, for $70 off eBay. Second hand is still the best way to go, until/unless they ever start making decent mechanisms again.
It's refreshing to see how half-decent a lot of new cassette mechanisms are. Even if some of them come from the mysterious land of Japen.
I like how they are bringing back 80s design. these new boomboxes looks better than the ones from the 2000s.
Dosent look better than my early 2000s Sony cd cassette radio which myvmum passed to me. All working and looks great. Older cassette section too.
which ones? early 2000s boomboxes doesn't look cheap and still sounds better
@@yorkemar My 1970's (Sony) WALKMAN cassette player with an FM stereo radio section, had more BOOM than these useless units, as they at least had a better bass filter section, plus with their stereo 3.5mm phone headphone/line-out sockets you could at least get all THREE usable stereo channels, if feeding these correctly through a two-phase to three-phase splitter, to regain the full-form surround sound these always had.
The two phase t three phase splitter was the old original amplifiers with their grounded earth return, common speaker channel / chassis earth, that enabled one to get all three channels from a two channel device (ask your local power board how they get your houses fed with all three of their single line phases, as well as all commercial 3 phase switchboards fed, whenever they PULL one leg out, of their three phase distribution transformers, that then ONLY run two phasing ?
It's exactly the same as getting all three channels of audio from your 1970's style Sony Walkman's etc., when given just two phases (audio channels) via the 3.5mm phone outlets.
Plus here's a kicker, with the right device IN-LINE with the headphone output - you can even get the FRONT/CENTER MONO (genuine front channel MONO - being the same as an old AM radio's single channel gives you) and the rear SINGLE REAR CENTER surround channel - directly from a 3.5mm outlet when playing back anything stereo.
In other words, instead of being a dumb listener, somewhere out in front of the stage (center of house), you can hear what AN ELECTRICIAN HEARS, from either side in the wings, or when up in the GODS (being that area in the rafters of the concert venue where the stage lighting is suspended from) that allows us to hear BACK of stage sounds - as well as those from the FRONT of stage (front of house), where we hear everything that is played both on stage as well as in the studio when remastering takes place, and thus where everything the mics pickup, is recorded in the original recordings, that most commercial outlets / vinyl & tape or CD/MP3 etc., NEVER replay via on-air broadcasts or in TV or TH-cam modes, as they expect you, the listener to not actually know you are ONLY getting 57.7 % of the available recorded medium, instead of it's full 100 % total surround sound.
Why do you think the youth attempt to use bass filters and ONLY play very loudly, the bass they are able to hear in the front center channel - when all they need is another (rear center) bass speaker that allows them to amplify all the frequencies of audio - that are 90% out of phase (and thus completely unheard when playing via two frontal speakers)?ALL of the actual reverbs sounds and the better part of bass drums / guitars etc., is played at the BACK of a concert stage, where the band's drum kits are positioned, so why attempt to play loudly - only that which is heard from out front (by filtering out the lead singer and all other front of house sounds) ???
Why not play at the same "loudness" as the front speakers, via even just one of the speakers at the rear - where those bass sounds are made, by having a center rear speaker?
One that plays everything you cannot hear in a two speaker headset or a two speaker stereo car set?
Even your stereo (two frontal channels) house stereo destroys your ability to hear anything at the rear as even that doesn't replay that area, just the sounds from the front.
Having just single speaker at the back of the car, or house room (or on the back of a boom box) allows the listener to hear all sounds that the musicians made on the day of recording, or which were superimposed in the studio before the final mastering?
Why not hear the missing 42.3 % of audio - that a two channel stereo device cannot make ?
All it would take is for these el'cheapo stereo boom boxes, to have a rear facing center channel speaker at the back.
@@goodnightmoon 1996-2009ish design is ugly the rounded shape of that era is so ugly.
@@QUIX4U I have a 4 Band ITT radio from around 1976 that sounds good and also looks great.
Pretty happy that the YT algorithm showed me this video along with the turbo button vid. 👍
Sounded pretty good. Kudos to them!
Yes we want a review of the other radio shown!!!!!!
Mine, that I've had for several years, is branded Reka, and is all black. It has FM, 2 x SW and MW bands and the socket on the end is labelled Phone. I've only ever used it with a USB stick, as that's all I bought it for, so have no idea if the rest of it is stereo or mono. I only use it when I'm doing DIY work in the house, so haven't bothered too much about the sound quality, but it doesn't seem to bad. I think it was only UKP15 on eBay, so at that price, I'm not too fussy!
Wow and flutter levels sounded excellent!
Is there any chance you could make a video about the different kinds of bias? DC, different tape types etc? I've never been able to work out what all that means. Thanks.
I don't want to Hijack the Video but I have this on my Channel that answers your query. th-cam.com/video/-x9_AQkBNHI/w-d-xo.html
I am playing this video via a JVC amp (AX-111) and a little pair of JVC mini0hifi speakers.
The direct hook-up sounds really quite good.
Hey I have one branded by Sylvania :D (I kept it but it was from an old video of all Sylvania speakers) Never noticed the thing not being stereo haha
that slug bug song is the sickest thing. great video. love this channel!
It has been quite an interesting experience to watch this video regarding what I expected from this device. I was prepared to despise it but in a very gradual, perfectly timed way it appeared to be a little better every minute (bar the recording part, but recording on a cheap boombox is something you don't want to do anyway). Finally, I can't help but show my respect for this product at such a reasonable price point. The big elephant in the room is of course the tinny speakers when it comes to using this on its own. Probably you should not expect much better sound for so cheap on the other hand. However, as something inexpensive but decent to hook to an amp or computer if you don't happen to have an old, well-serviced deck, it's probably a good little thing to have. I... kind of want one.
Oh hey, Big Knob. That's my nickname. Also, "Never eat tape", good advice. Seems like a relatively decent little box. I'm guessing there's no particular support for different tapes, never mind NR.
I wonder if the speakers might be upgradeable...
Man, that flywheel looks wobbly at 13:42. Kind of crazy that you get essentially the same mechanism in those 850 CAD Tascam 202mkvii decks but those have a proper erase head and digital controls. Just goes to show it's all in the electronics now I guess. Me? I prefer a well built used deck with not too many hours on it at a fraction of the cost but for a new mini radio, that one is pretty nice. Would be interesting to see if putting in a NOS Mabuchi would have any impact.
Can't say much for the sound quality through the built speakers, but the direct feed being played on a computer plugged into a Sony 100 per channel receiver with SSCS5 Core series Sony speakers sound absolutely fantastic. Hopefully these tape mechs can be made available to someone doing a crowdfunding campain that will actually create a stereo cassette deck with AC bias recording and an electric erase head. This mech seems to be as good as the one in the professional Tascam deck that you have shown on this channel. The recording quality seems terrible because of the permanent erase head and the low recording level, but for play back this beats them all in this price range. Would love to see a video comparing playback quality between this device and the Tascam.
2:17 note the website spelled "Japenese" instead of Japanese.
1:58 - "Big Knob" 🤣
Won't lie, I giggled reading that.
The size of speaker magnet is small because there's a neodymium magnet in the new one. And the old one had ferrite magnet. Neodymium magnets are considered more powerful ratio wise and so more good in sound quality.
I own that Terry Adams album - it’s one of my favorite albums! I also have a few NRBQ albums as well.
Your videos are what inspired me to get a copy of it.
@@vwestlife C'mon, really?
@@bbishoppcm Yes!
13:53. Those speakers could have neodymium magnets. I've seen the same type of magnets in modern Toyota OEM car speakers. They look physically anemic but manage to sound 10x better than their looks could ever have suggested.
I very like your honest comments.. I have 500-700 audio cassettes and also use them to convert through teak-1200 which is only cassette player not have radio. I am searching for boom box like teak stereo sound.
good job man
These boombox videos are making me want to dive into cassette tapes. I don't know if my CD collection will allow it though.
Maybe if you did it in a separate room? 😉
I have the old version of this unit and one thing that have been amazingly great is battery life. I can not tell how good it have been. During summers i live where there is no power so what i bring have to last, and it never stoped playing! I wonder how good battery might be on this new one 🤔
I love the Audiocrazy logo with -- what is that, 3, 4 different font sizes?
While it's still not up to the quality of an 80s boombox, it's good to see that the manufacturers are at least trying to make improvements. Maybe there will be a 2024 upgrade with AC bias and a proper erase head?
Woah! Never knew you like Slugbug!! Paul Millar is a mutual friend of mine!
I wonder how long it'll be before the circle finally closes and new cars come equipped with cassette decks again.
Id like to see that Monoplayer review and great review little player radio and tape player.
I'd love to see a review of the other "boombox"!
So how about upgrading this unit with better speakers, and reviewing the sound quality then? If it were available in my country, I would have bought it just for that exercise, seeing the mechanism is so good.
I want to see that little mono boombox, looks cool,
Well it's good that at last (and at least) there's some improvement and it can even play at the right speed (when tinkered with). Perhaps the older one could 'donate' its shell and then you have the design and colour that you wanted (at least it looks like the front should be mostly the same?). I wonder if a third version will address the 'let downs'?🎧 And thank goodness they gave it a stereo head and playback!
This white AudioCrazy boombox cassette player unit could match nicely (and produce better sound) when hooked up to a pair of powered white Edifier MR4 speakers, for example, or with a white JBL Creature (or JBL Spot) set of speakers with their connecting subwoofer since both the Edifier speakers and JBL Creature speakers use a 3.5 mm jack. That could be fun. :)
Nice to see that they at least try to make a useable tape mechanism.
thank you for your video I have the collection of Sanyo MS 350 the which was the original released in 1985 do you know?
Thanks for your review
As always very informative
Could you please share what unit do you use to measure speed, wow, and flutter ? Is it a stand alone unit or is it a software application on computer ? Also reference to the TEAC test tape please . Much appreciated
It would be nice to see if you replaced the crap speakers for better ones if the sound playback from the player itself would improve since decent speakers don't cost that much.