Are all new personal stereos doomed?

today we're going to take a look at a new personal stereo cassette player well i say stereo let's hope it is you know like a walkman sticky cassettes in it put your headphones on except this one's got bluetooth connection in it now it's a bit of a novelty device i'm not expecting too much but hopefully it's all right although at the end of it you probably won't better get hold of one and the reason for that is that this comes from south korea and it's only a limited edition collectible type of thing that's available in kt stores and you actually have to go into a store and buy one of these it's not a mail order thing there's around about 169 kt stores i think in south korea and the reason i've got hold of one is thanks to a viewer a chap called young sung jion who got in touch he spotted these for sale and he asked if i was interested in having one and he sent it over so he's done all the hard work here so it's inside this box and along with that he sent me a nice letter as well it's got the promotional literature that goes with it he's sent me a calendar in the bottom for 2022 so that's my first 2022 calendar but here it is in the box i've yet to unwrap it so let's have a look now i just want to take the foil off this because there's some text on the back here that i want to show you that will be a little bit easier to read without the reflections designed by katie but also manufactured by inkel or is it incul i'm not sure how you pronounce that because that name again is one that's not familiar here in the west it's a very large electronics company though in south korea jung-sung told me these parents had a in-kill hi-fi system he sent me a picture i'll just pop that up on the screen over here in the west though inkle products are rebranded as sherwood so that might be a name that you're more familiar with it doesn't stop there though because at the bottom here it's actually manufactured by jy audio in china right let's get it open but there's our portable cassette player it does feel quite lightweight though yeah but uh we'll put it to one side let's see what else we've got user manual that looks like that might be in english as well as korean let's find out no it just says user manual that's the only part of it that's in english i think we can figure out how to use it though quite easily we've got our batteries in the bottom so it runs on two double a's now this is all the other stuff that we get with it over here on the right rewind blossom now forgive me but i'm not into k-pop so i'm not familiar with the names and things inside here now i'm really just interested in the cassette player but we've got a lot of other things here i've got a book and some stickers and some more stickers and some more stickers a calendar some cards with a lot of pictures of young korean people i suspect if i carried around a lot of cards of young korean ladies the uh the mrs would want to know what the heck was going on i said i've got this thing what what is this i don't understand what is rewind blossom i'm going to cut in over myself here now because thanks to a helpful fella on patreon i've now got more of an idea about what this whole thing is about so the songs that are included on the cassette are cover versions of 1990s korean pop and they're performed by contemporary k-pop artists now that was a period considered as the blossom time of k-pop hence we've got this rewind to blossom and of course those songs back then would no doubt have been played on many a cassette walkman right back to the video i'm interested in the cassette player and let's have a look at that so i'll just point out a couple of things here we've got that auto reverse switch at the top there next to that you can choose manually whether you want to play side a or b of course to do that it's got a pinch roller either side in here to play the tape in either direction and also the head in the middle there you can see it's a full track head of course it just activates the appropriate tracks depending upon the direction the tape's moving in we've got a rewind and fast forward button it doesn't sound that exciting but even back in the 80s to save money on a cheaper personal stereo they'd forgo the rewind functions on the side i've got a three and a half millimeter headphone jack volume control bluetooth sync button i think there's a little led in the middle there as well and at the bottom here there's a switch to choose between bluetooth speaker or bluetooth earphones and another led at the bottom there for the battery indicator i actually appreciate the fact that this is using standard double a batteries rather than some built-in rechargeable cell which you can't remove and will one day fail and take the device with it so that's a positive notice also the speakers on this side here i didn't point that out before so that's the one that we should be able to use as a bluetooth speaker but presumably also it will play back what's on the cassette without you having to use headphones so now let's put a tape in this [Music] well the auto reverse is working fine but i've got my first concerns about this thing now there's sound there's a load of wow and flutter on there [Music] [Applause] yeah that really sounds terrible and it's a shame because i was hoping that this would have been all right i'm having my hopes dash now piano music is a way to really determine if your cassette mechanism is running at a steady speed it's it's especially noticeable if there's any problems because the sustain of the notes you'll notice the kind of wobbliness of it so yeah it looks like we've got a big wow and flutter problem here now there's a potential that it could get better if i play a few tapes through it maybe it'll start to free things up a little bit make it smoother i doubt it i think it's probably just down to the quality of the motor that's been used in here and uh the plastic flywheel that'll be connected to it and it's probably the only mechanism they could get hold off so they can spec everything up as well as they want with bluetooth and auto reverse and a full track head all that kind of stuff but if all you can get hold of is this mechanism with this dodgy motor then they're on a hiding to nothing but yeah i'm going to play through a couple of tapes hopefully that makes it sound better before i test it with the wow and flutter meter but before we do any of that i want to connect it up to bluetooth to try that feature out i've noticed something else that's a little bit unusual here if we just pop this tape in so this is side a we've got to take right back to the beginning so we're popping it in there now we're pressing play and the tape is playing that's all normal nothing going wrong so far but we want to fast forward a little bit because i left a blank section at the beginning of here so let's just fast forward we'll press our forward button there and now we've rewound back to the beginning of the tape again if we want to go forward we have to press the rewind button so now we're skipping forward another couple of quirks i'd like to mention if you fast forward or rewinding the tape will not auto stop once it reaches the end it's up to you to manually do that however the machine does have an auto stop that functions on play but then again it only does it once it's played both sides of the tape so the auto reverse is always on to play side a and b irrespective of where you've moved that switch if you put it on the auto reverse it'll play both sides over and over again forever if you switch it off well it'll just play side a then b and then stop anyway let's get on and try the bluetooth out okay well that's playing fine so far now i've got a switch on the side here bluetooth speaker or bluetooth earphone so i've got it in that earphone mode i'm going to hold down that button there i'd imagine that's going to activate the sync for the earphone and it's flashing and the audio has gone off so let me get my headphones out yeah those are working fine let me just put the microphone closer nice to be able to just have a wireless connection to your headphones but now let's get on to that welt and flutter issue so what i'll do we'll put another cassette in here i'm just going to play it through i think i'm going to play it through a couple of times in the end i ran the machine in for a total of six hours over a couple of days just to make sure it was running at its best before capturing the audio and of course then that was done with new batteries in it but i'm gonna play a section on one of my older walkman models and then alternate between them so we'll start with that one but bear in mind that this is a 22 year old machine it's been sat in a drawer unused for a year or so so it's probably not performing at its very best [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now depending upon how you're watching this video you may have noticed the newer player's audio was in mono and that's just because one of the channels kept cutting out due to a faulty headphone jack so i had to use the one channel it was consistent throughout i'll also mention that whilst i was using a type 2 tape it was recorded with type 1 equalization to be compatible with both machines i'd originally tried using a type 1 tape for the demo but i just kept getting loads of dropouts on it so that sa-90 gave better results however from listening to that i'm sure you can hear the tonal differences and speed irregularities we'll get a measurement on those later but first i need to go into a bit of research to the modern day personal stereo market you see when it comes to cassette walkman models i'm spoiled for choice this picture shows just a few of them i've bought a few more since then and as a result of having all these i've never had the need to go looking at what's out there new now i just assumed they were all rubbish and that's all i needed to know but now i felt i'd need to find out exactly what was going on why the machine i was reviewing wasn't any better well i'm sure you've seen these cassettes mp3 devices over the years and this particular model had auto reversed just like my korean machine and then there's this one as well which has both the auto reverse and the bluetooth that's on mine so pretty much the same specs without the speaker but then take a closer look at the button layout and it's exactly the same as the one on mine the play button on the front the auto reverse button behind it an on off slider for that feature next to that button and all the rest of the transport controls are in the same positions too and that's because these machines are using the exact same mechanism as one another they might have slightly different features in there for example a usb port or a bluetooth speaker but when it comes down to the main component the tape transport well it's identical so all this business about designed by kt manufactured by incal sent off to some company in china well it's all overblowing it a bit it's more like they just chose a case design and got some company to assemble an assortment of off-the-shelf components into that case now i don't want to give the impression that there's just the one personal stereo cassette mechanism floating around because after looking at them i've managed to identify a few different ones although they are quite similar to one another so first off we've got the one that's in my machine and in those mp3 converter things the section you can see behind the plastic cutout that's all metal there's very little plastic on the show just the two pointed black plastic legs that are located either side of the head that then locate through the holes in the bottom of a cassette so that's the first mechanism used in a number of devices including the one that i've got but now let's have a look at another one in this player there's more black plastic on the show in that same section that wasn't in the first one but perhaps the most recognizable feature of this particular mechanism are the visible cogs that are poking through in the center there and notice how those again aren't present on that first mechanism now that won't be because those toothed wheels are covered over by the case take a look at this third auto reverse mechanism i spotted for sale that claimed to be for personal stereos as well now this one relocates those cogs to the other side this one might be all stock being sold off though because i haven't spotted this particular mechanism being used in any newly assembled machines i'll just point out a couple of differences from this one to the other two this one's got a significant use of black plastic again that's on show but also has this center metal piece that starts off behind the head and travels up through the center of the mechanism as a column so now if we jump back to the one in my player you'll see that the layout there is quite different in that regard but every personal stereo cassette player i've managed to find detailed pictures of appears to be using either one of those first two mechanisms and most importantly that also goes for any newly launched players the things that turn up on kickstarter or indiegogo that claim to be bringing cassettes back with a brand new cassette player well as far as the mechanism goes they just seem to be using an off-the-shelf component so for example the it's okay player was really just a quick repackaging of an existing mono dictation machine but that also used that second mechanism the one with the visible cogs and then there was the mystic which at the top there claims to be a next-generation portable cassette player well again the prototype for that one used that same mechanism as well now there is another player that's been doing the rounds for a while but i've only ever seen renders of this i'm not sure it even exists or ever will do but if they do manage to bring it to market i'd be shocked if it doesn't include one of the existing budget mechanisms so all these devices are only ever going to be as good as their weakest components and it appears that the only personal stereocassette mechanisms available nowadays give a very low end performance it'd be madness therefore to expect that any new device that uses one of these will be significantly better than another when pretty much they're all cut from the same cloth and purely going on the amount of metal that's used in the mechanism here i've got to assume that this would be the higher end one from the models that we've identified so let's get some test measurements in for it now bear in mind again this machine has been running for at least six hours and the results are after all that that it was running at least three percent fast it it pegged the needle it could go quite a bit beyond there but looking over to the wagon flutter on the right that varied a lot during play but regularly hit numbers up to 0.7 percent so these are perhaps the worst results i've ever had from a cassette player one that wasn't actually properly broken and of course as you heard earlier those fluctuations were extremely noticeable during music playback and by comparison my old walkman which i've never opened up never replace the belts never serviced it was running one percent fast and it achieved around about 0.15 percent wow and flutter and on most days those would be pretty unremarkable results but when compared against that new machine it's night and day okay so going on the premise that these modern day mechanisms that are used here and in other devices similar to this are rubbish and we don't want a device that has one of those mechanisms in it how do you spot the mechanism well there's a couple of things to say first off just look at the thickness of this that mechanism is a chunky old thing and therefore you can't make a nice compact case around it and that goes for the other mechanisms that are similar to this as well so how big is this well let me get a couple of cassette cases here of sa-90s in the boxes and if we put those things side by side well basically it's about the thickness of two cassettes a little bit thicker than that and if we just get one here it is longer in that dimension than a cassette in the box as well so that gives you the idea as to how big these things are going to be and there's no way to make a small device that holds a mechanism like that now if i just get one of the anniversary walkmans out here i've got a couple they're roughly the same size as each other i'll just pick this one in the left hand so sa-90 against that it's roughly the same size in that dimension that's of course a cassette in its case again and uh roughly the same in that dimension as well give or take a couple of millimeters so yeah if anyone was to bring out a new modern day wartman and it was the size of a cassette i'd be very very impressed but i don't think that's going to happen either now if we just look for some more telltale signs to avoid this mechanism well first off see the motor there it's running flush with the back of the case so they obviously can't get this motor any deeper down inside this case now all the ones i've seen all the modern day mechanisms they all have the motor on display now this has a nice clear front on it so you can see it but in any other just look down the door there you better see and i'd suggest if the motor is on display it means it's using one of these awful mechanisms and then finally we've got the buttons if a modern day walkman is using these clunky buttons like this well again this mechanism has to use those that's the only way it operates it's uh mechanical so if you've got mechanical buttons you have to push down in a chunky case with a motor on display you've got a variety of this and unfortunately in my opinion and i'm sure in the opinion lots of others these things are just awful and a waste of money now just again going back to one of these we've got touch buttons here and if we were to open this up you can see here we don't have a motor on display because sony believe it or not knew how to manufacture things and hide motors away in a nice slim case like this and we've got the full track header notice that's in the door there and that's to save space as well so sony knew what they were doing when they made these people putting these things together are just getting some generic parts off the shelf sticking it in a case and making something that's absolutely terrible but as bad or as good as everyone else that's doing the same thing now in the past whenever i've reviewed something that turns out not to be all that good i'll get a load of people thumbing down the video for some reason they don't like somebody giving them accurate information about something that doesn't work very well but that's exactly what's happening here i'm just telling everybody to avoid things like this because you will be disappointed if you buy them and if anyone in the future ever does come out with a new walkman and says it's an all-new designer they've come up with themselves just be very wary look for those telltale signs that really they've just bought some components off the shelf and stuck them in a slightly different case to anyone else so there you go that's the truth of the matter don't go buying yourself a new personal stereo cassette player certainly not this one from south korea but since it's the same model that you can get anywhere else with a slightly different case then my suggestion is don't go buying it from anywhere anyway that's it for the moment as always thanks for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Techmoan

Views: 320,817

Keywords: Techmoan, 4K

Id: 90-gIAMvQNs

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tso]

It really do seem like much of the "western" world is tripping on nostalgia these days.

Do wonder why...