This LEGO version of the classic Sony Walkman WM-22 features an opening lid with removable cassettes!

Fashion is cyclical and it seems like cassettes may just be making their comeback. Audio manufacturer Fiio just debuted their latest retro CP13 cassette player at CES this year, and it shouldn’t be long before people are making mixtapes again. Just to prime us for that retro-resurgence, LEGO builder Srta.JirafaEnfadada designed a to-scale Sony Walkman made entirely out of LEGO bricks… and the best part, it actually fits LEGO cassettes in!

Designer: Srta.JirafaEnfadada

Before MP3 players and iPods pretty much changed the game, cassettes were the gold standard in music playback. Cars had cassette players, people owned boomboxes, and for a brief while, the Sony Walkman was one of the coolest products you could own. Designed to play cassettes on-the-go, the Walkman walked so the iPod could run. You could make your mixtape, pop it in, and listen to music either on the Walkman’s built-in speaker (if it had one), or on a pair of headphones or earphones for a private music experience.

This entry into the LEGO Ideas forum is based on the WM-22 Walkman, available in the iconic red colorway. It features the classic opening flap on the front that lets you put cassettes in and take them out between plays, with a transparent window that even lets you peer into the walkman’s insides to see which cassette’s loaded. Around the periphery are its play-pause and rewind/fast-forward buttons, and a simple rotary dial to adjust volume. The WM-22 didn’t sport a record button, which most costlier models had, allowing you to even capture audio directly to the cassette. However, it did have a 3.5mm jack, which can be found on this LEGO version too (right above the volume button), allowing you to hook a pair of headphones in. You’ve also got 4 different LEGO cassettes to choose from with the build, adding variety to your music library!

The Sony Walkman was submitted to the LEGO Ideas forum, an online dashboard where LEGO enthusiasts can share their own LEGO-based creations. The forum allows the LEGO community to vote for their favorite designs, with the top-voted ones getting turned into box-sets for us regular-folk to buy. The Sony Walkman sits at 2,068 votes as of writing this article, and if it hits the coveted 10,000 mark, it could potentially be made into a retail set! You can vote for the Sony Walkman or any of your other favorite designs on the LEGO Ideas website.

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Fiio CP13 revives Sony Walkman mixtape era in a USB-C chargable version

Fiio, best known for its audiophile-grade DACs and desktop streamers has surprised everyone at CES 2024 with a retro gadget that breaks the ice in terms of its nostalgia. This is the CP13 cassette player inspired by the popular Sony Walkman back in the 80s era.

The gadget is just not a shell inspired by the Walkman of that time, rather it is a modern cassette music player to its true core. You can gauge the realism from the fact that there isn’t Bluetooth on this music player to keep this very authentic. However, the Chinese manufacturer has added USB-C charging feature to save you from buying AA batteries every week.

Designer: Fiio

Doesn’t this mean, that cassette player technology has gone a full circle and now coming back in trend? In fact, the year 2022 saw an annual sale of 195,000 cassette player units. The appearance in ‘The Last of US’ and pop albums by Billie Elish, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift further seems to strengthen this fact!

Paying homage to the original Walkman in dual tone silver blue finish, the gadget has a retro design with large playback buttons, 3.5 mm headphone port and an oversized knob. By the looks of things, there’s no option to auto-reverse, so you’ll have to manually change sides. However, you can fast forward, reverse and pause just like the original one.

Another added feature along with the more modern charging port is the status LED. The player is good for 15 hours of playback on a single charge but sadly there’s no function to convert tapes to MP3 files. Of course, there’s the signature color variant but audioheads can also go for the matte black with white and the blue with metal silver option.

The audio accessory is priced at $164 and I’m not too sure if I’ll be going down that road anytime soon. Still, the Fiio CP13 does evoke a lot of fond memories of the golden era when owning music albums and following artists was a lot more precious compared to modern times.

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This transparent old-school cassette player combo can also serve as Bluetooth speaker

If you grew up or were alive during the time when cassette tapes and players were the in thing, then you probably at one point or another long for those days. You want to have them back not just for nostalgia’s sake but because the quality was pretty good since the audio is not that compressed yet. There are some product designers that have brought concepts to bring a version of cassettes back, but most of them are just for decoration. But now it looks like you can get something that’s close to it and maybe even better.

Designer: NINM Lab

The device is called It’s Real because people might think the cassette tape and player look is just for aesthetics. But in fact, it’s an actual cassette player that also serves as a Bluetooth speaker. Well of course the design also brings a nostalgic and analog feel to your space but it’s also pretty functional. It serves several purposes like a Bluetooth Speaker to stream your music through its cassette tape, a music transmitter tape that can stream your music through any boombox or cassette player, and an actual cassette player with a built-in speaker.

If you still have any traditional cassette tapes, you will be able to play it on the It’s Real player which already has a built-in speaker. The design also lets you see the tape rotating in all its working details glory since it has a transparent top cover. You’ll be able to see the tape itself rolling along and then the clockwork and motor work doing its thing at the back. It also comes with a REAL TAPE bluetooth 5.0 music transmitter tape which you can use to stream your music to other boomboxes or any device that has a cassette player.

But if you don’t have cassette tapes or any cassette tape player, you can just use the IT’S REAL device as a regular Bluetooth speaker. You just connect your mobile device with the music or audio apps that you use to the REAL TAPE Bluetooth cassette tape and then stream your digital music and files there. It of course cannot guarantee the same quality as the analog devices of old, but at least you have an aesthetic speaker to add to your space.

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ERA – Portable Cassette Player with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will make you part of the tape renaissance

Sony Walkman was one of the most iconic pieces of personal tech. As the first commercially available personal cassette player, the Sony Walkman TPS-L2 revolutionized portable music consumption in more ways than one. Now, as retro becomes the new modern, the TPS-L2 forms an inspiration for the ERA – Portable Cassette Tape Player that intends to match the vintage with a modern outlook.

Gen-Z considers cassette tapes vintage artifacts, but the incredible innovation has allowed the music industry to ripple through the years to reach the subsistence today. In the years of prime, it permitted music to be shared through recordings to each individual with access to cassette players: personal or otherwise.

Designer: Hugo Jonasson

Despite all the modernization, cassettes still have a role in the industry. Major artists are joining indie creators in the tape renaissance and taking advantage of retro tech. The trend in parts explains the rise in cassette sales in the past couple of years. Designer Hugo Jonasson wants to be the early adaptor of resurgence, a reason he has conceived the ERA – Portable Cassette Tape Player that draws inspiration from the past but has its footing in the modern environment.

This retro-modern portable cassette player boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity and has a 3.5mm jack to let you plug in a headphone of choice. To become slightly more modern than the Walkman from the bygone era, the ERA features a small display beside the physical play/pause and track change buttons. Separating the buttons and the display is the volume knob akin to one in the radio set of the yesteryears.

The ERA can connect with the smartphone, presumably over Bluetooth, to display the battery status, the current track, and more important information. If you’re an audiophile with no bias to the medium you’re consuming your favorite music on, as long as it is pleasing to the ears, portable cassette players like the ERA deserve your attention.

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Sony Walkman music player docks your smartphone like a cassette player, reviving nostalgic memories

This cool Sony Walkman is a modern audio player that doubles as a digital detox gadget for audiophiles who keep staring at their screen.

Who can forget the nostalgia of rewinding the same song over and over again on the good old Walkman cassette player? That’s one thing every millennial as a kid would relate to. Fast-forward to the present day, and we have the smartphone tending to all our music listening needs (unless you’re a hardcore audiophile) – virtually having all the music out there in the world just a finger swipe away. Such is the drastic shift in technology ever since the popularity of cassettes and cassette players in the late 1980s.

The analog side of gadgets has almost faded away in modern times and the digital age has overshadowed the charm of most classic stuff. But analog is not a fad – rather an ever-blossoming culture – and that’s a fact proven all these centuries when applied to any kind of domain. The Walkman SSS (Smart Sound System) by Ja Heon Lee proves it alright, mashing up the modern digital with the old classic to satiate the lust for music in a niche form factor. The Sony Walkman opens up like any analog cassette player and docks the smartphone with the screen facing outwards. The information screen of the compatible music player app displays the music information through the animation which resembles the look of a cassette tape.

On top of the music player, there is the detachable multi-controller which acts like an interface to control the music, take important calls or view lyrics on the fly. All this while your smartphone sits snug inside the Walkman. This is like a digital detox for all the screen time with a bit of added fun seeing the music being played out of the pseudo cassette player. It will surely transition you to good places in your subconscious memory, reviving old times when less was more!

Designer: Ja Heon Lee

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This nostalgic Walkman inspired Bluetooth speaker uses your smartphone as the cassette!

Kids these days will never know the sheer effort it was to rewind and fast-forward through a cassette to get to one’s favorite song… and the rewarding feeling of joy when you finally hear your song play. Cassettes were a BIG part of my music experience as a kid and I sincerely love them, but to be honest, I don’t miss them. We’ve made a great deal of progress ever since we shifted to listening to music in a digital format, and the Pl8ty Bluetooth speaker embraces it, but also looks back at cassette players with fond nostalgia!

Meet the Pl8ty. It looks like a Walkman, but it is, in fact, an external wireless speaker for your smartphone. It looks like any standard cassette player, complete with controls too, but behind its retro-avatar, it’s a powerful Bluetooth5.0 speaker and a 3200mAh power-bank. In short, it’s made to get your through your day, by charging your phone, as well as charging you up with some smooth tunes! Besides, it opens up so you can slip your smartphone in, like a cassette, effectively acting as a detox-box for your phone when you want to cut down on your screen-time.

On the hardware front, there’s a whole lot about the Pl8ty worth loving. For starters, it comes with a chunky, meaty, colorful design that is sure to grab eyeballs. A clip on the back lets you strap the Pl8ty to your waist, and it even comes outfitted with retro-esque controls like actual playback buttons, a volume knob, a headphone jack (for a private listening experience – provided you still use wired headphones), and even an aux-in so you can connect the speaker directly to a synth, your desktop, or even your vinyl player. It sports a USB-C in to charge the internal 3200mAh battery, and a USB-A out to connect the Pl8ty to other devices as an external charger.

The Pl8ty has a uniquely appealing way of being both old-world yet modern. It embraces what’s good about both eras, in a device that you’re sure to love if you’re a retro-fanatic, or anyone who’s a millennial or older. It works like your conventional Bluetooth speaker, but packs more oomph with an 85db power rating and offers stunning clarity thanks to a wide frequency range. The fact that it even functions as a power-bank for your devices is just icing on the cake! Moreover, it also embraces the old-world joy of listening to music in the 80-90s. The overall aesthetic, pocket clip, and the opening cassette lid are absolutely iconic retro-details, and that headphone jack is a feature that celebrates a golden bygone era. Even the fact that you can slip your smartphone into the speaker (as if it was a cassette) for detox purposes, seems like a very clever touch that helps complete the Walkman experience while also reducing your screen time. So go ahead, belt out some Lionel Ritchie or Wham! and reminisce about the good old days, because heaven knows we need it right now!

Designer: Pl8ty

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $196 (45% off). Hurry, less than 12 hours left!

Pl8ty – Radical, Portable Bluetooth Speaker

Design inspired by the iconic cassette players of the 80’s, the Pl8ty is an external Bluetooth 5.0 speaker for your smartphone complete with controls and a 3200mAh power-bank.

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $196 (45% off). Hurry, less than 12 hours left!

Traditional Styling, Modern Technology

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With mobile phones, mp3 players and music streaming services being so readily available now, they quickly forced Cassette Players to become a thing of the past and merely a piece of history. But there are some things that I find charming about the cassette player; from its truthful design through to the limited functionality that forced us to be selective about what we wanted to listen to, it is a device that I miss.

Pal is the music player that brings back all our old memories! It retains the boxy aesthetic of the Traditional Cassette Player while allowing for a more up-to-date listening experience. Contained in the sections where the batteries would usually be housed is a set of Bluetooth headphones, electronic ink is used to display the name of the playlist as opposed to the Biro that we used to use and the traditional array of buttons is still present, but now carry a far sleeker design.

Designer: Minho Lee

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Fisher-Price Boombox Ready to Bring the Noise

If you grew up in the ’80s, you might remember this classic Fisher-Price toy – a cassette player designed for just for kids. It was build from chunky, nearly indestructible plastic, and had big buttons on top for its basic functions. It also had terrible, tinny sound, but that’s no longer a problem thanks to HiFi Luggage.

These guys mod everything from suitcases to lunchboxes with high quality amplifiers and speakers, and for this build, they pimped out one of the aforementioned Fisher-Price cassette players and turned it into a boombox.

It’s now got 20 watts of digital amplification, a rechargeable 8 hour battery, and packs a two 3″ woofers, two 1.5″ passive radiators, and two 1.5″ speakers up front. The whole case has been sealed for optimal acoustics, and it’s been designed to kick out some serious volume for its size. Simply connect your device via Bluetooth, and you’ll be rocking today’s tunes on this classic ’80s relic.

Sadly, it no longer plays cassette tapes, which is a bit of a bummer, but as you can see, there really wasn’t any room inside to keep the mechanism. The LED-illuminated Bell Biv Devoe cassette has been permanently sealed inside. Still, it’s a pretty awesome build, but also quite pricey at $595. Check it out over on Etsy.