- Gadhouse announces its new Miko portable cassette player
- Modern features in a retro chassis
- As digital detoxing continues apace (especially in music), it makes sense
First, the hipsters came for vinyl. Then, the hipsters came for CDs. And for the last few years, hipsters have been reaching a little further back in time to reclaim the humble analog cassette player, showing that until wax cylinders are back in common use again, they won’t rest up.
In the last year or so we’ve seen Barbie-colored players which come with pencils to re-spool your tape, FiiO-built Walkman mimics with modern features, and even boomboxes which will let you create mix cassettes like you’re listening to the Sunday night charts again. And now audio maker Gadhouse has an option which looks like a certain strain of retro tech.
This new item is the Miko Cassette Player, selling for just $99 / £59 (about AU$120). It’s available to buy on its own right now, but there’s an option that bundles the Miko player with some Gadhouse headphones set to arrive by the end of the month.
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As you can gather, the Miko plays cassettes, but it has a few modern features too. It can output to headphones via Bluetooth 5.3, record from a cassette, let you record via a microphone (so like an old-school dictaphone) and plug in to charge via USB-C (or do it the old way, via two AA batteries).
According to the brand, the Miko was designed to evoke the design of Japanese tech between 1985-1995, and it does give off that retro-tech, vaguely Sony Walkman vibe.
Ca-settle in, there’s more
As someone who frequents second-hand stores — aka thrift stores, aka charity shops — it’s not hard to find countless CDs for sale and plenty of records too. According to a source who works at a charity shop, far too many of these are donated all the time, and many get destroyed as there’s very little demand.
What I don’t see often is cassettes, although my audio editor tells me that outside of the UK’s capital that’s changing drastically. Hipsters can readily get their hands on the other physical media mediums making a comeback, but it’s sometimes hard to see how (or why) they’d pick up these potentially fiddly, slightly hissy and warm-sounding things. Maybe it’s the reassuring cluh-clunk of loading them into the slot and shutting the door, or the rewarding feel of depressing actual, mechanical buttons?
The fact of the matter is that more and more companies are releasing cassette music players; it sometimes feels like we’re in the noughties again because of how many are joining the market. I recently tested an MP3 player and wrote about how I still use my iPod Classic; I’m part of the growing wave of people like my audio editor (whose digital detox continues), ditching music streaming for more old-school solutions.
Partly there’s the nostalgia factor for this kind of old tech, but a lot more of the push is a rejection of rapidly-worsening subscription entertainment. I believe a certain sweary word was coined to describe the problem — and you’ll find no AI-slop on a cassette album. It does feel like everyone seemingly hates modern tech right now, no?
And I get it. When trying to entertain yourself online right now, you’re subjected to rising prices of services, worsening features, advertising everywhere (even in things; this summer’s tentpole blockbuster is a two-and-a-half-hour space-set Skittles commercial), and gallons of AI slop that are enough to put you off these services. And what do you get for rising subscription costs? Companies seemingly squandering it on more AI nonsense and the nagging feeling that the bands you love are getting squeezed more and more.
So it’s easy to see why people are returning to OG media ownership. Physical ownership of your CDs/records/cassettes (as well as the tech on which to play them) and enjoying them on your own terms can seem better than paying ever-increasing costs for a streaming service that feels like it’s giving you less and less.
While a resurgence in cassettes and their portable players still feels like a quite-bonkers turn for the mid-2020s, I can at least understand why it’s happening.
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tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)
