Why are cassette and CD players so bulky now? [video]

20 points by marcher 6 months ago | 28 comments
  • vr46 6 months ago
    It turns out that streamed music isn’t an artefact in neither format nor artistic integrity. The underlying tracks found in streaming are subject to change, and they may also be different to those on the original album. But my 1987 CD will always be 1987 songs.

    My kid gets this, he hears it, and to my surprise he’s playing all my records. And some he’s bought himself. He doesn’t mind turning a record over, or walking to the stereo, or listening to a side in full. He’s making his own memories and his own associations, it turns out that it’s more powerful for him with something he holds in his hands.

    The sequencing and timing between tracks turns out to be crucial too. Too many songs on streaming are split or stutter when they’re supposed to segue smoothly into one another, or the single version appears as an album track and sounds weird, or there’s a different delay between two songs everyone. It breaks the rhythm, even the one you can’t hear.

    • onemoresoop 6 months ago
      Hightly agree but this is far from mainstream opinion. The majority of people flock to streaming for convenience and have no idea nor care what’s superior in quality.
      • vr46 6 months ago
        Of course, but tapes are niche too, right? I'm kinda optimistic, because the influence of people who care is outsize, they're always being asked what equipment is good by their friends, so maybe more people will start to care.

        One problem is finding music that is recorded well-enough to enjoy in better quality. I was listening through my Mojo 2 earlier, and enjoying the last Radiohead album from 2016, it was fabulous in every aspect. But then, on the other hand, put on Arlo Parks Collapsed in Sunbeams, which sounded terrible in comparison. You can't really tell on streaming!

    • Pigalowda 6 months ago
      I couldn’t watch much of that video but what was the answer? I had no idea people were buying retro stuff like that. Is the size for style and lifestyle signaling like the way hipster types used to have type writers and fixie bikes?
      • 6SixTy 6 months ago
        Cost. These "new" products are doing the bare minimum needed turning extant mechanisms into a product, than make bespoke tooling for a specific performance envelope.

        Cassettes are definitely a hipster kind of thing, CDs aren't as they are pretty much the only way you can have music digitally without having it taken from you. Pretty much nobody that buys CDs actually plays them regularly, they just rip it at home and use that instead.

        • ikerrin1 6 months ago
          I’m of the opinion that you should have a cassette deck for music that never made it to CD or if they did didn’t make it to streaming. Some bands only released on cassette. True I digitize those sometimes. Also, since cassettes are two bucks a pop, it is a very affordable way to listen to music from the 90s and 80s. There is a whole different sample of music that you see in a cassette bin than that you see in CD bin. It’s older music.

          I’ve got a great cassette deck as part of my stereo so it sounds great. I definitely don’t listen to it on a Walkman though.

          I’m a big fan of Sarah Harmer and her first band, the Saddletramps, only released two cassettes and they didn’t release CDs. That only happened with her next band. I think this is a common occurrence for bands of the 80s and 90s.

          I grant you that this is a fringe obsession that most people wouldn’t care about.

        • bsder 6 months ago
          Because it would take engineering development project amounts of money.

          And these products are merely fashion statement marketing reskins and there isn't enough money available to do that.

          • konstancja 6 months ago
            TLDR; there's only a few manufacturers making the underlying hardware as these are now niche low volume products.

            The engineering and manufacturing skill that went into producing Sony's smallest walkmen isn't particularly well reflected in the single design coming out of China right now.

            • likeabatterycar 6 months ago
              If everyone is using the same low quality Chinese internal mechanism, why would customers pay top dollar for a boutique device when you can get an equivalent unit for $30?

              It brings to mind Tom Hanks on SNL in the 90s as the Israeli shopkeeper saying his knockoff products all have 'Sony guts'.

          • prvc 6 months ago
            Why would playback speed become uniformly slower "due to age" (cf. their WM-FS397 test)?
            • movedx 6 months ago
              I grew up with cassettes, CDs, and MiniDisc (and floppy discs and using a file splitter to spread large files over multiple disks... risky business!) I never want to go back to that because the impact on the environment is just too high. All that plastic which, eventually, will end up on a landfill.

              As much as I hate the fact a publisher can pull music from Apple Music in an instant, it's rare and the benefit is instant streaming with little impact on the environment. No impact if I've already got the track downloaded.

              • likeabatterycar 6 months ago
                Little plastic discs are killing the Earth but building massive datacenters which require continuous power, cooling, and other resources, not to mention all the intermediate network transport - whether or not they're being used, all for the sake of convenience - is little impact?

                A CD requires no power sitting on your shelf unplayed. The same as cups and dishes sitting in a cupboard. If the threat to the environment is as real as you say, consider pouring food directly into your hands.

                • movedx 6 months ago
                  Those DCs and those cables are serving PBs of traffic from music to movies to emails to gaming and way way way way more. Your CD provides access too one form of data in one format and eventually ends up on a landfill.

                  Are you really this blind?

                  • ericd 6 months ago
                    Plastic in a landfill and carbon dioxide in the air are two very different forms of environmental damage, even though they frequently get lumped into the same catchall, and only the latter has the potential to be a civilization-ender, so most people mostly care about that.
                • m463 6 months ago
                  But cassettes, CDs and MiniDiscs replaced expensive traveling musicians, burning petrochemicals to drive a bus from one gig to the next.

                  Sort of how coal mining and oil drilling saved whales from extinction by replacing whale oil.

                  • movedx 6 months ago
                    And how do MP3s and streaming services NOT do that? Putting aide the fact they also don’t require a physical plastic product to be produced and shipped and then eventually end up on a land fill.
                    • ikerrin1 6 months ago
                      It becomes an issue when you think of the electricity source of your power generation. Clearly storing and listening to MP3s in green electricity jurisdictions like Ontario and Quebec is better than using plastic because computers are powered by nuclear and hydro power. But in Ohio and places with coal electricity generation, you should forgo recorded music altogether and only listen to live accustic music in well lit buildings that don’t require electricity.

                      Yes I am joking.

                  • creer 6 months ago
                    These supports shouldn't be necessary anymore, no contest - while the reality of it, etc... But why do you think CDs, of all things, are such a high impact on the environment?
                    • movedx 6 months ago
                      Go look at the number of CDs and cassettes that ended up on landfills.

                      Now show me the number of MP3s that ended up on landfills.

                      • creer 6 months ago
                        How are these CDs that ended up in landfills a high impact on the environment?
                    • whycome 6 months ago
                      Rare? It’s subjective. Spotify will keep showing tracks in playlists if they aren’t available. I have quite a few with grey/missing tracks. Sometimes they come back. But it’s incredibly annoying to have tracks you’ve played many times suddenly become unplayable. That’s not possible with a CD.
                      • movedx 6 months ago
                        It’s not possible with an MP3, neither. How many MP3s end up on landfills compared to CDs and cassettes?
                        • whycome 6 months ago
                          mp3s are starting to turn up at the bottom of the ocean too
                      • movedx 6 months ago
                        I cannot believe the amount of people missing the point entirely, and actually stating that datacenter(s) and the global Internet backbones are worse for the environment than the literal MILLIONS of physical plastic discs that reach landfills every year since inception.

                        Incredible.

                        • likeabatterycar 6 months ago
                          Maybe they're smart enough to realize a MILLION CDs stacked floor to ceiling occupy the space of a restroom handicapped stall. An amount of trash so inconsequential it's not even worth discussing, and delusional to think it's remotely a problem.

                          Yes, datacenter(s) and the global Internet backbones are worse for the environment than a single dumpster's worth of trash per year.