👩🏾‍🤝‍👨🏼 🤽🏿 😱 Antiquities: the second life of the cassette portable 🛌 🗽 🎐

2003 year. I make a voyage to the well-known to many small wholesale electronics store in Moscow, spread out cash for a CD / MP3 player. I take a portable cassette with me: do not ride the subway in silence. Without leaving the store I open the box, insert a self-written CD - ten hours of music - and on the way back I enjoy digital sound, without noise, vibration, distortion, jammed tape, perfect! I put away the old player in the distant box, I throw the bag with cassettes in the same place. My personal era of audio cassettes is ending, but in 2018 there is a renaissance . Why, why? First of all, because of nostalgia for bygone times, but also with the aim of studying outdated technologies, in more detail than was possible in the nineties.

The portable cassette player in my life was the first device with which I myself decided which music to listen to. In combination with a home tape recorder, this was also a way of expressing oneself - by creating collections of your favorite music, recording from a radio and a microphone. The computer, which finally liberated my creativity, appeared later. Now it’s probably hard to understand: think, listen to the music you want ... Take a smartphone and listen! But in the early nineties, when even the music radio in my province was the only one, it was a revolution.

The victim of the revolution was the sound quality. Alas, even if you try to make a compact audio cassette player now, you have to make compromises: in this technique, size matters, and reducing the diameter of tonal, gears and rollers, cutting the power supply of the amplifier, you will inevitably lose the sound quality. Therefore, unlike my first publication, where we listened to music well, today we will listen to it rather poorly. This post is about obsolete technologies that have been growing since pre-computer times, warm tube sound and pleasant memories of youth, diluted with objective measurements and graphs.

I keep a diary of a collector of old pieces of iron in a Telegram . Digitized recordings from all five players are posted in the channel , if you are interested in comparing.

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The birth of personal audio

Unlike reel tape recorders and vinyl players, cassette technology was moderately compact from the start. Already in the late sixties, portable recorders known as shoebox appeared at the very start of the format for a perfect match in size with a small shoe box.

It was a portable, but not a personal technique, and focused on recording voice rather than listening to music. Really personal cassette players became in the late seventies. Last year, the fortieth anniversary of the first Sony Walkman portable player, the 1979 TPS-L2, was celebrated after the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

The player was hardly placed in a large pocket, and its creators still did not fully understand what they had created, and tried to build some kind of socialization. Two headphone outputs for listening together. The remnants of the recording circuit from the neighboring model were adapted for listening to what is happening outside, or, as they wrote in Billboard magazine , for negotiations between listeners without turning off the music (why?). Over the next 10 years, the technology for the production of compact cassette players settled down: they learned to make them no larger than cassettes, and in one case they even managed to make the device smaller than the media. All the most legendary portable players were released then. The problem is that I successfully missed them: progress reached my village very late.

So big that the first cassette device appeared in our family in 1987, and before that, vinyl and bobbins ruled. And it was not portable at all, but a hefty multi-kilogram conventionally portable radio tape recorder Riga-110 . This review is also devoted to "mediocre" devices, such a holiday of begging. I’ll write about the “topic” separately. The first attempt to equip me with a personal audio player was made by my parents in 1990 with the help of the International player, in fact, a typical representative of the Chinese noone.

Picture from the Internet, my copy is not preserved. I’ll share my belated advice: the larger the word “Stereo” is displayed on the case, the higher the probability that the player is monaural. It was the simplest apparatus, able to play tapes or rewind them forward. There was no rewinding - turn over the cassette or use the environment-friendly method of rewinding with a ballpoint pen.

The biggest problem was the lack of infrastructure, namely, the availability of only Soviet AA salt batteries, from which the device worked for about ten minutes. And half an hour at half speed. Do not care, I was ready to listen to him even so, it was so cool. Even before the advent of the personal computer, this was the first device with which I myself could decide which content to use. I could create my own recordings with my home recorder, and was no longer dependent on households who wanted to listen to something else, or on a radio DJ.

The most interesting thing is that this primitive set of parts turned out to be the most tenacious. Truly cool portable players are a thing of the past, but such a basic one lives on, even though now buy with delivery from China. Even if you want to do something better, it won’t work, because the mechanism for creating a cassette recorder is now being released alone. With minor modifications, it goes to both desktop devices and portable ones. Last year, the “renaissance” of the portable was widely discussed, when someone raised money on Kickstarter and releasedportable cassette with Bluetooth module for connecting modern headphones. Do not be fooled, by its characteristics this device is incredibly dull. Like my “international” thirty years ago, it is monophonic. Is that the batteries over the past time have become much better and more affordable. Such is the vicious circle of technical imperfection.

The first figure. Sony WM-FX153

I’ll start the review of my devices with a slightly higher-quality Sony cassette player, very similar to my first “normal” player, purchased at the end of 1994. Before that, I suffered by wearing a huge Chinese cassette with radio and speaker, weighing a kilogram on my belt. Sony WM-FX153 is a slightly more modern model of 1996 of release (hereinafter the dates are approximate, taken from service manuals). It has almost everything that a teenager from the nineties needs to dive into a personal musical nirvana. Relatively compact size: fits in a jacket pocket. Built-in radio: when tired of listening to a limited set of cassettes, or if the batteries are low, the radio will work for another 2-3 hours on the remaining charge. Bass Boost: Compensate for the poor performance of the bundled headphones. In my original player there was also an auto reverse:no need to turn the cartridge over manually.

The autoreverse in the FX153 is also structurally incorporated: pay attention to the two tonals connected to the motor with a drive belt. The player is assembled without the use of screw ~~nails~~ , the body halves are fastened with plastic snaps, disassembling it is a whole story. Inside, everything is very simple: capstan, a set of gears, plastic traction from the buttons, putting the gears in the right position for playback and rewind. The simplest hitchhiking mechanism ... and that's all. I disassembled the player to find out why sometimes there is no sound in the left earphone, but it turned out that this is not a bug, but the norm. It seems that the plastic mechanism that has been relaxed from the factory requires a “squeezing” of the play button, and then everything works correctly.

Most of the adjustments on the board are responsible for tuning the radio; for a cassette, there is only one tuning resistor: playback speed. In the mid-nineties, the big advantage of a similar player was the availability of two nickel-cadmium batteries and an external charger. The player with batteries honestly served me for almost four years, until the mechanism failed from almost everyday use. In the modern collection, WM-FX153 is one of two players that did not require any maintenance. It was presented by a colleague, the player was clearly exploited a lot, judging by the scars on the case, but he is still alive and does not plan to give up. Its main drawback is the ringing from the motor, penetrating into the headphones and clearly audible at a low volume level.

An important advantage of such players was the presence of a built-in clip for wearing on a belt. Alas, these plastic things broke very quickly: I tore it off on my Walkman it seems on the third day of operation. I tried to put it on glue, to restore the flimsy fastening with a soldering iron, but in vain. My grandfather solved the problem in 1997, who built at my request a steel clothespin. The clip was riveted to the body, and they promised me that she would survive the player itself - and it happened.

The second figure. Sony WM-FX491

Let's move on to the most modern player in the collection - the Sony WM-FX491 2000 model. I bought this copy new, in a box and with stickers on the case. This player looks much more fashionable than the FX153, but do not let the appearance fool you. By design, it is not much different from the older device - it is still a budget model.

The main difference was the electronic control of the playback and the radio. The case is still held in place by latches, but reinforced with two screws. The cassette mechanism has become a little more complicated: in the FX153 you bring the reading head and roller to the tape by pressing the play button, here the swing gear is responsible for this. Depending on the direction of rotation of the motor, we either activate the playback mode or switch the operation modes. This player has auto-reverse, which means that you need to switch between pairs of read heads, depending on which side the tape is rewound. The mechanical switch on the board is responsible for this, and auto-stop and reverse are activated using an optical sensor: it monitors the rotation of one of the rollers. If the rotation has stopped (the tape has run out in the cartridge or it is jammed), you need to stop playback or switch to the other side, depending on the settings.

There are no switches on the case: all settings are set by buttons on the front panel, current modes are displayed on the screen. The radio frequency is displayed there, it is possible to memorize several radio stations and tune in to them a little faster. Nearly 20 years of storage did not benefit from a thin drive belt: it had to be changed, otherwise the knock during playback went off scale. After service, the parameters turned out to be worse than the older WM-FX153. In a cassette portable it often happens that the more primitive the design, the better the player works. But there is no noise from the motor during playback.

The third figure. Aiwa PX447

This 1995 player is the most usable in my collection. Everything works, there was one malfunction and it was introduced by previous owners - they screwed a long screw into the case, which did not allow to close the lid. One of the two in my collection of real thin players, the dream of a teenager from the nineties. What ensured compact dimensions, a little more than a cassette? First of all, they refused to supply the head to the player.

The structure is fixed, only pressure rollers are pressed against the tonals in turn, to change the direction of movement. The assembly of the head and rollers is tightly screwed to the lid and opens with it: insert the cassette, close it and two microscopic tonawls fall into place. This is a simple but extremely convenient player that easily fits even in your jeans pocket. Its only drawback is the use of AAA batteries. The most useless feature: a mechanical switch of predefined equalizer modes, which in any position except Flat reduces the sound quality from acceptable to disgusting.

The fourth figure. Panasonic RQ-SX33

Most of all 25 years ago I dreamed of a similar player. Alas, I saw this only with one successful classmate at school, but I did not own it. Functionally, this is the top cassette portable. Touch control, auto reverse, wired remote control, so that you do not need to get the device out of your pocket. Metal case, chic appearance.

In Panasonic, another feature previously unknown to me was discovered: the lid folds when opened and thus ensures the most convenient cassette hit the player.

In 2020, these are all dubious benefits. Maximum compactness here was provided by the transition to gumstick flat batteries (NH-14WM). You can buy them, but you also need specialized charging. The main thing: the player’s operating voltage is not three volts, but one and a half, or rather, 1.2V battery. The motor runs from one battery, the tape rotates, the signal amplifies, the headphone amplifier works. In general, it is necessary to prioritize and quality sound is not always put in the first place.

Add to this a terrible detonation, noticeable to the naked ~~eye with the~~ ear, despite the outwardly excellent condition of the player, they obviously did not use it much. Disassembling the player to replace the drive belt was a whole story. Definitely this is the most complex mechanism of all the players in my collection. Here, both the optical sensor that I knew from FX491, and the solenoid that switches the player's operating modes, there are sensors for automatically selecting the type of tape. Another way to reduce the thickness of the mechanism is to solder the motor and sensors to the board. To replace the belt, you need to unsolder these contacts and carefully remove the board, without damaging the thin ribbon cable from the playback head. When assembling, you need to check the position of the reverse switch, otherwise it can easily be broken.

This is a reliable and serviced design: no plastic fasteners, everything is assembled on screws, as tightly as possible and without play. Replacing the belt reduced the detonation by half, but still the most fashionable player showed the worst result. Perhaps this is due to the state of the pressure rollers, but most likely it is simply a consequence of miniaturization where it is harmful. As a result, the SX33 remains a museum exhibit: it works, but does not please. I really can’t even use the remote control, since the regular headphones are tightly screwed to it, but you can’t connect your own ones (you can directly to the player). This is an excellent 1995 cassette portable, but in 2020 I have different priorities. I prefer to use the largest player. Here it is:

The figure is the last. Sony WM-DD22

The best player in the selection and at the same time the oldest: 1988. One of the cheapest players in the DD series is that it is sometimes incorrectly decoded as Direct Drive. This is actually Disc Drive, and here's why:

The player’s motor is located perpendicular to the capstan, and is pressed to it through a rubber ring. Thus, the motor is connected without the use of straps: the drive belt here transmits torque only for winding the tape. He was a little tired in 32 years, but enough to rewind and play it. Non-standard mechanics, first proposed by Sony in the very beginning of the eighties, is a triumph of minimalism. A pair of plastic rods, one pin to turn on the motor, one gear to rewind the tape in one of two directions.

The disadvantage is clear: large sizes. But in this case it is more likely an advantage: the pinch roller is not microscopic here, but almost corresponds to the dimensions in stationary equipment. A large capstan ensures uniformity of the tape drive, and a knock coefficient worthy for any cartridge technology. There are three switches on the case: type of tape, bass boost, never used volume limiting system. Alas, the headphone output power here is the same as in more compact devices. In more expensive models of the WM-DD series, they used a more complicated circuit, and the quality there is higher. But here, nothing happened and worse.

Unscientific parameter measurement

How can you compare the cassette portable with each other, not by ear, but somehow more precisely? Using the reference cassette, I determined the knock coefficient for each device, measured the deviation from the “correct” speed. I had low requirements for portable equipment in both parameters: detonation within 0.15% is difficult to notice by ear, it is also difficult to recognize a small discrepancy in playback speed. I used the RMAA program to measure playback parameters, and I probably did it the last time. There are standard methods for measuring sound quality for magnetic recordings that are not followed in RMAA. But for an approximate comparison is enough. Here's what happened:

I chose three parameters for comparison: uniformity of the amplitude-frequency characteristic (reproducing a sinusoidal signal of the same level, but changing the frequency from 20 to 20,000 hertz, measuring the output signal level), non-linear distortion coefficient (reproducing the signal with a frequency of 1 kHz maximum level, measuring the level signal components that are not in the original recording) and the noise level (we can’t play anything, we measure the noise of the tape and the device itself). The RMAA test signal was recorded on the second type of tape on a stationary more or less well tuned cassette deck - this is probably the maximum quality carrier for a portable.

Here's what happened. I approximately measured the frequency range that each device is capable of reproducing, within ± 3 dB, the table shows the lower and upper boundaries, added the results of measurements of the detonation coefficient, THD and noise level. You can compare the results between different players, and also between them and a stationary device of obviously higher quality. The table is available here.. In general, the players showed approximately the same average quality result. It became clear that in WM-FX153 it is desirable to adjust the position of the playback head, and the preferred WM-DD22 generates a lot of distortion. All players were measured at maximum volume, which is not entirely honest: at a typical average level, the noise volume will be much higher. Panasonic RQ-SX33 showed the most even frequency response, but in reality its sound is still not happy due to the high detonation.

Everything except WM-FX153 performed “satisfactorily” on real sound material, and most likely he “devoured” all high frequencies due to incorrect azimuth.

Great and terrible Megabass

One way or another, bass enhancement is present in all players except WM-DD22. In the nineties, it was an important feature that made the sound of a rather dull technique as well as headphones with modest characteristics a little more fun. Now that musical purism is in fashion, Mega Bass seems redundant, even in retro-engineering. Indeed, modern headphones are a cut above everything that was available for a small budget a quarter of a century ago. But the point is not only to “rock”. Let's take a look at the Sony WM-FX153 measurements:

The white graph is without upgraders, there is noticeably an almost complete absence of high frequencies. Green graph - measurements with Mega Bass at maximum volume. Blue - at 50% volume. It is important to measure this way, because the low-frequency gain depends on the volume - the quieter the more bass, and vice versa. At the usual volume level, the range of approximately 50 to 170 Hz is “amplified” by 5 decibels. But there is also an increase in the high-frequency range, and it turns out that with Mega Bass the Sony player shows a much more even frequency response than without it. That is, the developers of the cassette portable thus compensated for poorly recorded tapes, and partly the effect of an incorrectly installed read head. Indeed, with the "megabyte" this player sounds more powerful and not at all sad, in contrast to the "correct" playback mode.True, at medium volume, motor noise and a simple gain circuit are clearly noticeable. Look at the measurements of the noise level below: in the pauses between tracks in your headphones, all the disadvantages of this cheap device will be clearly visible. Disgusting!

The most vivid “cassette” memory I had was somewhere in 1996, when in winter, at a terrible time, I needed to meet a relative at the station. Winter, the nineties in the yard, a crowd of people at a public transport stop, illuminated only by the headlights of cars and the moon. A trolley bus full of wheels polishes ice streaks on the road with wheels, inside there is ghostly warmth from the breath of people and a thick layer of ice on the windows, with round holes, to observe the situation outside: almost a spaceship in open space. It would be a rather gloomy memory, but I settled down comfortably on someone's back, turned on the tape recorder and created for myself in the midst of personal and social chaos a small island of heat.

I listened to tapes since 1987 in 2003, it turns out that for all my life I listened to digital sound and “warm tube” about the same time. The slightly chewed (literally and figuratively) cassette sound was firmly imprinted in memory: it does not seem to me flawed (although yes), it is rather a correctly tuned soundtrack of my youth. If you analyze thousands of hours of music that I’ve listened to in my whole life, two-thirds will be on a cassette, and on a portable one - it just so happened that the heyday of magnetic recording fell on my youth, when there was more free time, and the desire to listen to my favorite artists was striving to infinity. So it was: the battery charge was enough for about six to seven hours, and almost every evening they were discharged to zero. For 9 years, I “ground” two Sony players to the base,and finished this historical topic with the simplest Aiwa cassette, thick, without reverse, but with a radio. Alas, all the artifacts of the past were lost, and this is partly why for a couple of years I collected several more devices in the collection, although I do not need so much. In 2020, I make a conscious choice and continue to listen to music on cassettes. Not because they sound better (this is not so), but for continuity, so that there would be some kind of constancy in my chaotic life. I plan to talk further about cassette technology: next in line are high-quality stationary devices and really cool (and not how it turned out in this post) portable devices.In 2020, I make a conscious choice and continue to listen to music on cassettes. Not because they sound better (this is not so), but for continuity, so that there would be some kind of constancy in my chaotic life. I plan to talk further about cassette technology: next in line are high-quality stationary devices and really cool (and not how it turned out in this post) portable devices.In 2020, I make a conscious choice and continue to listen to music on cassettes. Not because they sound better (this is not so), but for continuity, so that there would be some kind of constancy in my chaotic life. I plan to talk further about cassette technology: next in line are high-quality stationary devices and really cool (and not how it turned out in this post) portable devices.

Antiquities: the second life of the cassette portable