Metal Flywheels in a $35 Cassette Player

[@mashy712]

Watching YT at 3am. “Metal flywheel in a cassette tape player”

[@heywhatisnext]

Nice! Thanks for watching.

[@Truly_XOXO]

i literally just ordered this and then your video popped up! thanks for the info couldnt find any decnt reviews on this model

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for the comment. I hope you enjoy it.

[@diegosilang4823]

I am amazed, a $25 cassette player have working auto reverse, unlike premium ones such as We as Rewind and FIIO with forward playback only. The wow and flutter can be reduced if you use a higher quality slightly thinner belts.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching and the comment.

[@SinaFarhat]

Nice! One major downside with the modern cassette players is no dolby encoding as dolby stopped licensing out that technology.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching and the comment. Yes, I totally agree that no Dolby encoding is a bummer.

[@miroslawkaras7710]

To test wow and flatter you do not need special prerecorded tape. Just record the tone on tape and play and check the wow and flatter. Whatever number you get just divide by 2.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching and the feedback.

[@jonidoe4732]

Interesting; I wonder what the carriage in it is. I know a lot of the new Walkmans have the exact same basic one in them. I’ve just today finished refurbishing an old Sanyo for daily use listening to taped DJ mixes.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Very cool to read about the refurbished Sanyo. Yes, the mechanism in my cassette player looks like all the others outside of the metal wheels.

[@DJNeiloSF]

Usually those pulleys are made of brass not copper. Traditionally heavier pulleys have been used to stabilize the speed ad and wow and flutter.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching and the comment.

[@fins59]

I'm looking to buy a good modern portable cassette player so liked this video and will be very interested if you compare the different brands that are available now and especially if you compare them with a classic Walkman/Panasonic/Teac etc.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Sounds like a good idea. Stay tuned.

[@zoomosis]

For the price it's not bad and will do the job for digitising a few old cassettes, but anyone serious about preserving audio quality from an old tape will be using an actual cassette deck and a USB audio interface. It's not very often these days that people need to do that though. There's obviously not much need for digitising a cassette of Van Halen's OU812 when you can stream it or buy it on CD. The novelty of cassette's limited audio quality wears off pretty quickly.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Totally agree.

[@bubexpress5435]

can you make a video on the fiio cp13 it's the best new walkman style cassette player you can buy and vwestlife also did a video on this

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching, and I’ll try my best.

[@WayneGerald1776]

Oh, you mean that large, impractical, box'ish, ugly old Soviet Union style cassette player without a hip/belt clip? ;P

[@jayglenn837]

It's such a pity that Dolby isn't licensing its noise reduction anymore.

[@heywhatisnext]

I totally agree. You’d think it would be easy money for Dolby. Thanks for watching.

[@dazbatch2532]

Copper looks like brass but I’ll take your word for it that it is copper

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. That’s what it stated in the Amazon listing, so take that with a grain of salt. Even the Fiio cassette player webpage shows similar looking flywheels.

[@montynorth3009]

Can you hear much motor noise over headphones when the volume is turned fully up?

[@heywhatisnext]

Hi, Monty, and thanks for watching. I just did a test and there is a noticeable motor noise hum. While music is playing it’s not bad. I did compare the noise with another portable tape deck, and that one didn’t have the motor noise. I’ll try to post a short on this so you can hear for yourself.

[@heywhatisnext]

I just posted a KZbin short on the motor noise, if you’re interested.

[@johnmelechi]

The point of this video is to obscure details of the product with nice blues music

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for the comment.

[@joelcarrillo3515]

I got one and it doesn’t work the heads don’t spin

[@heywhatisnext]

Sorry to read about that. Can you return it? Thanks for watching

[@henrikgustav2294]

These are $18 in asia

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching and the info.

[@trsmith2442]

Sure looks like brass not copper.

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Several viewers commented on this. Going to try the magnet test, but either way, having metal flywheels can’t hurt :-)

[@trsmith2442]

@@heywhatisnext Very true. Btw I don't think a magnet test will tell you anything about copper vs brass since both aren't magnetic.

[@heywhatisnext]

@@trsmith2442 Duh! I should have known better. Thanks for the clarification.

[@ccooper2654]

Brass

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Yep, you’re probably right.

[@jakeflo8477]

doesn't look like copper, it's more likely brass.. but who cares what flywheels are made of?!

[@heywhatisnext]

Thanks for watching. Yes, you’re probably right on the brass. As far as why this is important, most inexpensive cassette players use plastic wheels which produce poor audio, specifically with wow and flutter. VWestLife did a video about this a while ago with the current crop of cassette decks.

[@zoomosis]

Heavier flywheels should reduce wow and flutter by levelling-out any imperfections in the rest of the drive system, notably in the belt.

[@Juliuswwss]

​@zoomosis If balanced..