Tapes & CDs are BACK! - NINM Lab Cassette and CD Players

[@tyrgoossens]

If I learned anything from Techmoan it's that there's basically one cassette-mech design left and it's not very good compared to its heyday.

[@mephistovonfaust]

Preach the words of our Techmoan and teacher, brother!

[@zouyan]

Yup. And the remaining mechanism is so bulky compared to what was available in the 80s and 90s.

[@jub8891]

youtubers like techmoan and vwestlife are much better for content on vintage tech.. this channel is just plain awful in comparison..

[@Drunken_Horse]

And the heyday was pretty poor to begin with. There's a reason why everyone hung on to vinyl well into the cassette years and abandoned cassettes pretty much as soon as CDs came around.

[@CPPRODUCTIONS1001]

@@jub8891 Nice to see Vwestlife getting some love

[@Alfadrottning86]

According to Techmoan .. when you see this little "spring" in the mechanism .. it is evident that this is one of the "last/later" mechanisms that is of one of the lowest quality. This one has the spring.

[@TechieZeddie]

All the modern cassette players use this Tanishin designed mechanism now because that's all we have left. Cassette mechs from even the 2000s were more complex but this Tanishin design was used in budget walkmans of the 90s-present. It's basic but robust (if they use metal parts and not plastic). Again, this is just a design. You can use whatever materials for the parts. Cheap plastic or all metals, or a hybrid. The head also plays a huge part, and the flywheel being metal not plastic (more weight means lower wow and flutter - speed wobbly thing).

[@CPPRODUCTIONS1001]

Its a shame the majority of these use cheap mechanisms with poor quality.

[@Zephyrus88PL]

As soon as I saw this cassette player, I knew they used the worst mechanics available on the market.

[@theseob]

Quality could be better if they use a metal flywheel instead of a plastic one.

[@forrest225]

Unfortunately the same thing is happening with film photography. Everything new coming out is pretty much trash.

[@ApashePelican]

​@Zephyrus88PL it's not like they're trying to be cheap, it's just that, that tech simply doesn't exist anymore. That's why a lot of née cassette players are so big and bad

[@siemrienmeijer5909]

@@Zephyrus88PL I mean yeah, there's basically only one cassette mechanism still left today if you as a company don't want to pour a lot of money in R&D to make something better.

[@toddlower5546]

First off, I'm old. But I still remember loosing all of my music from iTunes when they randomly closed my account. That makes me like having a physical copy of my music.

[@How_to_Pronounce]

Feel free to download any song you want and save it to a flash drive.

[@SimonBauer7]

mp3 is the perfect middle ground. no anoying streaming, but also no physical media.

[@timschulz9563]

​@@SimonBauer7 For archiving music use FLAC, storage is cheap nowadays. But yes, digital files are the best way to listen to music.

[@zenkiz33]

Same thing happened to me but when google stopped selling music. Such a shame.

[@EkiToji]

@@SimonBauer7 MP3 bitrate tends to be pretty low and you really want FLAC if you want a solid copy.

[@markbradshaw1193]

Make the clear Screwdriver. This is a demand.

[@leoncioferreira570]

they tried to 3d print it I think, linus or one of the other bearded white guys had one, but said that because of the material, little cracks showed up at the edges.

[@rescuebox7]

Clear resins usually have to make mechanical property compromises to truly be clear. :(

[@iDotGenius]

I remember they had a raelly beautiful working prototype, but if you ever drop it, it would shatter to a million pieces.. but if they make one, i must have it

[@tjhrulz]

Atomic Purple variant or the little bag gets it. _Holds up LTT Commuter backpack with the blade of a JerryRigEverything knife pressed against it_

[@DreuScuhDoo]

Absolutely

[@infinitytec]

This is the appeal of CDs: -High-quality digital audio (maybe not lossless but not everything needs to be lossless) -You can rip it and put it on your own computer music library/server -A huge back-catalog that you can get second-hand

[@Cyrax89721]

What do you mean by "maybe not lossless" ? CD's are compiled using lossless WAV files and I doubt any mastering technicians are ripping albums from MP3 to then convert to disc.

[@Timelessplays]

Nothing stated here can’t be done batter with a good sail of the high seas

[@greenblack6552]

@@Timelessplays I am fully with you. Sealing the seas accomplishes the same for less effort.

[@PercyPanleo]

@@Timelessplays Sometimes the rips you can get that way are lossy files converted into lossless formats And sometimes you'll have an artist who's entire discography is just nonexistent on the high seas (This is coincidentally the case for a lot of the albums I own on CD)

[@PercyPanleo]

@@Cyrax89721 My guess is that they got high-res and lossless confused

[@NEOREV_MUSIC]

Why I own CDs? Multiple albums that I love have had tracks removed from streaming services due to copyright BS, even though the songs are 20-30 years old. Plus there loads of music not available digitally. Always good to have a hard copy. I still buy CDs, especially Japanese CDs with bonus material. Another issue is streaming services replacing original masters with brickwalled subpar remasters.

[@dnoodspodu1159]

Plus the older the CD is the higher the probability is it was not a part of loudness war On streaming services you get an approximation of how songs should sound like

[@destinal_in_reality]

So rip them?

[@NEOREV_MUSIC]

@@destinal_in_reality Well, yeah, of course. But you still gotta own the CD to rip it.

[@kill95]

Rip your CDs before they rot away

[@ledocteur7701]

@@NEOREV_MUSIC You can also rip them from the streaming service downloads, it's less straight forward but significantly cheaper than buying CDs, and the sound quality is most often better than on CD (depending on the streaming service).

[@baleavitt]

"You'll get the tapey thing effect." Ah yes, that constant hissing sound we all missed not at all ever

[@fredsas12]

That's why a good tape deck / player has Dolby NR

[@AxR558]

There's only one tape effect that I miss and that is the joy of a slightly stretched tape (Queen's Greatest Hits Vol 1 in my case). Random key and tempo shifts down are hilarious, although annoying if you're not in the mood for a comedy version of Seven Seas...

[@ilovefunnyamv2nd]

saw a post that someone actually missed that, and that music didn't sound right when it didn't have all that distortion. Imagine audiophiles spending thousands on vaporwear like gold plated monster cables and isolation power cleaners, but they refuse to listen to a clean source because they're purists XD

[@rolux4853]

@@ilovefunnyamv2ndaudiophiles passionately hate cassettes. They usually cling to Vinyl and high quality lossless audio these days. Some very quality minded people get real real to real machines and get studio master tapes. Those are super rare and prohibitively expensive however.

[@natewillardmusic]

CD collecting has become my favorite. I still collect vinyl but CDs are the perfect thing to collect imo. You can find random hidden gems and build a collection of music for pretty cheap at thrift stores.

[@Wanooknox]

And they're rippable into digital, so you can play the music from them on any Android or iPhone. Making the collection you build something that can be used anywhere, and without subscription. I really enjoy the aspect of having my collection of music, that's just mine.

[@Magusguile]

Yeah, finding cheap treasure is one of the nice things about being into a dying format, lol. Used CDs are still all over the place and I've found some of the best stuff that I've been searching for on the used clearance section!

[@igorokinamujika2073]

Plus there are some CD special editions that can't be legally found in other formats. Well, at least that's quite common with soundtracks.

[@stakesishigh8443]

I had a 2000+ CD collection. Started collecting vinyl 15 years ago and eventually sold the CDs I had on vinyl. About 800CDs. I’m currently rebuying those CDs and selling the records. It’s just more convenient and nostalgic for me.

[@Magusguile]

@stakesishigh8443 Yeah, I appreciate the bigger artwork and aesthetic of vinyl, but they are bigger and more pricey than I prefer

[@HotshotMC]

Pausing to comment, CDs are the only fucking format worth collecting for music if you actually want to listen to them in a flexible way. You can play them on a CD player obviously, but more importantly you can easily rip them and load them onto your devices to listen to. On top of that if you don't have stable internet or don't want to pay for streaming services, CD is the best format since you can skip around. On top of all that they are reasonably small and cheap to make so you won't pay an arm and a leg for them most of the time. Records are probably the best in terms of displaying the art, but I think the benefits of CD far out way records in terms of collecting. Buying CDs is the same as buying movies or shows, as media gets taken down and moved around on all sorts of streaming platforms. So if you like a piece of art, it's best to actually buy it so you have access to it whenever you want.

[@nevmiku]

Dude, the main point is why are you still keeping CDs around after ripping them. Once you've ripped them, chuck the tracks onto a USB stick and make backups for forever storage. Or are you saying you can't rewind tracks on a USB stick offline and how a USB stick is supposedly not as small of a form factor as a CD? There is no reason to collect CDs once you've ripped them as the resulting quality, being digital, will be the same. The same can't be said for tape or vinyl, but definitely can be said for CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and other digital formats. CD is that digital format and that's why a lot of people don't really have the care to keep them forever when you can do the same thing on a 18TB HDD.

[@otiskujawa]

CD contains raw digital uncompressed audio. So most of the time they are only way to get best quality audio. Vinyl is not perfect audio because of how it works, and tape is magnetic so it also is susceptible to quality loss. CDs are cheap, easy to play, better quality than almost all streaming services, widely avaliable, easy to archive and are often only way to listen to some songs. I need to start building my CD collection

[@aussiegarbo752]

Up The CDS!!

[@garynagle3093]

I buy used cds rip them them to my pc then push to my devices like iPhone or plex media server. Then store the cd in a box. Never lose it to the whims of a streaming service. Have it for ever

[@bfreitas456]

@@otiskujawa Ripping your CD to WAV files will keep it a "raw digital uncompressed audio". There is no real convenience to CDs, just get a Tidal subscription and you will have a near infinite collection of "raw digital uncompressed audio". Don't want to depend on their service to keep you collection? Rip it from Tidal! CDs are a waste of time and resource, and I have a huge (mostly already ripped) collecting from when they were relevant, I'm just not that nostalgic

[@Operator_San]

they looks like prison tech

[@nanaki-seto]

my thoughts exactly 10 to 1 odds most of it is exactly that you can find this same stuff all over ebay and at thrift stores other than the big one the tape deck i have actually seen before at a thrift store same ports and all about 5 years ago now. Al they have done is taken their overstock prison tape decks and re branded them because now prisoners can get tablets i found one of those as well it was left out in the rain and as it was locked down but would power on but you could not do any thing with it i tried to destroy it and it took some doing i never seen a screen so damn well protected lol i hit the thing with a ball pean hammer and it took a fair number of hits to break

[@JamieWarrenUK]

Was looking for this exact comment

[@electricspider2267]

Clearly

[@JamieWarrenUK]

@@electricspider2267 nice!

[@mikewifak]

My 12 year old son is obsessed with cassettes, CDs, and old AM/FM radios. He loves video games, but doesn’t seem to care or be aware of when things came out. I can’t really get him excited about like current-generation consoles or PC games. He plays Spore a lot. I always expected to not understand my kids, but this is not the way I thought it would go.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

current gen console games and PC games are complete garbage (if they exist at all, looking at you Playstation 5), the gaming industry is going through a crash like back in the day. If he likes older games, he is probably just normal.

[@Verchiel_]

Can't fault you, at the end of the day people will generalize ignoring nuance (usually justified) Crazy to think but not every child grows up the same and has the same exact brain. Happy your kid doesn't sound like the norm if you will.

[@xBrokenMirror2010x]

What's there not to understand? The physical components of older technology make them a whole lot more interesting. Unlike modern devices which are just little inert black boxes that spit out magic, the old technology does something, it has physical components you can watch work and interfere with and you can develop a sort of intuition about, as well as wonder how they work. Such things aren't there for inert sealed magic boxes. Which one of us who grew up with AM/FM Radios or CD players didn't once poke a spinning CD to see what would happen, or mess with an antennae to see if we can get a better signal or make it all fuzzy? These are things that aren't present on the newer devices. When a video game came out doesn't matter at all. A video game is good or it isn't. When it was created doesn't effect this at all. Stuff like Spore are timeless masterpieces, no game before or after spore has ever been able to capture even a fraction of what spore was. Spore itself is an incredibly impressive game, even today. I'm not surprised that new games can't hook him, you got him hooked on one of the most unique games ever created. If Spore is the kind of game he really likes, there is no replacement for it, Spore is the only Spore-Like game ever created, all attempts to make a Spore-Clone failed. Well, it's also my bias showing a bit, I'd probably say that Spore is the 4th best (Singleplayer/co-op) game ever created, with the top 3 being Terraria, Fallout New Vegas, and Slay the Spire, in that order.

[@RebrandSoon0000]

Your son is very intelligent for sure. I too prefer physical media or control over my media. Streaming services are a pita and too many of them now to get everything. Plus physical medias gives you extras, like the ability to hold your media in your hands, see artwork, display it, collect it, etc.

[@axelfiedel3793]

​@@RebrandSoon0000 ever since I was in Middle School I always wanted to get into tape but it wasn't until my job at Walgreens that I got into tape.

[@DeadxReckon]

The appeal to CD's explained: It's crisp clear perfect transfer of the music. It's physical and yours to keep forever. Buy CD's, Rip CD's, Store CD's to protect your collection.

[@K61r]

Wouldn't say crisp and clear when talking about CDs ngl ???

[@sunk3rn]

Exactly! The Best way to legally have physical music, no degradation on play unlike vinyl and tapes and most CDs are perfectly good in terms of quality for most people.

[@RADkate]

disk rot is a thing ~

[@sunk3rn]

@@RADkate Yes, which is unlikely, but a valid fear nonetheless. If you really care you can back them up 100s of times without it impacting the state, unlike the analog formats

[@brandonhoover2120]

And CD cases have cool art works printed for the collecting aesthetic.

[@Blackbirddc]

CDs have the benefit of having high quality audio that you OWN. And the art that comes with them. It's the best medium IMHO.

[@mephistovonfaust]

150€ for the tape player... Are you kidding me? I'm certain it has the same crappy cassette read head that any other shitty modern cassette player has. I'm not into cassettes, not have been for a long long time but even I can see that this is a 50€ product for 150€.

[@hooskermente]

Did you see like 1500 hundred for the kit here? Insane!

[@jeffl.9633]

I figure a third of that is paying for the bluetooth receiver cassette, and of course versions of that are sold as separate products.

[@johndoecake]

look up how much HIFI tape deks cost even new

[@bierschiss3562]

150 $ is a complete ripoff. For the same amount, you can get a pretty decent vintage tapedeck with all the bells and whistles like three heads, dual capstans, quarz lock, direct drive, Dolby B and C and so on. Basically any tape mechanism from the 70s until the 90s from one of the major brands is better than the garbage shown in the video. People give such tapedecks away for a few bucks, sometimes even for free. You will have much more fun with one of those. There is no point in buying a modern tape deck. They're mostly a gimmick, use the same mechanism from Tanashin and lack any but the most basic functions

[@marcogenovesi8570]

I can get real (old) tape decks for that price

[@richardstephens]

CDs can often be the only way to acquire a high quality DRM free copy of a song

[@carlospcpro]

CD makes sense. High quality, small, good aesthetics. Tape is just nostalgia

[@ajnikstudio]

Fully agree, bought the CD player featured in this video a while back, very happy with my CD music collection.

[@rollingtroll]

Tape sounds better than CD if you use it right. It's just that no one did. Happy to send you comparisons so you can decide what's tape, and what's the digital source.

[@glujaz]

@@rollingtrollno, tape Will never sound better then CD, and this is objective. And CD is always going to be exactly the same and perfect, and the digital format used make them at best of what an ear can get. A tape will be exactly the same at best, with more frequencies, but you will not be able to hear them. However, it will get all the imperfection of the tape. Tapes can sound almost as good with specific types of tapes and deck though. This I agree.

[@rollingtroll]

@@glujaz It will only be the same if you record CD quality to it. There's much higher quality digital (and analog) sound than CD. Has been for decades, but with storage being cheaper it's now become viable.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@rollingtroll get out. You might like more the sound of tape and you might not have the equipment to hear the difference, but no consumer tape gets anywhere close a CD

[@NativeFlorida]

CD's are awesome. Now I have still have vinyl's from the late 80's and early 90's using a Techniques sl1200 MK2 from that same era which I love. However, vinyls you have to watch what pressing you have while with CD's it does not matter. CD's are also still physical so no need for internet, as a native Floridian and been through more hurricanes than I can care to remember, you can have power and still no internet access or even cell phone service. No problem still can listen to music.

[@titivermeesch]

The bluetooth tape can also be very handy for old cars that don't have bluetooth built in but do have a tape player. Quality is probably better than using one of those funky bluetooth to FM emitters

[@yaboibanana33]

Many moons ago I had a cassette adapter thing with an aux cable coming out of it that worked this way, it was dope.

[@Bratfalken]

​@@yaboibanana33I had one, used it for my first CD player, an portable one. Used it in my car, but the autoreverse got mad and kept switching sides. So I highjacket the FM leads to the amplifier in the car stereo. Leading that out to a two eay double switch where I could choose FM or an audio in to which I attached the portable CD player.

[@HearMeLearn]

I personally did the ltt video thing where you just take out the stereo and put in an aftermarket carplay one and that is significantly better than all of the other solutions but to be fair it was a good amount of work and not everyone wants to do something like that

[@gundoxcrit1652]

@@HearMeLearnI’ve thought about doing the replace thing in my 03 matrix but it’s just like, no amount of listening to music for my 10 minute drives is gonna make that worth it imo

[@HearMeLearn]

@@gundoxcrit1652 it's also about having the apple maps on your dash whenever you need to go somewhere that isn't a usual spot, and taking and receiving calls and texts while you're driving is way more convenient that way

[@lochverus8005]

Maybe they are clear for the prison population where that is required and the tape and CD players are still quite common

[@peterwroot]

Speaking as someone with quite a sizeable collection of both tapes and CDs: Tapes? They're a novelty. I like physical stuff, they're pretty cheap, and recording your own tapes is a fun exercise. You gotta get the old gear though - as many commenters have already said - the mechanisms in modern tape players are rubbish. CDs? The BEST way to collect music, hands down. Dirt cheap on the second hand market, nearly indestructible, and lossless quality. Buying lossless (iTunes doesn't count) digital music online is not always cost effective. Bandcamp is pretty good but Qobuz etc is often more expensive than CD.

[@takisk.7698]

Idk man, a hard drive seems like the best way to me by far if you actually plan to listen to it.. cds are like a physical backup to me but not very accessible

[@raynjpg]

I mean, CDs aren't "lossless." Disk rot exists. Obviously, it's avoidable as long as you store them properly, but "lossless" is not an accurate description.

[@peterwroot]

@@raynjpg Disk rot does not make a CD lossy - it's about the lack of compression. Sure, disk rot will destroy a CD, but that's a different matter.

[@peterwroot]

@@takisk.7698 This is true, but it doesn't invalidate my comment - my bad, I didn't mention it. Ripping CD's to get lossless audio files is the best way to build your music collection.

[@takisk.7698]

@@raynjpg when we say lossless we are talking about compression and cd is a kind of lossless format so that definitely is an accurate description.. we didn't say it's indestructible

[@savagemadman2054]

CDs are great - tapes not so much. It's more about owning physical media that you keep rather than renting from some service. Unfortunately the quality of the modern players is cheap garbage or high end exotics with nothing in the middle.

[@SimonBauer7]

mp3/wav/flac files that you just Download/rip to your device would Like to have a word with you...

[@Pasi123]

@@SimonBauer7 Do mp3/wav/flac files come with nice physical artwork?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@Pasi123 do you care about nice physical artwork?

[@purplewastaken]

@@Pasi123 the ones i downloaded got the artwork saved as a .png

[@vertitis]

@@SimonBauer7 Mp3 doesn't belong in your argument.

[@user-vn9ld2ce1s]

Quality-wise, CDs are actually great - it's uncompressed audio, technically it's better audio quality than what you'll get on youtube, spotify, etc.

[@fritsmolenaar05]

I love my CD's I've got a B&O Ouverture especially for them. They are vastly better quality than streaming anyway

[@LRM12o8]

CDs are the best format, he's delulu!

[@themidnightbandwidth]

@10:10 for someone who still listens to American Idiot daily, thank you for seeing me Mark.

[@kadirbeneathmomoteh854]

The amount of Dan trolling in this video is incredible

[@RNGwhydoihavetoregis]

meanwhile Dan is unknowingly a victim of "digital dust" /s

[@Sarutaru06]

I'm ashamed to admit I got out of buying CDs. I wish I hadn't stopped because they offer the same benefit to me now that they always used to: a physical backup of music I loved. You'd buy them to support the artist directly, rip them to the computer, and then burn a copy that you wouldn't mind getting damaged to use in the car (and I'm old/cheap enough to have needed an AUX-to-tape adapter to plug my walkman into my first Oldsmobile). If I had been more deliberate about it, I would still have the same capabilities with multiplied storage on my phone rather than being reliant on Spotify. Oh well. Live and learn I guess.

[@theseob]

CD’s are great because of the good sound quality. If a streaming service drops your favorite artist, you loose your tracks. With cd’s you still have access to your music. You can digitize them and have your own digital library.

[@LRM12o8]

CDs are the best physical format for audio quality, apart from exotic fornats that are hard to get, like SA-CD or early open reel tapes. I don't understand how he can say sonethibg so stupid things about CD.

[@thefinaldegree]

Music tracks on most commercial CDs were only 128kbps (maybe 256kbps if lucky) and last time I checked streaming services run around 320kbps? HOWEVER, the great thing about CDs is it's digital, so you could store music in a lossless format, but I recall CDs like that being relatively rarely sold

[@oatymilkshake]

Give it 10 years people will be stumbling to buy old high quality CD players. Best to pick up a couple now. The market is already full of cheap crappy ones.

[@Pasi123]

@@thefinaldegree You must be thinking of the less common MP3 CDs. Normal CDs are 1411kbps

[@thefinaldegree]

@@Pasi123 that would give you around 8 minutes (496 seconds) of playback with a standard non-overburnt 700MB (700,000 KiB) disc - hardly a full album, and out of my collection of from-music-store discs never had such a high bitrate.

[@shinysky8119]

8:30 I don't care I only have a CD player in my car so leave me and my CD collection alone (also cd juke-boxes are cool and way more practical and way cheaper than vinyl ones)

[@iansterling9589]

There's a reason why Cassette tapes pretty much faded into obscurity, so I have zero nostalgia for the format. I do, however, have about 1000 music CDs in my collection; I do like having my media in hardcopy.

[@Circl3s]

CDs are good not because they're fancy or hip, but because they're good. I usually listen to my music on KZbin or free Spotify. I finally got some of my favourite music on CDs. The first time I listened to it on my 1993 Discman I cried, the difference in quality is that noticeable. We're really evolving backwards...

[@miguelsojo3376]

FLAC is even better than CD, you also have things like Gerbera and Airsonic for streaming inside your house or to the internet...

[@Waffls]

I remember reading that the fat PS1 was an amazing CD player. If I wanted a tape player I'd go to Goodwill to look for one. Over $100 is insane.

[@sturdybutter]

Oh, hi Mark.

[@GavinandthePiano]

Highly underrated comment

[@Mrmayhembsc]

Whoop Glad to see CD coming back :D. I never stopped buying them !!!! To answer dan. For me the reason why I love CDs are: 1. The format size (makes storage so much easier) 2. The physical nature 3. I own the media 4. The cost (far cheaper then Vinyl) and easier to care for. 5. Sound quaity is good. And yeah I still use streaming lol.

[@michaelnobody8015]

The look on Dan's face when he realizes that yes the CD player can pair to the bluetooth speaker on the tape player at 11:02. :-)

[@SumitRaj-tk6iw]

this the comment I was looking for.

[@labman472011]

Dan's excitement when Mark suggested to bluetooth the CD player to the cassette was great @ 11:03

[@TweeterOP]

08:22 they are coming for you dan

[@jarstal]

I'll be honest. I still collect CDs because it is the only way to make sure I actually can listen to my music whenever I want to. Jarstal

[@DragonHide94]

CD is not a dead format.

[@Drunken_Horse]

Technically it is, CDs are virtually worthless and mahor manufacturers aren't making audiophile CD players. Good chance its on the start of a boom like retro gaming had though.

[@DragonHide94]

@Drunken_Horse because most use of CDs is ripping the files rather than directly using the CD for each listening. It allows the user to choose the quality and size of their audio files rather than being stuck with whatever mp3 you get from an online service. Unless you go to an audiophile based service and buy high quality flacs for several times the cost of CD which is itself higher quality than the mp3s you can get for the same price. Sometimes CD is actually cheaper and from Amazon directly it frequently has Autorip, so I get both.

[@LRM12o8]

@Drunken_Horse Maybe that's because nobody needs an "audiophile" CD player? Just get any old CD player with a digital output and let your HiFi receiver handle the digital to analog conversion, then it doesn't matter AT ALL how good or bad the electronics of the CD player are, as long as it reads the 1's and 0's without error. 💁 And yeah, you must be really drunk if you think CDs are worthless.

[@bepbepimmashep]

I like CDs but they’re dead, why even argue that?

[@DragonHide94]

@@bepbepimmashep because they aren't dead.

[@davekrassi]

The appeal of cds is the combination of the ease of use and widespread compatibility of digital audio with the benefit of having a hard copy that you own, as supposed to streaming where your favourite song or show just dissappears after some time

[@jalipeno97]

i will not tolerate the cd slander as an avid cd collector: 1-) the physical ownership 2-) the ease of transfer to digital formats like flac 3-) compact size means you can store more in less space than vinyl 4-) you still get all of-if not more than-the inserts you would with a vinyl release 5-) the format itself doesnt alter the sound in any way, digital audio is the closest you can get to the master short of having the tapes themselves 6-) most music is mastered on computers nowadays, so the argument of an analogue format via vinyl/tape doesnt mean as much as the audio must be sampled first

[@user-Cata7sti7ma7]

CD had the poorest audio quality in the 80-90 early 2000. Extremely low-fidelity and some albums are literally mono sound. Stereo happened wayyyy later.

[@jalipeno97]

@user-Cata7sti7ma7 cd audio doesnt just "get better" over time, the redbook standard specifies that pressed compact discs must be mastered in 44.1khz@16bit or forego the official "compact disc digital audio" branding. stereo audio was also part of the format from the beginning, with mono discs being formatted with audio data only in one channel with the other being silent. this is all easily available information so maybe read a bit before you say things that arent true

[@LRM12o8]

7-) Playing your favorite CDs on repeat over and over does not degrade, the quality will always remain as perfect as on day one 8-) Even a faulty playback device has a near-zero risk of damaging or destroying your CD. There's no moving part that can scratch up your CD (the laser moves parallel to the CD) and no electromagnet that could accidentally erase your CD. Also, argument #6 is nonsense anyway as far as the recording and editing, mixing and mastering is concerned, because digital systems do these steps much more faithfully than analog can ever be and don't introduce flaws, like even the best analog tech does. The point can only reasonably be made about the performance of the music: - Programmed instruments are obviously no match to real instruments played by a real musician - E-drums are obviously no match to an acoustic drumset (however, it's quite difficult for amateurs and semi-pro's to cleanly record an acoustic set, hence e-drums might be preferrable at this stage) and the same probably goes for e-pianos - Digital modelling guitar amps can't match the smoothness and complexity of analog tube amps, a difference that is notable to trained ears. The same probably goes for analog synthesizers versus digital synths, but I'm not familiar with synth music, I just know what the analog and the digital instruments used look like

[@xK3v]

but.. after point 2-) transfering everything to a digital format. why would i keep the CD around? I can backup the flac file, so i will never lose it. Why keep the cd? i still own the file physically, a drive containing all my FLACs takes up way less space than any amount of CDs, and the sound is perfect. Don't get me wrong, i own plenty of CDs, but ever since ripping them i never used them

[@jalipeno97]

@xK3v i like the collectability of them as well as their versatility. its a perfect middle ground imo

[@WagudCode]

I’ve heard Sony said they lost their designs to the machines that made the walkmans so they can’t truly recreate them anymore.

[@rainingblood304]

I don't understand Dan's hatred of CDs. Streaming sucks, you pay monthly to own nothing, and at worse quality. As far as I know, there are no digital music storefronts that let you download high bitrate formats besides Bandcamp, and they definitely don't have everything. So what are you supposed to do if you want high quality rips of albums?

[@Lonewolf_121]

What do you do? You don't... CD is not high quality at all so ripping from them gives you shit quality with extra steps

[@Razorbun]

@@Lonewolf_121Cd is way better quality than streaming, what are you talking about?

[@videofilmer8]

@rainingblood304 Look at Qobuz. High Res streaming and option to buy and download music.

[@xBrokenMirror2010x]

I don't think you understand it. It's not a hatred of CDs. It's a "Why would you play the music file off the CD directly?" Just rip the CD and play the music file? Like, everyone here who is "Pro CD" always mentions "ripping the CD anyway." and I think that's exactly his point. Why keep the data on the CD and play it off the CD using a dedicated device to play media off of CDs, when you can rip the files off the CD and use the files?

[@EightPieceBox]

They both have their place. You pay monthly to take whatever you want that is currently in the record store.

[@MajorMokoto]

Dan forgetting that CD's come with art/lyrics. Which is a pretty big draw for me. I want digital sound. But a good reason to buy CD's over cassettes if you are not after the sound, is for the art the CD comes with.

[@cruzdesangre2850]

You collect CDs because you care about their high quality in comparison to streaming I collect CDs because I like having a piece of art that represents my favourite artists and I'm too poor to pay for vinyls We are not the same

[@theshadowman1398]

I would never pick vinyl over CD. Vinyl is an utterly uncomfortable format.

[@RebrandSoon0000]

@@theshadowman1398 Vinyl is great for artwork, special record designs, and PHYSICALLY HOLDING YOUR MEDIA. Can you HOLD your spotify album?

[@theshadowman1398]

@ No I can’t. But I am not in to streaming at all. I am fully in to CD

[@pitdoctor]

As someone in my mid 40s, it's baffling to me that people are choosing to buy tapes. I was happy to switch from Tapes to CD in the early 90s. And I was even more glad to digitize things in the early '00s.

[@DoctorPotassium]

My new favourite thing is Dan calling Limb Bizkit kingdom hearts

[@alfwok]

He also confused Creed with Creep the Radiohead song. Referred to Dark Side of the Moon as "woke" because the rainbow. And said Aqua was "one of his favorites." I think this level of troll is going over most people's heads and I love it.

[@Metal_Maxine]

@@alfwok It reminds me of the "data hoarders" episode where he misnames all of David's consoles.

[@Northeast_progeny]

With CD's I own a physical copy and the album art is great to look through. When I really love and care about an album, the album art and presentation is the full experience.

[@ChubiPanda]

I feel like physical media is making a come back in response to the increasing "you'll own nothing and like it" trend companies are pushing.

[@beesleep23]

that CD player is awesome. i ripped all my CDs ages ago but just playing a CD start to finish would be encouraged when an actual CD.

[@MajorMokoto]

Crazy you guys did a video on this. I just recently started buying CD's again. Not because I pine for the day of having to load disk, not scratch them, not lose them, store the physical and digital aspect of it. But because I'm sick of the corpo overloads removing my music from services I PAY FOR. I want to know I'll be able to listen to my favorite songs in 25 yrs without having to have 3 different paid music services to listen to them, or pirate them.

[@civilizedsasquatch6722]

I think the reason people are going back to the older forms of music playback is two things. One is the tactile of the buttons and the device themselves. Two, the knowledge that they own the media can not be revoked like all forms of digital media can be.

[@RebrandSoon0000]

I prefer the old formats, you could FEEL the music, literally.

[@lukehess2360]

The point of those little portable tape decks was NOT for recording, especially for memos. They were specifically so you could take your music on the go, a la The Walkman from Sony. There were specific portable tape recorders for voice memos, and they used micro tapes.

[@Max_Mustermann]

Despite having grown up with cassettes and walkmans, I don't really miss the format to be honest. It's fiddly and there are just too many variables that affect the sound. CDs are much better and it is a nice way of having your music in a tangible format with booklets, etc. Also, the only way of getting a decent tape player nowadays is getting a vintage one.

[@jakethetank99]

Honestly the reason why CDs are becoming popular again is mostly because people are learning that streaming isnt as good as everyone thought it would be. so everyones going back to owning physical media. Though honestly i would suggest getting a late 2000s sony boombox, like the Sony CFD-S70. This was when sony still made quality audio producs. and theyre avaliable for under 100 bucks off ebay or you can find one at a thrift store like I did. Even came with a free Selena cassette still in the deck lmao.

[@RabbiKrieg]

Man, I'm in my mid thirties and its funny thinking back as I grew up, and started really listening to music, I had a Walkman(tape) for about a year and was super stoked when I got a CD Walkman especially with anti-skip, had that a few years and then burning your own mix cd's was huge for a moment, and then MP3 players dropped along with the ipod(s) and eventually the Zune(no one remembers the zune). Just funny how much I saw portable music explode, with the death of tapes, and CD's and it all sort of coming back around again.

[@Luvutoo]

an argument for CDs- i can easily copy them to my computer so i always have access to my music without the need of a platform at a higher quality than the average streaming service. Apple took away one of my all time favorite albums off stores which initially i thought was fine except my PURCHASED album was also removed off all of my devices. $80USD later and a few days of waiting for it to be shipped from Japan, and now i always collect CDs whenever i like an album and it's significantly easier to maintain than other physical formats.

[@roguevariable8367]

$50, $50, and $30 at most. Ideally $20 a pop. Those prices are nuts

[@funsession9002]

3:49 so out of pocket😂😂😂

[@Xn7000]

CD is the best form factor to ACTUALLY own your music. High recording quality, easy to digitally back up, small storage footprint. No revocable licence or proprietary software.

[@JohnneyleeRollins]

i love other not-riley guys reviews

[@OgLatinoHeat]

haha facts

[@BollingHolt]

CDs are back... they never really completely left!

[@Psychoker]

12:49 Sorry but 1120 bucks for micro usb b WTF ? what are we 2015 ?

[@fortyfukinseven]

$100+ 😮 what? Thats insane. A walkman was like $20 back in the day. I have a hard time believing it scales with inflation.

[@imamwary]

08:46 "I can't CD appeal of CDs"

[@janchiskitchen2720]

I still use CD's because - I own them and I am happy.

[@briangoldrich1860]

More Dan and Mark doing things with technology please.

[@klassicneo]

I also found out that buying these are a modern and more modular solution to playing music now, so I can buy separate bookshelf/bluetooth speakers knowing I can still replace each of them whenever I want Also Dan, there's a reason why the Japanese music industry is still into CDs as a physical medium

[@ps5426]

CDs are still good..... just don't bring back 8-Track.

[@Soundwave142]

I agree. They do have a level of convenience especially when you make your own mix. Just pop the disc in and hit play. Real hand for when you are in a car.

[@jfolz]

Oh, you can be sure that someone will attempt to bring back just about any audio format to cash in on nostalgia. There's enough suckers out there who will buy any cheap crap for outrageous prices. They might be memeing, but Dan and Mark seem to like this pile of garbage.

[@Mbro-dq2do]

All id want this for is to digitize old tapes from my childhood. recording of family back in the 80's. If your computer can read it as a USB or drive

[@Wanooknox]

14:27 Do you collect tapes? CDs? Nuts? 🥜

[@MacUser2-il2cx]

I love that music artists are still making cassettes and CDs. Now i have something new to collect. :D

[@u1f98a]

5:07, I was not expecting to hear the actual song, but as someone who has listened to said album, that is a very questionable simulation of Billie Eilish's music

[@GeorgReh]

bro really puts the senior in senior editor

[@branhicks]

$150 bucks is outrageous!

[@KREKTECH]

Did Dan call Limp Bizkit Kingdom Hearts? That is a collab I never knew I wanted

[@Ciaanh]

Sony must bring back MiniDisc

[@rollingtroll]

It sounds worse than cassette, there's really no point anymore :)

[@theshadowman1398]

@@rollingtroll Whaaat ? In which universe does minidisc sounds worse than a cassette ?

[@rollingtroll]

@ every. It's severely compressed audio that is these days overtaken by mp3. Cassette sounds absolutely beautiful if you know how to use it. Unfortunately most people don't. Happy to make two files for you, one from md one from tape and you can tell me which is which 😁

[@EM_vi_ix]

And relaunch Morbius in theaters.

[@RebrandSoon0000]

I loved the format, but hated their locked down format protocol.

[@cabebishop]

The benefit is that you actually own the music, when you subscribe to streaming services, they reserve the right to take away music at their discretion.

[@muzlee7479]

You can buy music online.

[@RebrandSoon0000]

@@muzlee7479 Can you hold the music? Physically store it on a shelf? No.

[@muzlee7479]

@@RebrandSoon0000 I can put a harddrive on the shelf. And I don't even need to dedicate my entire shelf space to cds. I collected DVDs but then I realized I never use them because streaming or downloading is much easier. So now I only have a couple of nice looking ones out. Same with cds. Can't listen to CDs on the go, can't make playlists... CDs are just collectible stuff. No actual use today. Kinda like the novelty of getting vinyls

[@TweeterOP]

01:02 Thats what she said!!!!

[@kameoosama]

Yeah I've been buying a few tapes recently but they're more for lookin' at -- like I'll go for these artists on Bandcamp that do really small print run cassettes with art printed on the shells that look really nice and then play it occasionally but listen to the FLAC files usually. I'm kinda the same with records, so if I want a physical copy of an album and actually want to listen to it regularly, CDs are usually the way to go.

[@savagepro9060]

Us Older Generation: "We had CDs" New Generations: "Ah yes, we see these"

[@reggiep75]

Us Older Generations: We can keep our CDs until the day we day we die and rip them to any format we choose and at any bit rate.

[@unknown_-ed2rs]

CDs give you the "hehe physical media" feeling while also being usable digitally, and the quality is very good

[@18earendil]

Now, the Bluetooth Cassette seems nice. On their website they seems to say that the casette is compatible with other casette players. Eg you can use them to turn old players into bluetooth players.

[@TheQuinn50]

yea its like the old 3.5mm adapter ones, it's just a write head writing to the read head on the player quite ingenious and was always amazed that it works.

[@MetalMan1245]

I would argue that cd is the best of these formats because it's not analogue, it sounds far better than vinyl or tape while still being a physical medium.

[@LuchoZuca]

Being an 80s kid, something quickly comes to mind: - It's missing a ballpen stand-in so you don't take playtime out of the thing wasting battery rewinding tapes. - When the pulleys in those mechanisms start giving out after continuous use, then dem cool kids will have the full 80s experience 😁

[@eruno_]

CDs are still incredibly popular in Japan for listening to music

[@HandyAndyTechTips]

If you'd ever listened to a properly mastered '80s or '90s CD and compared it to the brickwalled master on streaming, you wouldn't say that CDs were a "dumb thing to collect". In fact, following the Universal vault fire - where heaps of original master tapes were destroyed - the original CDs are probably the best source available for many classic albums.

[@VELI-Productions]

It’s funny because cds are like the only retro format that makes sense to own to me imo. No degradation on play, most of the time lossless quality, can be easily transferred to digital, don’t have to depend on a digital storefront for allowing me to download music I have bought from them suddenly closing down, there is still novelty to putting a cd into a player.

[@mikepodorski4272]

Dude! All the CD hate. CDs are coming back for good reasons. You own the physical media, you have to stream lossless to get similar quality, they are more robust than vinyl, and are very affordable compared to vinyl (for now).

[@hikkamorii]

>affordable compared to vinyl (for now) if anything, if they go mainstream again, they'd be cheaper (ignoring collector's editions of course, but that's not even relevant.)

[@canderson7776]

If you think CD's are coming back I have a bridge to sell you

[@hikkamorii]

@@canderson7776 Why not? There aren't many alternatives if you want to buy music in high fidelity.

[@mikepodorski4272]

@canderson7776 CD sales were up last year for the first time in a long time. Tons of credible audiophiles are jumping on the band wagon. You can buy a $30 Blu-ray player and a $80 SMSL DAC and have super high-quality sound output. It's way more safe to buy and ship CDs vs vinyl. You get the liner note experience like vinyl. And all for about 1/3 the cost for a new CD vs vinyl. I love vinyl as well, but it's time has come.

[@swinehorde9118]

I think that what you guys may be missing about the appeal of CD and tape with younger Gens is that it solves the issue of ownership/access without the high cost of entry and inconvenience of vinyl. Edit. it was a bit strange for me to witness a man who looks like an archetypical 90s computer nerd not recognize the Walkman clone for what it is and confuse it with a Dictaphone.

[@Infinite_Ouroboros]

I genuinely hope they make a massive comeback because i'm sick of seeing the garbage Tanashin mechs on every modern player. I repair and collect old Walkman's and despite some of them being up to 40 years old, they still sound better than anything offered today. I run the Sony TC D5M for recording tapes, the Sony WM D6C as my Desktop player and the Sony WM EX677 as my portable unit. Ive got around 20 different Walkman's in my collection but those are the 3 are the best to me.

[@roku_nine]

Walkman sounds better?? What kind of crazy shit are you smokin? Share some of them with us! 😂

[@Infinite_Ouroboros]

@roku_nine What are you smoking? Im obviously talking in context about them being better than any semi portable cassette unit they have nowadays. Never said they are better than full-size home theatre decks or even other media types. We are rewind, Fiio CP13, any modern portable cassette player, loses in all aspects to any maintained mid-high range walkman like the ones I listed.

[@zcon]

CDs are great for little kids. My 3 year old daughter LOVES her CD player and CDs

[@TerminalWorld]

CDs are the only reasonable format as far as physical ones go.

[@bahamutbbob]

1:21 Dan is correct, I would have bought one, I don't care if it looks "perfect" I just want a clear screwdriver...

[@nathanddrews]

If China wants to impress me with "new old tech" that will be in a landfill next month, at least bring back something worthwhile like a new line of CRT displays.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

monitor-grade CRTs are actually hard to make so china isn't even trying

[@frenzy07_]

No one wants to fund high quality niche stuff that isn't making much profits

[@RebrandSoon0000]

@@marcogenovesi8570 My Grandfather had a Hitachi High Resolution TV / Monitor which was 32" back in the 80s, good times.

[@schmolson611]

As an early 2000s kid, CDs are super nostalgic.

[@tengelgeer]

Heyyyyy Dan, that's unfair! The whole thing I collect CD's is that it IS a digital format (for the quality) but a physical form. That way I can actually buy it, I can own it and because it's real only, little risk of loosing it (damage, bitflip, rotting etc). And it "forces" you to just listen to an album front to back without interruption and no random picked song afterwards "you might want to hear next". And yeah, I rip all my CD's to have them in digital form as well without the need for a random streaming service for more day to day listening.

[@paulhartman5683]

I don’t miss the look everything had back in the 2000s.

[@QEin1786]

I am so fed up with music streaming services. I enjoy picking a band I'm feeling and shuffling all of their songs, but these services will shuffle you their top 20 songs and that's it, no deep cuts. I am nostalgic for how I used to consume music but I am not sure I'd go as far as going back to a portable tape player!

[@avenged110]

CDs never should have "left" (if they ever really did). They're still the best physical format for storing music at this time. Why anyone would waste their time with tape, though - something which has been _entirely_ outmoded by CDs, is truly baffling to me.