Before the days when the best music streaming services were redefining our listening habits, I was a collector of physical media.
Throughout my childhood, the living room cabinets and car glove compartment were filled with an endless list of CDs. This is where my love for music began, and I started collecting vinyl around the turn of my 17th birthday. But when it came to cassettes, I never touched them until I was 26 when I got my hands on Gadhouse’s Miko cassette player.
Blending the classic analog music player with modern connectivity features, the Miko cassette player showcases the best of Japanese audio technology from the 1980s. But now that more people are starting to ditch the algorithms and return to traditional methods of listening and collecting, the cassette player as an entity is gaining ground again — and I was sold from the first press of the play button.
For someone who has never listened to music on cassettes, the Miko cassette player was actually very easy to use out of the box. It runs on two AA batteries, has an on/off switch for Bluetooth connectivity, a headphone and auxiliary jack, and a volume wheel. Just like a traditional cassette player, there are five buttons on the top; play, stop, fast forward, rewind and one for recording audio.
But a big difference with the Miko is the fast forwarding and rewinding of the tapes: it doesn’t speed up playback or play it backwards like a cassette player of the time. I can understand why some users would miss this, it makes switching between songs much easier, but I haven’t had any issues with it.
That said, what would really bring the Miko to a 10 is the addition of a clip so you can attach it to your belt, which I would do. Really enjoy – only as a way to show off to others.
Like finding a new best friend
Immediately after I finished listening to the first cassettes I bought (I got the Whitney Houston one) Whitney and that of Tina Turner Foreign Affairs from my local music store), I knew an obsession was brewing.
Essentially, listening to cassette felt like an extension of vinyl. I love listening to vinyl records, and listening on cassette filled me with the same feeling as when I spin an album on the turntable, but you can’t really take your vinyl player on the go. That’s the beauty of cassettes – they’re compact – and pulling out the Miko on my bus rides and walks in the park made me feel like a modern ’80s character in a 21st century world.
Digital streaming has its benefits, but when it comes to intentional listening, it’s easy to get distracted. Miko forces you to listen to the albums in their entirety – as it always should be. Skipping tracks is tedious, but not impossible, but it does mean you’re more likely to listen to an artist’s deep cuts as you go through the tape.
But one thing I completely forgot until I picked up the cassette player was how much fun compilation albums are – something I haven’t listened to since I was a kid. In my youth, it was all about Pop Party And That’s what I call music! CDs until they stopped evolving with growing habits of music consumption, but oh how I missed indulging in the sonic summaries of summer 2006, or the best songs of 1993.
When it comes to modern revisions of classic analog devices, it’s inevitable that they also come equipped with digital listening means. In Miko’s case, it’s Bluetooth connectivity. While I think it’s convenient to have both wired and wireless options, I spent 99% of my time with the Miko using wired headphones – it was the only way for me for several reasons.
There’s just something about plugging a good pair of the best wired headphones or best wired headphones into your cassette player that feels like a kind of moral obligation, like you’re honoring the slightly crusty way older generations must have enjoyed music. And there is the aesthetic, of course. Who could deny how good it looks on you?
Other than that, some Bluetooth connectivity issues persisted. Although I managed to connect my headphones to the Miko very briefly, getting back to them proved a bit tricky. I could hear the static noise, but as soon as I pressed play it would disappear and no music would follow. Plus, you don’t have the ability to listen to the satisfying crackle and warm, magnetic hiss of a cassette player using wireless headphones, just like wired connectivity. This is not a big complaint, on the contrary, it forced me to break up with my Sony WH-1000XM5.
For a first-time hands-on with a cassette player, it’s fair to say that it went well, but I worry that this might trigger in me a desire to host another collection of physical media that I know all too well that I don’t have the space for. That said, given the price you can pay for a cassette in good condition compared to a vinyl record, who could say no?
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