#cassette-inspired-products

#cassette-inspired-products

Digital typewriters are carving out a niche for a more focused writing experience, stripping things back to the essentials: just you, a keyboard, and your words.

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

The MPC Sample features a four-by-four grid of 16 RGB backlit pads that respond to pressure, allowing for dynamic sound manipulation. A full-color display and three knobs provide hands-on control over effects and sound.

The AT-LP120XUSB features basically everything you could want from a modern, upgraded turntable. The built-in phono preamp lets you easily swap the turntable from your headphones to your speakers without any extra steps or hardware.

The company says it designed Tembo to "enable everyone to create music from the very first touch." Co-founder David Davidov that most instruments take "so long to get to the fun part" and that Musical Beings wanted to "help people experience music as something they do, not just something they listen to."

The collection includes two wireless speakers that both feature Bluetooth 5.5 with Auracast support, an IP67 rating so they can survive the occasional short dunking, 24 hours of battery life, neon colored buttons, and multicolored LED lighting. Cassette tape functionality hasn't been carried forward from Philips' original '80s Moving Sound devices, but both speakers have color LCD screens displaying a stylized animation of spinning cassette reels, and other playback details.

It's similar to a vinyl record, but the tracks are in a USB drive. It has no moving parts inside, so it's totally digital in how it stores sound. But it has a physical shape users can hold, flip over, look at, and collect, so in a way, the designer is asking: what if digital music had a physical body?

Usually, my handbag is a medley of digital devices and life essentials my phone, iPad, chargers, keys, tampons. But lately, you're likely to also find a half-done newspaper crossword, a ton of stationery, the book I've restarted three times, and whatever scraps and trinkets I've picked up throughout the day to put in my scrapbook. Analog is back, and it feels like we need it more than ever.

My father kept manuals for products we hadn't owned in years, filed alphabetically in a cabinet. When I asked why, he looked at me like I'd suggested burning money. "What if we need to look something up?" The concept of finding any manual online in seconds just doesn't compute for a generation that had to rely on these paper lifelines.

For years, innovation in earbuds centered on sound quality, battery life, and noise cancellation, while aesthetics converged on a single in-ear silhouette. Today, designers and brands are challenging that orthodoxy, reimagining earbuds as jewelry-adjacent objects that sit visibly on the ear, more ear cuff than invisible tech. The idea of elevating earbuds into luxury objects is not new. Over the past decade, bespoke jewelers have produced gold-plated AirPods, diamond-encrusted headphones, and one-off couture audio pieces intended as collector's items or status symbols.

The smell of vinyl seats baking in the summer sun, the crackle of AM radio cutting through static, and dad's off-key humming as the family station wagon rolled down another endless stretch of motorway. If you grew up in the 60s or 70s, these sensory memories probably just transported you back to childhood road trips that seemed to last forever. Those journeys weren't just about getting from A to B. They were rolling classrooms where we learned geography from road signs,

What telling people to touch grass ignores, in part, is that grass is not all that good to touch. It's itchy and sticky - there could be bugs in there. There's a far more profoundjoyin touching machines, as is shown again and again in Albert Birney's Obex, which functions as both a shrine to and warning about our reliance on technology.

For this time around, however, the concept player here stays within the audio listening gear domain; nonetheless, has clear signs of a TE-inspired design. The retro Bluetooth player is a music accessory that's reminiscent of the classic cassette tape player design, but on the inside, it's a modern music player that plays music wired or wireless. The aesthetics are purely for arousing the nostalgic feel of listening to music on a cassette player, while the audio is digitally played via a DAC for high-resolution output.

Listening to music has mostly collapsed into phones and streaming apps, buried between notifications and multitasking. Some people still crave a single-purpose device that treats listening as the main event, not background noise. The MP-1 is an independent concept study that asks what a modern Walkman could look like if it borrowed Teenage Engineering's design language, without being affiliated with the company or trying to become an official product at all.

Do you think you can finish the lyrics to the biggest hits of the 1980s? This '80s song lyrics quiz will test how well you really know your favorite throwback tracks. In this finish the lyrics quiz, we'll give you a line from a classic song, and you'll have to complete it correctly. From power ballads to synth-pop staples, this 1980s music trivia quiz is packed with iconic moments that defined the era.

Chances are this does exactly what you need. It will play your old CDs, your new CDs, your homemade mixtapes, the whole nine yards. You can even listen wirelessly thanks to onboard Bluetooth. It's got a decent battery life that can last you up to six hours, and it uses a USB-C to recharge. We usually have one of those on hand.

It takes the classic tape deck design and turns it into a smart speaker with two tiny 1.5-inch circular OLED displays. They're in that place where the spinning reels used to be, since this isn't exactly a cassette player. On the left, you get the playback controls and on the right side, you get a digital waveform or equalizer. Both screens are touch-sensitive, letting you interact directly with the device without constantly reaching for your phone.

Casio showed up to NAMM (CES for music gear nerds) this year with a prototype sampler called the SX-C1 that looks every bit the lovechild of a Game Boy and an SP-404. The top has a directional pad and four buttons just like you'd find on a game controller, flanking a 1.3-inch OLED screen. But at the bottom, there are 16 rubberized pads for triggering samples with crunchy pixelated number labels on them.

RCA is reviving Jive Records as a standalone label, the company announced today (February 3). Former UnitedMasters executives Mike Weiss and David Melhado will serve as co-presidents of the revamped imprint. They'll run operations from Sony Music 's New York City headquarters.

Both turntables include one-button automatic playback - which starts the turntable, raises and lowers the tonearm on the vinyl, and returns the tonearm to its resting position once the record ends - a transparent dust cover to keep colored vinyl printings visible as the record plays, and a built-in switchable EQ to select between phono and line-level output. A USB output allows you to convert your vinyl to a digital file and has a three-level output gain selector with low, mid, and high settings. The two turntables also support 96kHz/24-bit wireless aptX Adaptive hi-res Bluetooth audio.

Last year saw the highest vinyl record sales since 1984, signaling a strong desire among music enthusiasts to return to a simpler time of physical media. Even cassette tapes are making a comeback, with major artists including Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift releasing their material on the iconic plastic, four-inch audio reels. Now, self-described "party slam" metal band Party Cannon is taking the nostalgia play - often framed as an act of defiance against greedy and AI-slop-infested streaming platforms - to a new level.

As discovered by Dealabs, Sony will likely unveil its LinkBuds Clip (WF-LC900), which features an open-ear design with the buds attaching around the earlobe. A listing from an Indonesian retailer revealed the design and key specs of the LinkBuds Clip, which are expected to feature adaptive volume control, 360 Reality Audio support and background music effect found on previous LinkBuds models.

They're called open earbuds (or open-ear buds, depending on the brand), and just about every audio brand has a pair (or three). They come in a slew of styles, but most either loop around your ears like older Beats buds, or clip on like funky-futuristic earrings. Whatever the style, they're designed to deliver satisfying sound while keeping your ear canals open to the sounds of the world around you.

Despite evidence to the contrary, not only are wired earbuds alive and well, they're enjoying a resurgence. Brands like Belkin and even respected headphone maker Master & Dynamic now offer tethered earbuds again. Even the Italian fashion brand Diesel has decided wired headphones are still cool and has launched a pair of earbuds it describes as being "designed for fearless daily use."

We started from a very silly place,