The cheapest, simplest & most popular cassette player mechanism 

I'm still amazed how we are in a huge cassette revival yet we have the worst options in cassette-playing devices when it comes to brand-new stuff. But not all hope is lost: Vinyl struggled for quite a few years until we finally got decent non-crosley turntables at an affordable price. I really hope we see something like that for the tape world.

My mom's car when I was little had a stereo with that same mechanism in it. The radio played OK, but the cassette never worked while we had the car. When we decided to finally scrap the old pile of rust I pulled the stereo out and managed to get it going. I was surprised at how good it performed. Sadly the car was long gone by then. I still have the stereo, though, in my collection.

I laughed when he tested the RCA input feature. The pun was totally intended with the song played from the walkman: "it's the same, but if you're willing to play the game..." hahahaha

Doesn’t sound bad, to be honest... And the obligatory “Radio Gets Results” jingle is missing but I’m pleased with the Oldsmobile one, too.

Genuine Mabuchi motors also say "Mabuchi" instead of "Mabucai", haha

The direct hookup sounds surprisingly good, aside from the wobbly flywheel that mechanism technically is quite acceptable. Still I wouldn't want to use something like this because of the lack of user comfort. No rewind function and relatively slow fast forward would be a constant annoyance for me.

Honestly, considering some of the new clunkers techmoan has gotten, this probably is one of the best sounding ones. the operation reminds me a lot of an 8-track. Many of those were dumb simple, just turns on and plays from the tape being shoved in and shuts off when the tape ejects.

At least it plays in stereo. Some of the cheap boom boxes don’t even do that.

I had an Audiovox car radio with this unit in it in the late 90s (which means it was probably an actual Tanashin) in my first car, a Mk1 Rabbit. Other than the punishment of having to look at its cheap face and its mile long single control button, it didn't actually sound that bad. I'm not surprised it made an acceptable performance here. However, I used to skip songs a lot, and the lack of a second spindle meant the tapes would tension unevenly after a few plays and would start to sound ... "interesting" until they were run end to end to retension them. It later got replaced with the last of the good Panasonic full logic decks, with power load/eject, multiple song skip, silence skip, and some sweet purple VU meters. Sadly, information and photos of that one have been lost to the digital black hole that consumed almost all low-end mainstream consumer products from the early-mid 90s to the early 2000s.

For my ears it didn't sound too bad. Kinda surprised it has a stereo head.

Hopefully, GM had the decency to put a cassette deck with rewind in that Oldsmobile...

Actually sounds really good in comparison with some of those similar cassette players recently featured by techmoan. I wonder if it offers better wow & flutter than some others

Is this mech the worst thing ever? Eh, not necessarily; there's worse stuff, especially things spec'd down with mono heads or cheaper motors (those that don't even try to copy good name-brand motors).. Is it something you'd actually want to use? Not really, no. They're using a CW motor here mostly to have a more compact mechanism: notice the motor is on the same plane as the bulk of the mech, not hanging from the other side as with CCW motors used in larger home or boombox-style models. This really helps get these mechs into tight spaces and is a pretty common tactic for other compact mechs (especially automotive types).

That FF only mechanism reminds me of the cheap drug store walkmans in the 80s and 90s (Yorx, GPX, Unisef, Soundesign, Emerson).

"There is a special feel" LoL I have one of those Oldsmobile tapes too. Makes for good comparison when I play it on one of my decks. Thanks for playing the whole jingle!

would be interesting to hear a side-by-side comparison of the line output vs. a proper tape deck

I really had to laugh at "Mabucai"! That said, it does sound better than other knockoffs with more features, possibly because it has a bit of metal in the flywheel. It's still not good of course (you mentioned the untrue behaviour of it).

I honestly really like the way this is designed id use one as a cheap noise maker in a shed or barn with a stack of old cassettes from good will

Not bad on the tape player I never thought this would sound good

The simple fast forward (just pull head and pinch roller away from the tape) was also used in many cheap personal stereos in the 80s. These did not have rewind as well.

6:46 Industry professionals agree that two-thirds of cheap tape mechanisms should never have taken place.

The key change in the Oldsmobile song got me right in the feels

babe wake up new vwestlife upload

My old car had a nice cassette deck with Dolby B noise reduction and would play chrome and metal tapes Chrystal clear, auto reverse and digital controls.

This is great! I'm restoring a 86 camry. I have been looking for replacement parts for the cassette player. Hopefully I can get the parts I need to fix it using one of these.

To begin with it already starts above expectations from being stereo, and to top it off, no bizarre high wow and flutter that you can perceive on music you're hearing for the 1st time, so definitely a winner.

“Something that approximates music”! Lol! Great video again Kevin!

"Mahogany Monsters" is a good name for a band.

1:41 My grandmother used to own that Victrola record player, the tape player is exactly as you described. Was very surprised to see something I randomly know about get covered here lmao

You have earned the next 17 minutes of my time.

When I was little those mechanisms were fascinating to me. I had my share of cassette recorders, decks and players. I also had some cheaper car stereos I setup for my own personal use. The old Kraco am fm cassette car stereos actually had an all metal tape mechanism with brass motor pulley and the flywheel was all aluminum. Also had a secondary V belt to drive the takeup/ffwd instead of all gears. I have seen some with flat belts. Always drives me crazy when I see those V belt mechanisms with the belts twisted. I'd always put them back on track in line from V to V.

There was a special feel in my fathers '77 oldsmobile cuz we had one of these cassette players mounted under the dash! Good times.

Reminds me of a simple 8-track player mechanism minus the track selector.

Faux-1930s cabinets are to adjust the expectations of a customer. If this machine looked like, oh, let's say, TEAC W-1200, then the customer would expect its performance to match the looks: to have wide and flat frequency response, low noise, low wow & flutter, noise reduction, and all other goodies like song search, programmable playlist, auto-calibration, etc. But a machine that looks like it came from 1930s telegraphs, "I am just a crappy sound box from the era when talkies were invented, do not expect much of me". Smart on the manufacturer, but so sad.

My life is now complete, hearing that Oldsmobile complimentary jingle

With all the research you've done and your network of people you know with specific - almost lost - knowledge, I think you have the right ingredients to develop the right cassette deck. Teac would do well to approach you as an advisor!

Even more popular than those manual cassette rewinders was of course the Bic pen.

I'm positively impressed by it. I always assumed that these things would sound horrible, because of the corners cut; but it's kind of neat. Also; I really love these promotional car cassette tapes

Reminds me of old bed headboard which has a cassette player, crappy but good old days.

0:25 - And 1980s alarm clocks. It ate a tape immediately and I never used it again. 15:55 - How about a walkman sized box with RCA in/out but without those crap speakers?

It sounds great through the line output and even the built in speakers are coming through just fine.

Those cassette mechanisms are quite fine with these all-in-one retro audio systems. There was also a mini jukebox cassette player that used that mechanism.

Pyle is a pretty good name for anything they make.

the line out on the player has a good amount of treble and bass I'd even buy something like that

Another great video! I've always been fascinated with this contemporary cassette player mechanism because it works fairly well for how oversimplified it is. It's fool-proof, too. Just put the cassette in and it starts playing immediately. Sure, you could make them a lot better, but I can understand why manufacturers go with this mechanism over anything else. It's honestly pretty cool.

The MABUCAI part (note spelling and similar logo to MABUCHI) is a common trick some Chinese companies use to trick people into thinking they are buying an authentic part.

First of all great video as usual, and in fact, this video took me back to the nineties when car tape player containing this mechanic were very common, and the selling price was from 6 dollars to 9 dollars according to the features. I have some notes on some of the information that you mentioned and I will discuss it in an upcoming video on my channel.

The one song that says "I know its worth it, I get a sweet satisfaction" Thanks!

1 person used one of these wood monsterse to do a video on cassettes on RU-vid then declared cassettes sound terrible ,needless to say his video has more dislikes. Than likes. These things are terrible.

At 11:27 you can literaly see that is a false Mabuchi motor because instead they write "Mabuchi" in the paper, they wrote "Mabucai"

this thing sounds surprisingly good with the direct hookup.... now if they would just make a box like this without the speakers, just the tape and line out, we might have a winner of a product... ...i seriously did not expect that to sound so good...

My dad helped me build a small car system that I used in my room. It was just 2 cheap 6x9 speakers with a Realistic car cassette player running off a car battery. It wasn't much, but I'll always remember loving using it.

My 1990 Pontiac Sunbird came with a Pontiac cassette. It had the “Get on your Pontiac and ride” gingle that they used in the commercials plus it explains some of the features of the car. I always love how the GM Delco electronic tape decks from the 80’s had you insert the tape head first in.

That's quite neat. It's really tidy in that thing. If somebody made quality ones I'd buy one.

5:25 - My '94 Cavalier didn't have "attack" seat belts, neither did Mom's '97... But my '95 Escort did. And in a matter of a month I replaced the seat belt track/motor combo twice before I manually cranked it into its proper position and unplugged the motor harness. 11:54 - Hey, I have that song on Cassingle! It includes an interesting alternate version that has a children's choir singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" in the middle of the song. 16:10 - **bobbing head** "Duck Tales, whoo-ooo..." Wait, that's not the song! I don't know if you noticed this while filming, but the rear end of the mech needs some support - it wiggles noticeably every time you insert a tape or operate the FF/Eject rod.

Another testament to the incredible resilience and performance of the humble cassette "cartridge." That Realistic hand rewinder was a wonderful blast from the past -- I wondered whether I would ever see one of those again!

I love how when you put the tape in at the beginning, we heard “In the Mood.” I also have a cassette that opens with that piece.

Honestly, I really wish that someone would use one of these slot loading cassette players in a portable unit….

I honestly thought this would be 100% junk, but I'm surprised it sounds 1/2 decent via the line out.

Thanks for the post. Reminds me of the golden era of the cassette deck, the 1980s. That was the era when home units offered the best quality money could buy for recording and playing your cassettes. Home unit sets offered 3 motor transport design, motorized automatic tape head engagement, multiple noise reduction systems like Dolby B, C, S, HX pro and the special encoded dbx circuitry. Some units even had glass heads, closed loop capstans, fancy auto-reverse. I think with this revival though another factor was forgotten and that is the maintenance and cleaning that is absolutely necessary when playing cassettes, and demagnetizing the heads. It is important then for the deck to allow ease of access to the heads and capstan, and pinch roller to clean them as tape oxides build up on them creating high risks of tapes being eaten and lower sound quality output. This type of mechanism shown is difficult to access the heads and the pinch roller/capstan as they are recessed deep inside the unit. Cassette cleaning tapes that were marketed never really cleaned them adequately enough. As you mentioned it's funny this unjt only has a play and fast forward mechanism which is actually similar to the 8 track which only traveled in a forward play direction and some offered fast forward as well (no rewind)

Here in Spain, Germany and the UK these kind of cassette players are used in brands as Crosley, AUNA, etc. Brands that offer good quality for a reasonable price. I really like your channel. Keep it going... Seeing the motor used in the cassette player, they come from Skywin, as you clearly told in your video that the same motors are used in record players coming from China. I have an AUNA all-in-one stereo system with DAB+ which sounds great, no problem. Including the double cassette deck is fine (sometimes the internet router disturbs on playing the tapes, because it's really close). The Skywin record player is good enough, though it sounds a bit "light", but what do you want? Can't have it all perfect.

Given that wobbly "flywheel", it suggests really loose quality control standards in this mechanism. It would be interesting to know the actual specifications for the transport, e.g., at what wow and flutter limit does the transport get rejected? I'd lay odds, it's high.....really high. And even if one sample doesn't sound "terrible" it doesn't mean the next one won't. The lack of a supply hub doesn't help matters, as this means the tape is being dragged through the shell with the additional friction from the unsupported supply reel. Anyone of us who experienced the rise of the cassette format from the early portables (I had one of the very first Philips recorders), through the era of metal tape, HX Pro, Dolby B, C, S, etc. can only look at this piece of junk and sigh. Once digital audio displaced these mechanical formats, it seems that the knowledge and manufacturing expertise required for making a quality mechanical tape transport was lost for good. After listening almost exclusively to digital files for years now, I can't tolerate wow and flutter at just about any level above about .1% I even hear it on decent quality turntables, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of what I hear comes right from the original master tape.

Thanks for the great review! My best regards from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Vwestlife, i don't know if you intend to have some amazing dry humor, but i started cracking up when you placed the "Oldsmobile" card down at 4:05 🤣

As an Oldsmobile fan, I have that Oldsmobile promotional cassette. My ears really perked up when I heard, "there is a special feel in an Oldsmobile!"

Not as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, it's nothing to be proud of and I wouldn't dare put any of my surviving metal tapes into one of these, but still, I expected worse.

I think that's the first time I've seen one of those tape decks that worked. They are always the first component to go in those all in one systems.

I expected Wow & Flutter measurements to be included in the video (Kevin usually does that with special software in his reviews). But of course that would be overkill for such a cheap device, plus we can easily guess what the results would be.

This was the common mechanism sold in low-end car stereos, like Sparkomatic, Kraco, etc. I remember seeing car radios for $29.95 at K-mart, and auto parts shops with that mechanism. Tanashen also made a fancier auto-reverse mechanism that found it's way into pretty much every mid-grade car stereo with name-brands, from Alpine to Audiovox, Sony, JVC, Pioneer, etc and even in come factory decks, like Honda's. It's easy to tell it by the button arrangement. Eject on the left, and a pair of fast-wind buttons on the right, of the tape opening, that when you push them together, the deck reverses. By the early 90's it was almost impossible to find a car stereo deck that did NOT have a Tanashen mechanism in it!

Great review as always! Also now I want an Oldsmobile.

Sounds a lot better than expected, not bad at all.

Bloody hell, that Oldsmobile tape brought me back to my first car. Bought it way too cheap, an old American car in Europe. It could only go wrong and it did. The engine blew up within a 1000 miles, despite the reputation of the old Buick 3.8 V6. But it had the cassette in the glove compartment and I listened to it. Never thought I'd hear it again. Rest in peace, 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

honestly this mechanism seems to have a better quality sound than the other style of mech.

Love the manual tape rewinder. Never saw one of those. I just stuck a ballpoint pen on one side and twirled the cassette around like a kids noise maker. Loads of good exercise. Worked until the tape flew off the pen and sailed across the room or into the lake.

Wow, actually it sounds pretty normal, and it's stereo as well. 👍 If it works, why it should be more complex than literally a car radio, right? 😉

If you told people in the 1980s that in the future, cassette decks will be downgraded to 8-track functionality, they would give you funny looks.

That tape mechanism is the equivalent of the Stero-8 cartridge average car player. Just pop in the cassette and it plays; compared to stereo 8 there the is "fast" forward though ...

Clockwise or counter CW is determined by the position of the motor in regards to the main flywheel. All those mechanisms that have CCW motor also have the motor bottom facing back. Regarding the amplifier, from the look of the U shaped heatsink, I think it's the trusty TEA2025 or UTC2025 that all chinese cheap boomboxes used in the 90s.

I love your videos, and I myself have gotten into collecting cassettes again.

Thanks for the video, Kevin.

That Oldsmobile song slapped ngl

Neat never knew what the internals of that infamous deck looked like! Can you do a video on the CD part? Mine looks like a cluster of Chinese eBay modules just wired together in a big monstrosity of a box! I was given an ElectroBrand 5 in one (Radio/CD/Cassette/Phono/Aux) and it has the same cassette mechanism on the right side with the tell-tale AutoStop and the 4 screws. I like how easy the belt is to get at! I wish it was that easy for the higher end home decks as well point in I had a Sony TC-WR975 (one step behind their ES model at that time) and I tried (and failed) to change the belts I ended up with "extra" parts and it was totally no workie now not just the auto-reverse backwards play, I did love the motorized open/close button vs the standard mechanical eject button that most others have.

This player is already making people view cassettes as pointless. A while back, some bloke did a video where he played a cassette on this player, heard it skip around and then determined that the cassette comeback is pointless.

I know I was jaggin on some of my comments, But Hell, It actually sounded reasonable! I use a first gen Walkman Professional to digitize cassettes. I paid $25 for it in 2000 (Don't look them up NOW😲, as a motorcycle would get you MORE mileage for LESS money😳! ) But really the modern cheap tape mechanisms SEEM to beat the modern cheap "vinyl" record players. NOW is the time for the "average Joe" to get a cassette player and digitize their tapes.

You really need to share the songs in these videos. They are amazing, and those cassette players don’t sound so lacklustre for their simplicity.

VWestlife is really flexing on us, presenting this audiophile-horror in broad daylight in close up shots. Thank you for the nightmares!

I’ve got something like that what my sister got me out of the Betterware catalogue - it’s identical in every way except for the fact that it only has one speaker and not two - especially designed for digitising cassettes - but I think I can connect other devices to it!

I appreciate the warning you're giving here about cassette player quality on these low-end machines, yet are a good price. I've been toying with the idea of getting myself one and, later, for my brother, who doesn't have a music centre at all and he could be doing with one. However, you then delve into the mechanics and show WHY they're not very good, but don't offer any advice on what else a prospective purchaser SHOULD buy, even if a few hundred pounds/dollars dearer. I used to have a pretty good all-in-one system with fabulous speakers about 30 years ago, with twin cassette players. I remember in the 70s, my parents bought a GEC all-in-one system and it lasted for decades. However, those who wanted QUALITY, had 'separates' housed in a free-standing unit which you just added to as finances allowed. It's really tricky, NOW, to know what to buy, without taking a hefty loan out to buy a really decent system. Any advice here, for the UK market, would be invaluable, please.

My first introduction to Mabuchi motors was with Tamiya radio control cars in the 80s - they'd come with a Mabuchi RS540 as the "high performance" option or an RS380 as the standard. The first thing you'd do is save up $50 to get a Trinity or some other US based performance motor, yank the Mabuchi and toss it in the bin as a last resort spare. Oh, the many motors I collected, maintained, rebuilt. You'd have so many (with different windings for different performance profiles) they made motor trays to hold them, along with your spare brushes, commutators, etc.- but Mabuchis never made the tray. They were bottom of the barrel, left in the spares drawer at best (I had so many I just tossed them). Fast forward to the audio context of 2021- Mabuchi is highly sought after. How times have changed.

The speakers are ok, no literally OK lmao

Very interesting video. As well as " decent" cassette decks, i also have a slot loading unit i picked up on a whim at a charity shop. It is not as c****y as i feared, but i would let any of my best tapes be played on it. However, glad your videos are helping to keep tapes in the public eye.

I still don’t understand why anyone would want to go back to cassette tapes, other than the occasional “trip down memory lane”. If I had all the time I spent in my youth (1980s) waiting for cassettes to FF or Rewind to get to songs I wanted to hear added back to the end of my life, I would probably live a month or two longer! I am sure, like everything else, these tape players come from the factory with absolute minimal fine adjusting and lubrication, so their less then stellar performance only gets worse over time, use, and wear. Like most other low to medium cost consumer machines, I am sure that a majority of them that go to the landfill because of “tape eating” and play speed issues could easily be brought back to life with a good cleaning, oiling, and general service. Interesting video!

My grandparents have one of these from the 2000s, when I was little I thought it was really old, despite it having a cd player in it.

Thanks for the video! :)

Plus, the sticker reads: mabucai. Not Mabuchi. It's one of those Chinese trick to avoid potential lawsuit. Like Nite (Look like Nike on glancing look) on brand sneakers and so forth...

Three thoughts: first, I'd never seen a Cassette Tape Hand Winder before. Neat idea! Second, if made with decent quality control this could be hugely popular for retailers as novelty Christmas gifts. Retailers call this "Amplified Gifting", products only carried during Christmas shopping season. How about a fashionable-looking Target Heyday replica of this Pyle unit? Third, how do you clean the tape heads, capstan and pinch roller on these units? Nice video and many thanks!

While I'm thinking about Oldsmobiles and cassettes, my mother's friend has a 1996 Oldsmobile Sierra, it was after they dropped the Cutlass nameplate. It actually has a decent cassette player in it, although surprisingly even though it has mechanically actuated rewind and fast forward it does have auto reverse with a spinning head, which I've always thought was a stupid way to do auto reverse in cars.

Thank you for your review of this product.

I like the simplicity. It's a thing only used rarely, so the very basic functionality is enough. And I actually like it not doing the loud *ker-CHUNK* some players do when the tape ends. That won't wake up your kids that listen to children's stories on old tapes to fall asleep...

I would just get a fully-featured vintage cassette deck with soft-touch controls and Music Search over one of these with the comeback of cassette tapes, since those decks have better sound quality than the cheap ones, and they obviously have the capability of recording, since I also create mixtapes from my computer, plugged into the line input of the cassette deck using a 3.5mm to RCA Stereo Audio converter cable. I STILL prefer having the HIGH-TECH convenience and superior sound quality combined with the nostalgic sound of cassettes compared to a CRAPPY SOUNDING TAPE PLAYER with EXCESSIVE WOW AND FLUTTER that will make the music experience UNBEARABLE. Little WOW AND FLUTTER and HISS is enough for me to enjoy the sound of Cassette Tapes over excessive WOW AND FLUTTER and hiss. I still love having a bit of WOW AND FLUTTER and HISS over none at all, since those are nostalgic sounds for me. I know you are more enthusiastic about new cassette decks than most other cassette enthusiasts out there, but as for me, when that old high-end tape deck no longer works or is unrepairable, I just get rid of it and buy ANOTHER ONE THAT WORKS at a cheap price at a local thrift store with the same high-tech features and sound quality. And as for Cheap turntables, they sound fine to me since I do own a Crosley Cruiser, but to make a cheap turntable sound better, get a Diamond Stylus, and plug it through the RCA output onto stereo speakers to get the best sound quality possible without motor noise.