My kid gets this, he hears it, and to my surprise he’s playing all my records. And some he’s bought himself. He doesn’t mind turning a record over, or walking to the stereo, or listening to a side in full. He’s making his own memories and his own associations, it turns out that it’s more powerful for him with something he holds in his hands.
The sequencing and timing between tracks turns out to be crucial too. Too many songs on streaming are split or stutter when they’re supposed to segue smoothly into one another, or the single version appears as an album track and sounds weird, or there’s a different delay between two songs everyone. It breaks the rhythm, even the one you can’t hear.
One problem is finding music that is recorded well-enough to enjoy in better quality. I was listening through my Mojo 2 earlier, and enjoying the last Radiohead album from 2016, it was fabulous in every aspect. But then, on the other hand, put on Arlo Parks Collapsed in Sunbeams, which sounded terrible in comparison. You can't really tell on streaming!
Cassettes are definitely a hipster kind of thing, CDs aren't as they are pretty much the only way you can have music digitally without having it taken from you. Pretty much nobody that buys CDs actually plays them regularly, they just rip it at home and use that instead.
I’ve got a great cassette deck as part of my stereo so it sounds great. I definitely don’t listen to it on a Walkman though.
I’m a big fan of Sarah Harmer and her first band, the Saddletramps, only released two cassettes and they didn’t release CDs. That only happened with her next band. I think this is a common occurrence for bands of the 80s and 90s.
I grant you that this is a fringe obsession that most people wouldn’t care about.
And these products are merely fashion statement marketing reskins and there isn't enough money available to do that.
The engineering and manufacturing skill that went into producing Sony's smallest walkmen isn't particularly well reflected in the single design coming out of China right now.
It brings to mind Tom Hanks on SNL in the 90s as the Israeli shopkeeper saying his knockoff products all have 'Sony guts'.
As much as I hate the fact a publisher can pull music from Apple Music in an instant, it's rare and the benefit is instant streaming with little impact on the environment. No impact if I've already got the track downloaded.
A CD requires no power sitting on your shelf unplayed. The same as cups and dishes sitting in a cupboard. If the threat to the environment is as real as you say, consider pouring food directly into your hands.
Are you really this blind?
Sort of how coal mining and oil drilling saved whales from extinction by replacing whale oil.
Now show me the number of MP3s that ended up on landfills.
Incredible.
Yes, datacenter(s) and the global Internet backbones are worse for the environment than a single dumpster's worth of trash per year.