I don’t know if these are going back into style or not
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As someone old enough to remember when these were “high tech” (much less “common”), I doubt it. Tapes were never that great, the revival has to be nothing more than nostalgia unless they’ve figured out some new technology to make it better than it was 40 years ago.
Still, COOL! 
Also, please send me those Storms for demo asap. Thanx. 
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It wasn’t high tech unless there was a bias switch or sensing of correct bias. And able to handle CrO2 tapes. Of course nobody ever thought that cassettes were anything but a compromise.
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still better than “portable CD players”, which only ever skipped every 5 seconds. lol
Seriously, though, the renewed interest in tapes confounds me. I feel like it HAS TO BE only people who weren’t actually using tapes when they were the big thing. They really weren’t ever very good.
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My heart goes a wow and flutter whenever I think of all the good times sharing music with my buds back in the day
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And that’s what moved me from tape and vinyl to cd’s way back when.
For some reason it didn’t matter how good the sound was but any wow, flutter or pops came right to the front and I didn’t hear anything else. Would have been way easier if I didn’t notice them.
At least with cd’s I got the same sound every time without waiting for the shoe to drop.
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I never liked tapes growing up either. The only good thing was being able to easily record stuff off the radio, or in my parents case, record themselves singing karaoke with their Nakamichi cassette deck.
The FiiO works… It sounds very… Analog haha. You can’t press play and forward at same time to help decipher when the next track starts like on an older tape deck.
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Probably multiple kinds of buds no doubt!
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Oh I just went to Goodwill to drop off some donations and hoped to find some old cassette tapes to try out, since I got rid of my collection at least 20 years ago now… but… there was like 5 tapes to choose from and nothing I wanted. 
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CDs and records outclassed cassettes easily. I refused to buy tapes (ever) because of their poor quality, habit of being eaten by players, and stretching/breaking after a modest number of plays. Don’t leave them in the sun, don’t get them wet, and don’t get them near magnets, or they’ll turn into evil Gremlins. The first generation of 64 kbps and 128 kbps MP3s succeeded because they often equaled or beat cassette output.
But still, my grandmother recorded AM radio to her mono cassette player back in the day. People enjoy what they have, and seriously thought flat panel TVs and smartphones were a 300 year Star Trek away. They also enjoy using physical devices such as records or tapes that allow direct observation of operations.
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Maybe they should bring back 8 tracks.
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Dive down in this vintage rabbit hole!
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Come on, who don’t like this vintage memorys?
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I’m one of those “Back in the Day” cassette fans. I had good quality JVC and TEAC decks and recorded every Album the first time it was played. That’s why I have a fair collection of good vinyl, literally only played once. My best friend had a Pioneer RTR which was capable of being stunning and of course we made Cassette tape copies from the Album copies that were made on the RTR.
It was a lot of fun and I still have most of those Cassettes, have several good players and managed to collect a lot ( 500 or so ) blank Cassettes before they disappeared from the Thrift Stores here.
Mark Gosdin
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Me too!
At that time there was no other alternative on the market if you were on the go and wanted high-quality music that you could listen to according to your choice.
With the Sony Walkman and the Koss Porta Pro, I was “the king” these days,
all the girls wanted to “listen” to what the “mixtape” had to offer.
Then came Sony’s Discman,
which was so sensitive to vibrations that it couldn’t actually be used as a mobile devices, so the mobile cassette player actually had its place until the invention in 1998 of the MP3 format Player (thanks to German Engineering) hits the market.
At home I only had records to play music with these days.
But on the road and in the car, cassette tapes were state of the art at the time.
You just had to be careful and always take the tapes out of the vehicle with you, these things were extremely temperature sensitive.
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Fancy box came today
With a green leather bag in it…
…and it’s the iBasso PB5 portable nutube amp
Side by side with dx320 max
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That thing looks incredible. Probably really rivals the Cayin C9.
Awesome photo.
It’s been a very long time since I got a chance to review the Cayin C9, but from memory, I don’t remember the C9 having such a distinct flavor change as this PB5 does. This thing really emphasizes dynamics and adds mid-bass to my Subtonic Storm IEM and my Sony MDR-MV1 headphones, while also making things very clearly euphonic and holographic. I don’t want to state that in stone yet though since I’ve had barely any hours on these tubes and who knows what it’ll sound like when it’s more broken in, but from what others have stated who have used it much longer, it doesnt sound like those attributes will change that much.
My initial listen was crazy bloomy, but that’s settled down a lot, so I think it’s becoming more clear. 
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For me Plunge Audio did just set a new record for processen an international order, 20 minutes!
(I have not shown private info)
Will be back when it arrives.
Mike
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I think the Osprey deserves its own thread. I also think you should start it. .
Thank you for your initial thoughts. It looks like Ibasso knocked it out of the park. I would love to have one.
Keep the impressions coming if you can. I’m extremely interested in the Osprey. Would be a great fit into my portable world. 