Alex Parkin / The Verge
Cassette tape sales are at a 20-year high, the vinyl market is on a 17-year growth streak, and CDs have caught the attention of Gen Z. After a resurgence of retro physical media, tech companies have now jumped in to provide new hardware to play these formats.
Companies like We Are Rewind, Fiio, and others offer updated designs for new cassette and CD players, with some additional functionality like USB-C charging and Bluetooth.
But after a quick glance at these updated music gadgets in person, we found that they are seemingly not as advanced as some of their vintage counterparts. The dimensions of We Are Rewind’s Bluetooth cassette player are roughly the same as Sony’s first-ever Walkman from 1979 — but by the time the cassette Walkman…