Auto Reverse & Clear Stereo Cassette Player, Built-in Cool Copper Wheel Movement & Earphones, Cassette Tape to MP3 Converter with Tape Converter Software, Powered by USB Power Cord or AA Battery

Stereo Cassette Player JL-101. Reviewed 02 October 2024. A good player with some minor issues that were easily fixed . I'm happy with this overall after considering that it's a cheaply made modern cassette player. I bought this cassette player for daily listening to tapes and to compare how this performs against the Arsvita walkman and my vintage AIWA walkmans. I did not buy this for converting tapes to MP3 files , so I've not yet tested the USB capture function. I was curious to try this cassette player as it seems to be one of the few modern walkmans currently available that does have a Stereo tape head which enables proper sounding Stereo playback. I bought the transparent plastic model and my experience has been that straight out out of the box, this unit looks great but the sound quality was not good, playback was too fast and the audio quality & volume was very low with a high amount of hiss. After comparing this to my other walkmans , I noticed that the tape head was not going down all the way towards the tape while the play button was engaged, which resulted in low volume and poor sound quality. There was also very high wow & flutter while the cassette player was stationary . When walking around or just picking up the cassette player while playing a tape, the playback quality was worse as it was very unstable and the wow & flutter was very bad. I then noticed the sound improved when holding down the Play button and pressing it down even further. I was able to fix all of the volume, stability and wow & flutter problems by adjusting the azimuth screws and this was easy to do while a tape is playing at same time because the tape player door opens all the way , giving you full access to the azimuth adjustment screws. I'm happy I was able to manually tweak this setting & find that sweet spot where the playback sounded very good but it was a fiddly process that took time to figure out and I'd prefer not needing to do this especially as it's a brand new item. Also the the tape speed adjustment screw is located at the back of the unit just above the batteries and is also easily accessible and can be adjusted while playing a tape. Now my tape player sounds great! I've now listened to many tapes and they're all crisp,clear and loud. The stereo tape head is good and it's noticeable that playback is definitely in stereo. The Auto Reverse function works well, no issues with pressing the Direction button during playback. And the auto reverse enable/disable button also works well. The F.F, REW & STOP buttons are very small, stiff and not ergonomic, I'd prefer that these buttons were more comfortable to use and were softer and not snap back as strong or as loudly as they do after pressing Stop. The PLAY button is a weird design that sits inside the cassette player shell , it feels weak when compared to the other buttons.The plastic outer shell is quite thin where the Play button sits and you can actually see the plastic shell bend and flex when you press down the button.I'd prefer they use just a normal style hard Play button that sits on top of the outer shell. You can hear motor hum and hiss when there's quiet moments in a song or dead air when the song ends but it's very minimal and you definitely won't notice this while music is playing. PROS: It's a Stereo cassette player , the Stereo tape head seems good quality. Metal Fly Wheels. Auto Reverse. Tapes do sound good in this . Works with 2x AA batteries or with the USB cable included & also has a DC 3V 500mh power input socket. Nice design with rounded corners , a small & compact player that's not much larger than a Cassette Tape & easily fits in your pocket, it looks cool. The Transparent plastic model looks good & lets you to see all the moving parts. CONS: Not sounding good out of the box, (Azimuth & Tape Speed needing to be adjusted) Build Quality is not strong ( cheap feeling & bending bending plastic when pressing the Play button) No Auto Stop on F.F or REW. No Radio function. You can hear a bit of motor hum and hiss when music is not playing. The price could be better for what it is. Overall I am happy with this.

Regardless of what others say, This player Plays great very steady, seems durable, and a great value, may need some break in time for wow and flutter, but works great. I simply just put a drop of machine oil on all moving parts avoiding the belt and pinch rollers. Does appear to be the traditional Tanashin Knock off but works pretty good. Does not have full auto stop though, and volume could be louder.

I used this with my 35 year old cassettes and worked like a charm. Easy to use. Look and feel like the age old walk man. Auto reverse function and speaker connectivity (via aux cable) worked seamlessly! For one cassette there was a bit of lag, but realized because some dirt from old cassette got into the reading head. Once i cleaned it worked great! Sound quality was extremely nostalgic like my walkman from 90’s.

We finally needed to replace our vintage Sony Walkman cassette tape player. In the intervening years USB became a thing. A few weeks ago my wife deposited a group of cassette tapes on my desk to add to our local Apple Music library. After trying to use a normal USB-C to USB-C cable with no success in order to load the music onto my MacBook Pro—USB-C only ports—I discovered that the supplied USB-C to USB-A is specifically for transmitting audio data (didn’t know that was a thing). Anyway, connecting with the supplied USB-C to -A cable to our iMac desktop’s USB-A port worked well with tape player providing a good signal. I did find that the volume on the tape player needs to be turned up even though this is a line source. Anyway, I’ve transferred five tapes with very acceptable results. The limitation is the audio quality of the 30-odd year old tapes and tape players reliance on AA batteries. The player supports a 3v power supply, but none is provided. My four-star rating thus is for the absence of a three-volt power supply to 1) even out the power for better playback and 2) simply to get away from relying on batteries. Without Radio Shacks around anymore, it’s not easy to find such a power supply.

As a decades-long boombox & Walkman collector, here’s my honest opinion: Pros: - Small - Overall decent build quality - Overall good sound quality - Frugal on batteries - Brass flywheels = stable music playback Cons: - Sound quality not as good as vintage Walkmans - Cassette door feels fragile - Slight hum on very quiet music passages I like this player so much I bought two. It’s a great kick-around player when you just want music. My vintage players are fiddly. It’s great to grab a brand new cassette player and listen worry-free. The included earbuds are terrible, as expected. A decent set of headphones and type II cassettes goes a long way to greatly improve the sound quality. If your expectations are realistic, this is a fine little music maker for the money.