When I was about 5 or 6, my grandparents gifted me a green Panasonic RQ-CW02 Walkman Cassette player. I didn’t have many cassette tapes, my dad gave me his copy of ‘Revenge’ by The Eurhythmics, one of the two cassettes from Now ’84, and I have vague memories of an Abba album, maybe their greatest hits. I used that Walkman until my first year of secondary school when I dropped it and after its many years of loyal service, it died. Being 11 at the time, I didn’t think that 16 years later I’d be kicking myself for throwing that silent Walkman away. Last summer I recounted my memories of the player to my boyfriend and felt an overwhelming urge to own one once again. It had been years since I’d owned any physical music media and it felt like something from my childhood was calling me. He bought me a similar model that following Valentine’s Day and I instantly had a new hobby, I bought myself a few tapes and revelled in healing my inner child. The physical sounds of Walkman’s and cassette tapes are so reminiscent to me, the plastic rattling, the click of the door shutting, the whir of rewinding brings me just as much joy as the sound of the music itself. Alas, after a few weeks of owning the vintage Walkman, it too died on me. I was more heartbroken than I would have expected and starting looking into modern alternatives, which brings me to the topic of this review, the We Are Rewind Cassette Player.
This review will focus on the playing function on the device as I haven’t quite gotten around to making my own mix tapes just yet, but expect an update once I have, I have big plans and impeccable music taste. I decided on the colour ‘Keith’, a dark gun metal grey, out of the four to choose from. Kurt which is a denim blue, Serge, bright orange and Amy, black and yellow. These nods to some of my favourite artists are one of a few endearing little touches. The design of the packaging is simple and effective, an outline drawing of the player on a bright yellow card on the front of the box. I had done very basic research and there were only two modern players that stood out to me, this ultimately won because it gives me the option to use Bluetooth to connection for headphones.
On first inspection, I was surprised by the size and weight, measuring 5.5inches by 4inches, it was bigger than I had expected, but it fits into my coat pockets and that’s the important thing to me. The outer shell is metal, sleek and simple, a lot more sophisticated than my old Panasonic, it feels solid, thankfully I’m far more careful with my things in comparison to my preteen years and I haven’t dropped it (yet). The front has a round window so you watch the cassette reels. At the top, much like traditional Walkman’s, are the controls. Six buttons with their function symbols below them. Stop, fast forward, rewind, play, a yellow record button and a smaller button accompanied by a little blue light for the Bluetooth and an even smaller light to indicate battery life. The volume dial, headphone jack, a port I can only assume is for the recording feature and DC 5V are all found along the left-hand side. The box also includes the user manual, charging cable and a small black pencil, a charming reference to the everyday tool many used to tighten the reel on their tapes in the ’80s.
The Bluetooth is easy enough to use, hold the button down, wait for the blue light to flash and once you’re connected the light will stop, simple. I am no audiophile, I like good quality sound but I don’t think it would make sense for someone who collects cassette tapes to be striving for the crispest, purest sound. I say this because there is hiss, there will always be some hiss when listening to cassettes. It’s definitely less noticeable when connected to Bluetooth rather that plugging my headphones into the device, but either way I kind of enjoy the hiss because it reminds me I’m listening to a tape. There is also a little bit of roll if you shake the machine but it’s not the kind of thing you’d want to run with anyway and it has nothing on the roll of a 90’s portable CD player.
There’s also a clever feature to save battery life, if your music is paused or stopped for 3 minutes, it will disconnect the Bluetooth and turn itself off, this ensures that you get the most out of the 30 hours play time you get from a fully charged battery. When I was researching which player to invest in, I came across an overwhelming number of comments from people being unimpressed by this attempt to revive an old favourite, The lithium rechargeable battery is irreplaceable and you wouldn’t be able to open the back of the player up and fix anything that went wrong, in comparison, you could open up my Panasonic, change the belt, change out the batteries etc, but times have changed. This newer model has a 3-year warranty but I’m confident that if all goes well and I take care of it, it will last longer and after all, nothing lasts forever, it also enables you can enjoy up to 30 hours of play time and you don’t need to take the batteries out of the remote because you forgot to pick some up. I don’t feel like the criticism is warranted, I can understand the precious nostalgia people feel, that’s what took me on this journey in the first place but there is nothing wrong with the We Are Rewind cassette player, in fact I’ve become very attached to mine.
The only real complaint I can make is that there isn’t a case accessory available yet, I keep mine in its box which means I can’t really travel with it and it would be nice to have a hard plastic case that clipped onto the machine to protect from scratches to the metal, however the machines haven’t been on the market for very long and I’m sure their design team is 3 steps ahead of me.
More than anything, this cassette player has enabled me to have a little bit of my childhood back, I bought a new copy of ‘Revenge’ and now I have adult money, I have a collection of about 60 cassettes. I can now go for a walk with a couple cassettes and be free from the shackles of my mobile but still enjoy listening to music. I own physical media that I can hold in my hands instead of just the music that lives in the ether which I think is important in a time when music streaming platforms aren’t always treating artists fairly and are investing money into AI warfare (Spotify). Ultimately, I would recommend this cassette player a hundred times over to anyone who wants to bring an old pass time into the 21st century and I’m very glad it exists.