Personal Mono

I had one of them was total crap. Ended up buying the alternative USB capture one. Which does have a stereo head and auto reverse. Not as good as my one from the 90s but that needs repair.

I think it will serve you well to include a comparison/litmus portion in these kind of videos like you did in this one. Dankpods does something similar where all headphones are compared using the same music against his litmus headphones (Sennheiser HD600) despite there often being a drastic difference in price and quality.

I think this is a close relative of the GE 536X series of personal voice recorders. I had one that I used for field interviews from 2001-2006. It was specifically marketed as a voice recorder (no radio), but had a built-in speaker (on the back instead of the front), similar frequency characteristics, mono sound, etc. I think the wow & flutter was better, however.

Worth more as spares? Probably worth more as doorstop. Bush were never a premium brand but this is a new low.

Maybe of interest. Lou Ottens, the inventor of the compact cassette at Philips (and also involved in the CD development) passed away on March 6th (https://www.world-today-news.com/inventor-of-cassette-tape-lou-ottens-passed-away-financial/). Compared to other inventors he seems to be barely known even considering almost everybody used his inventions.

As always, thanks for making Matt! I'm not familiar with the brand or the retailer, so I'm curious, about the market they're trying to reach with these? What demographic is walking down the aisle and says, "Oh yes please! I'll have one of those!." Thanks again Matt!

Sadly, I can think of one use for this. If someone making a movie or game wanted to recreate the sound of a broken stereo, or in this case some mono audio, they could use one of these instead of doing it in audacity or something.

Can't believe this thing costs as much as £20! And a search on "cassette" also brings up a Bush-branded cassette player which looks a lot like the Sharp cassette recorder I got for Christmas 1979, but probably isn't nearly as good (and costs £10 more than the Sharp did in the Spring 1979 Argos catalogue). Ironically, that Sharp machine was mostly used for recording from the Bush FM radio I got for the previous Xmas! A picture of that combination here - I still have both of these. Never seen any other picture of this radio online. https://arl2839.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/uncharted-territory.jpg

Burn it. Burn it with fire.

You've certainly shown us what to look out for over the years. Even five years ago, I wouldn't have assumed a product like this would be any different from similar tape recorders I owned as a kid in the eighties. My heart sinks on eBay when you see page after page of ion or G-roove brands. I've recently been looking for a portable shortwave radio with a proper dial, and there's hundreds of listings for this identical Tecsun model, which while looking OK in appearance, you know damn well it won't be! I've found one exception to the rule. A CD/radio with built in 5" black and white CRT made by a company called Maxim. £20, so I chanced it. It was the novelty of the TV that got me. And oddly, the CD side of things is incredible. Bass, volume, clarity. I was shocked! It's clearer than the portable Panasonic one I've got at my mother's. Guess they could still make things circa 2002 when this came out!

With a brand like this, I hope you played some Bush on it (of course you can't in a video, like anything).

I can't believe this player was such a piece of garbage...the woman on the box seems to be enjoying her music so very much ;)

Liked the jazz piece used. What was it?

Haha "it would have to be 3x better to be considered crap." To be fair they probably band-limited the output to be listened to with cheap nasty earphones. Wonder who this product is aimed at these days. Sorry you had issues with your planned videos.

I miss the old days; my iPhone outperforms my best audiophile tech from my youth and my Tesla outruns my best ever fossil car. What sad and sorry times we live in, no fun at all anymore.

Old tech as bad as you misremembered. 🙈🙀

That device looks like a student project. One that got a C+ grade.

LOL I even enjoyed the lack of enthusiasm you expressed since it fits the item so well. Great video. In 1986 I had such a thing from SABA "Journey ..", that did cost 210 Deutschmark (Today w inflation 200€/170GBP). It was stereo and recorded from radio (i think also in stereo). Now I am kinda sad that I sold it back then. It was much better than this piece of rubbish.

This is one of the devices where I think there should be a quality standard preventing this kinda rubbish from being made and sold. But that would be a bad idea since governments are evil and would misuse those standards for various reasons. Like EU and cars. You did the best thing someone could do and keep it as spares, I think.

Argos could make a killing by selling this as a vaporwave generator.

You know, I think the thing that ticks me off most about this sort of thing. Imagine some young person discovers their parent's or grandparent's cassette collection. But there is no working cassette player. So they think "Hey I'll pop down to the store and buy a cassette player." Most likely this is the only thing they'll find on the shelf. So they put in the cassettes and then think "Wow, my parents used to listen to audio that was THIS BAD?" It's sort of like when I find video on youtube that was recorded on a VCR back in the 1970s or 1980s. It looks terrible. But, I know it looked better than that when it was first broadcast, but some people probably don't realize that.

I know what you mean ( I made a very complicated video last week and now I'm working on something so easy that I have not less than 48 hours of editing in front of me ) So take care of you , have a nice week end.

I loved the expression "It would have to be three times better than that, to be called crap" It's good to know It's scrap value.

As always, one of your “last minute” videos (whatever you want to call it) is more entertaining and informative than 99% of what’s on the web today. Thanks!

"It would have to be three times better to be crap" That's a quote to live by!

Amazing you managed to make such a riveting video out of such a simple device. The saddest part is, anyone today buying one as a semi-novelty to play some of the new albums being released on cassette will come away with the commonly held impression that cassette tapes were and still are rubbish - something you have shown several times not to be the case if you have a good tapes played on reasonable equipment. Thanks for an entertaining 20 minutes, Mat. Have a good weekend!

Clearly this is designed to make all your piano recordings sound as if they were played by the late, great Les Dawson.

I waited until the end hoping to see the road roller. Best wishes.

Are they going after the Lomo market, where the quality is so bad it has become a selling feature?

Listening to this machine has all the charm of finding mouse droppings in your silverware drawer. Or half a worm in your salad after you’ve taken a few bites.

This is the sort of cheap garbage one sees at fairs. You pitch a ball at some milk bottles and you can either have a off-color Pink Panther or an....ooooh a personal stereo! I do like when you go full-contemptuous on a device! It's darkly entertaining!

Even that tiny permanent magnet erase head they seem to put in... Yes, looks like an almost fully functional auto-reverse mech, probably cheaper to manufacture just one mech for all... Rubbish, thanks for sharing!

I really like the amount of test gear thrown at that trash.

SIGH. So I am a very big fan of lo-fi. I think it has a ethereal and personal sound to it. But this cassette player just makes me so sad. I honestly wish we would just stop making new tech based on old tech because it gives beautiful mediums like cassettes a bad name. Some gran is going to listen to her favourite music from when she was younger on this and think it always sounded awful. I am not saying we should make a good "new" player, just stop trying! But good luck telling that to China

Go on Depeche Moan, play me some more of that Personal Mono!

No one else could have explained it better, that's what keeps me coming back, very entertaining

Great video. I brought a cheap usb one you stick a usb in and records off tape as wife had loads family tapes of them as kids. It's ok on speech not to good on music. I liked this video reminded I need to repair my 1990 walkman

Stay well. Keep up the great work!

That is just landfill! This would drag anyone down. Hope the tech is kinder to your creative juices next week.

Nice to see that Argos offers a payment plan to buy this, in case you can't quite afford this object of desire.