"We’ve learned that many of you are waiting for a FIIO mini cassette deck, so our designers worked overtime over the weekend and came up with two preliminary concepts. Which one do you prefer? ❤️Option A: The cassette is placed vertically. The size is roughly 1/4 that of a conventional cassette deck. It features a square VU meter, has a built-in battery, and is portable. The width matches our other products such as the K15, K17, and the upcoming CD transport DP11, making it easy to stack or place side-by-side. ❤️Option B: The cassette is placed horizontally. It has greater depth but lower height, resulting in a slightly smaller overall volume than Option A. It features a circular VU meter, also includes a battery, and is portable. It is ideal for desktop placement; if stacked with other devices, it would need to go on top. This survey is only about the form factor—please ignore detailed functions for now. Which design would you like us to pursue? Feel free to share your opinions and choose a preferred option. Please go to FIIO official FB account to like the corresponding comment https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18hCpvSfbk/ Thanks for your support"
Hi Retro, and thanks for sharing that. I find both much better than anything that is being made today. These guys really got it. When I look at TEAC/TASCAM new decks they look cheap and ugly, but this is another thing, specially the 2nd one. Clearly inspired in SONY TC-D5M it's so cool. I'd like to see a counter and a cassette door that can be opened manually without having to stop the play (like the original D5M), RCA connector, an interchangeable battery and specially a bias knob. But the big question is what the mechanism will be. If it's the same as the other cheap chinese walkmans and decks, then we're stuck with the same problem as before. Let's hope they develop a high quality mechanism, there should not be so difficult these days! Curious that they call it PND432 in a clear tribute to the Marantz PMD-430. Sorry guys that I've been so disconnected with the world of cassettes for so long. I've seen this news today and I felt it wake up a bit my sleeping passion for all these. I hope I recover it. Good to see that you're still there.
Unfortunately I have 100's of decks, not really in the market for a "new" deck but they look great. I think the demand is there and I'm still finding $1 USD tapes so the hobby still has legs.
They are both very appealing. I do wonder where they would find a soft touch cassette mechanism to go in the vertical deck unit. The horizontal one looks more feasible. From a technical point of view I hope they put "Type D-B" noise reduction on whichever deck they make. 1970s decks implemented that with just off the shelf transistors so don't make excuses about "can't get the ICs". The only thing you can't do is use the D*L*Y name which is still trademarked.
Trust me, the #1 question is why no soft-touch, I have to believe it's on the way and Bumpboxx mentioned they have one in mind for the next release. Some of these companies need to "one-up" their models for repeat sales, soft-touch and Dolby would be high on the punch-list.
