Quite possibly, the most agonizing decision being made by Baby Boomers across the nation these days is what to do with all that vintage Hi-fi equipment and boxes full of classic rock and roll cassettes and 8-Tracks.
I faced this dilemma head-on this past summer as I definitely wanted in on the newfangled bluetooth speakers that could play the CDs I had loaded into my computer hard drive, wires free, but also wanted a way to play my cassettes without having to fire up my Sansui receiver.
One day, I stumbled upon a simple fix somewhere on the internet that informed me all I needed to do was connect an old school dual cassette deck directly into a bluetooth speaker that had an auxiliary port via a $3.00 cable that was configured with a 3.5 mm male stereo plug on one end and two male RCA plugs on the other.
After a bit of research and reading countless reviews, I settled for a Creative Labs D200 bookshelf speaker, currently priced at around $80 bucks at Amazon.com. When placed inside a wooden bookcase or an acoustically tuned room space, the sound is nice and rich. The computer stored music plays just fine. The speaker does require a bluetooth dongle. I settled on Creative’s BT-D1 for $39.99. The main reason for selecting the D-200 other than good reviews was of course the ability to hook up a cassette deck through the AUX IN port. Click here to read a review on the Creative D200.
Satisfied that the Creative D200 would indeed solve my looming cassette dilemma, I ordered the proper cord but hesitated at moving my 60 pound vintage wood encased Sansui cassette deck from its permanent location, so I did what any good Hi-fi loving Baby Boomer would do in this situation— I went on a good old fashioned vintage stereo hunt on eBay.
After pouring over hundreds of listings for a couple of days, I settled on a Japanese built dual Onkyo cassette player Model TA-W460 from the 1980s, mainly because of the quality and fact that it was black and would make a nice base to set the speaker on top of. Final Auction Price Tag: $23.00 plus $12.00 for shipping.
In this configuration and sitting inside a wooden bookcase, the sound is absolutely fabulous.
My cassette collection is now in fact growing and I visit eBay on a regular basis and cherry-pick from all those discarded vintage cassettes out there—SWEET!
HomeTop of Pg.
Archives
