A Creative Approach to Saving Ye Olde Cassette Tapes

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!