FIIO first cassette player CP13 is officially released!

[Vruksha]

Good quality cassette mechanism please.

 

[sennsay]

As many of you know we are going to make cassette player, we are now trying our best to work out the production issues. We plan to release our CP13 before Feb, 2024. Considering that some people don't have tapes, we'll be giving away a copyrighted, original tape in countries that are allowed to give away tapes at sales events! Any idea about what you need for a cassette player, pls feel free to let us know. Let's revel in the timeless tunes, experience the soulful melodies.

Wow, very cool! I do believe I want one That powder blue is a great colour, either that or the titanium grey with the clear door. Hmm, I own a fully refurbished Sony WM-D3 Pro Walkman from the 80's, but I'd love a new FIIO with the really nice headphone amp you guys make too, especially if it can make recordings with Sony Metal XR that I have here still in their wrappers. If not recording ability then at least LH, Chrome and Metal playback capability would be great, with Dolby B and C, I don't know how far you want to go with the feature set. I don't like or use IEMs, so enough power to run my Sony MDR-1R headphones well would be great. A nice leather carry case or belt loop would also be handy, like my Panasonic walkman of old. And USB recharging please. Maybe a clip on battery/power pack (again like my Panasonic WAY player of yesteryear). I look forward to see what comes out of this! Good fun too, if the results come close to, or as good as the WM-D3, then they deserve to sell like hotcakes. The Sony has an extremely stable mechanism, direct drive, I believe and the recording quality is very fine.

 

[Eiffel]

Direct Drive mechanism and Dolby.
All my tapes are recorded in Dolby B or C.

 

[Raketen]

Here's some wishful thinking: don't use a cheap off the shelf transport, all the ones currently available on the market are trash. Get an old Sony Professional WM-D6C and reverse engineer it. Make it a good CASSETTE PLAYER - bluetooth, streaming, wifi are great, but what the market needs is a real quality portable cassette player with good frequency response and mechanicals.

Good quality cassette mechanism please

Yeah, seems like theres a need for such a thing as working vintage mechanisms get harder to come by. Hopefully Fiio does not use the same crummy OEM job that every other contemporary player seems to have used. Not much of a cassette person myself (though would be nice to have one for old radio recordings) but I've found Techmoan very informative on the matter:

 

[andnej]

I saw the image somewhere then I forgot about it, I thought it is just a fake image generated by some AI. I hope you will create one that is able to record as well, my cassette collection is limited.

 

[Eiffel]

Wonder if it will have corrections for Chrome or Metal tapes. Those are the only ones that have survived in my collection.
Need also a good head to play these...

 

[DarginMahkum]

As many of you know we are going to make cassette player, we are now trying our best to work out the production issues. We plan to release our CP13 before Feb, 2024. Considering that some people don't have tapes, we'll be giving away a copyrighted, original tape in countries that are allowed to give away tapes at sales events! Any idea about what you need for a cassette player, pls feel free to let us know. Let's revel in the timeless tunes, experience the soulful melodies.

One idea... A good ADC (not DAC) in it so that people can digitise their music or audio on the tape. Or a line-out to connect to an external ADC.

 

[FiiO Willson]

For me, this would be great for being able to transfer music I have on cassette that doesn't exist in any other form as well as for using my fairly extensive collection of cassettes on the go.

Somehow I suspect it wont be any good for connecting to a PC to transfer the music as I expect there isn't an ADC in it to output to USB.

Yes, it's can not to transfer music to the computer,
For we don't want to make too many features into CP13, after all, the first product will have a lot of difficulties

 

[FiiO Willson]

Wonder if it will have corrections for Chrome or Metal tapes. Those are the only ones that have survived in my collection.
Need also a good head to play these...

No,The CP13 can read metal tapes but cannot adjust the EQ
Maybe next mode can drive Metal tapes with adjust EQ

 

[FiiO Willson]

Any W&F figures you can publish yet?
Hoping you're aiming for something close to 0.10% RMS or better for it to be anywhere near listenable?

Make the internal battery user-replaceable to extend the lifecycle and make the playback head the defining end-of-lifecycle item.

For all those asking about PC connectivity (presumably to digitise cassettes) just buy a cheap old Yamaha KX deck.

The data of the prototype tested so far is 0.15% RMS,
which should be the best parameter in the current sale, and we will try to keep a better consistency

The CP13 uses a very good Li-Ion battery, which, like a cell phone, has a very good lifespan and you can enjoy the music about 13 hours one times.

 

[FiiO Willson]

No Dolby B (or C)?

No,
We can Not find the Chip with Dolby type-B Noise IC, So....

If you can find such ICs that are still in mass production, please feel free to recommend them to us!

Please send me a private message so I can see it.

 

[FiiO Willson]

Will it use a proprietary cassette deck and tape reader, or will it just be built around the same components that most other modern cassette players use?

We've made a lot of changes.

 

[FiiO Willson]

Yes - please keep it as simple, pure, and analog as you can. If they want screen and chip and screen or bluetooth, they can always get a DAP. The battery is a good idea, although I don't think this takes too much power to run.

Can you also include a pencil to rewind those tapes manually if we have to?

I don't think we need a pencil for this one,
you can operate it with the push of a button,

and so far the tests he's been doing have been very stable, and it doesn't wrap the tape around the film.

 

[Eiffel]

No,
We can Not find the Chip with Dolby type-B Noise IC, So....

If you can find such ICs that are still in mass production, please feel free to recommend them to us!

Please send me a private message so I can see it.

Seems there are still in production some of them.
Not sure how good they are.
Like - NTE1833 - Dolby B-Type Noise Reduction System IC.
Just google for them - still available on a lot of components providers.

 

[Charente]

I am curious as to why? I do admit, that for CDs, I still have around 4,000 and most in excellent condition but they aren't used.

Have you really 'ripped' all your 4000 CDs ? Quite a feat of endurance !!