u/therealduckie

While cheap decks on Amazon are tempting, they are almost always super cheap, mono and have a limited sound frequency range. Especially those monstrosities with the speakers built into the case.

Cassette players that are $20 are made to be $20, so they give you as few upgrades or features as possible.

Do they work? Sure. Are they worth it? No. Almost never.

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While many will deny it, it is absolutely possible to buy a real portable cassette player on ebay/etsy that is working, reliable and relatively inexpensive.

I will not be linking any in this post, to avoid being labled spam, but I will give examples of models.

I was able to purchase numerous Sony Walkman models for $20 or less. Devices with AM/FM stereo, Dolby NR, and quality heads with great frequency range.

These models include:

• WM-F46
• WM-FX251
• WM-F2015
• WM-AF29
• Sports WM-SXF10

(Note: Stay away from TCM models. the M means Mono)

Non-Sony cassette players I purchased for less than $20 include:

• Unitech IS-113F
• Panasonic RQ-356
• Panasonic RX-S35
• GE 3-5440A
• Magnavox D-6607

All of these were purchased in the past 2 months. All of them worked. None needed belts or work of any kind. 3 of them came with headphones. 4 of them came with leather covers/cases.

So deals are out there, if you look around.

Now, if you want to get bold and buy one that requires a belt - You can get a pack of belts for $6-7US on Amazon, then a whole range of Cassette Players opens up to you.

Most belt replacements are super simple. Some, though, require some cleaning with 91% isopropyl alcohol and tons of cotton swabs, because old belts tend to melt.

If you stay in the late 1990s to early 2000s range of cassette players, most will not suffer this issue. I tend to buy much older devices, so I accept the risk.

There's tons of videos on youtube on how to replace belts, gears, or just service a walkman with simple things like some lithium grease and deoxit spray.

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Buying a cassette player used is not the gamble most naysayers will have you believe. There's a lot of really well-made devices that stood the test of time and are better quality than the cheap ones on Amazon.

Shop around. Wait for deals. Keep looking.

and the best hint of all: click that heart button on ebay. People watch those and will offer you an even better deal almost every time.

Happy hunting!

I've been a ride-or-die Debian user for YEARS. Just regular Debian. Not Ubuntu or similar. Never thought I'd ever consider distro-hopping again as it had everything I needed.

My previous PC was a Minisforum UN1265 with an I7-12650H, Intel UHD iGPU and 32GB DDR4.

Recently, my nephew gave me his old gaming PC: Ryzen 5 7600, Geforce RTX 3050, 32GB DDR5 RAM.

I spent months trying to figure out how to get the right NVIDIA drivers working, almost to the point of fouling up my system. So, I started to look for a linux distro that had better support OOTB.

Just like Linus, Elijah and Luke, I looked at Bazzite, CachyOS and...Pop!_OS - The latter of which I had never considered in a million years.

But then I dug deeper. Pop!_OS is Debian-based and has a specific build with NVIDIA drivers.

Tried out the live build and it was smooth as butter. Then I verified all my apps would be fine, since I was going from X11 to Wayland. (All i lost was Cairo-dock, but Cosmic has a dock built-in)

Had Linus and team not motivated me to take another look, I would not be as happy as I am, right now. And again, I am a seasoned Linux user with many years of experience. I absolutely find it odd and crazy that Pop!_OS was my solution...and that it has gone so smoothly.

60+FPS in Cyberpunk on high settings at 1080p was enough to prove it was the right decision.

And I still have all the apps I loved, before.

Oh, and Hytale works for me, now. It never did with the wonky drivers in regular Debian. Minecraft gives me ~900FPS, too.

So yeah, poo-poo their takes all you want-- but they have legitimate criticisms. Including how shitty the Linux regulars treat newbies with such disdain and impatience.

Thanks LTT for helping me find a new distro.