They make these things with bluetooth now believe it or not.
Pair the tape
Stick it in a cassette player
Play music on your phone.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Pair the tape
I can't even, why is this so funny?(◕‿◕')
Love me some anachronism stew.
God damn it. Another thing I have to charge.
I feel like this could work using a tiny generator attached to the drive's motorized wheel, but that's probably too complex to be cost-effective for something like this unfortunately.
That is a great idea.
I think they might use AAAs
Down to you if that's worse or better.
I can see the use if you're for example driving an older car with mostly original kit and don't want an anachronistic stereo in it. So you pair up your fake cassette to your modern phone and can still play Spotify or w/e with the original kit.
There's even an 8-Track version of it.
Also buying a whole-ass new car stereo (+ installation) is much more expensive than a bluetooth adaptor from China
So if you're driving an ancient car out of necessity rather than for the aesthetic, this can help you get music into it.
F'course
Most cars from the age of tapes nowadays are relics. "Old cars" in the range that poor people drive out of necessity are from the CD age instead.
Am poor still driving my 1997 truck, it has an aux tho
You'd be surprised, I've seen cars from as late as 08 that still had cassette. Though that's probably heavily dependent on manufacturer, model, region, and sub model type. But my point still stands, hell id wouldn't be surprised if there was a car or two manufactured in 2012 that still came stock with a cassette deck.
...used to be folks also made adapters with FM micro-transmitters for cars without tape decks; might still do...
They still do. This is how I play stuff in my '03 Jeep.
How does that work from the fake cassette to the player? Does the fake cassette record what's streaming to it to a loop of tape and let the player pick up the audio?
adjusts 🤓 glasses
So a cassette tape works by using electromagnetism. Ferric Oxide (AKA, literally rust powder) has a property that if exposed to a magnetic field, it will create a weak version of that magnetic field within itself
So the record head of a tape machine is an electromagnet that changes its field based on the actual audio signal, translating audio frequencies directly to magnetic directions and strengths, while the read head is a passive electromagnetic coil that picks up that weak magnetic field on the rust-coated plastic tape while a small motor runs the tape past it and emits it as a soundwave.
The tape adapter skips 90% of these steps —
— It just has an electromagnetic coil of its own, positioned so it lines up with the play head, and when you feed it an audio signal, that audio signal gets directly translated to a magnetic field just by running it through the coil. The tape deck picks it up and doesn't even realise there is no tape running through
Psshhht. I used to have a microphone that let me SING ON THE RADIO. It literally put me on the FM airwaves. You may have heard some of my stuff.
HEY GOOD LOOKING I'LL BE BACK TO PICK YOU UP LATER
I used to have one that would broadcast a short-range radio station that you would tune the car radio to. You’d have to make sure its frequency was far from an actual radio station or you’d get crosstalk. On long road trips you’d have to keep adjusting it.
Lol, we used those little transmitters that you plug into the cigarette lighter plug until several years ago in a mid 2000s car, and they're still sold and used by people. The funniest thing that happened was when we were overtaking a semi who had one of these, but with a stronger transmitter, so for a couple of seconds we were listening to the guy's random turbo folk music.
Technology Connections' video on the topic: 
Spoiler, they're incredibly simple and quite clever.
I had one that turned 1/8" into it's own radio frequency. It was really shitty but it worked!
Edit: just looked and they still sell them! https://www.amazon.com/Transmitter-Adapter-Built-iPhone-Players/dp/B076X3GSMH
I built one myself!
~~Probably~~ definitely way more powerful than the legal limit, practically making it a pirate radio station...
I built one, but by that time our local FM radio waves were so saturated that there was no good frequency to use.
Kewl
U need help? I did one myself with icecast and shit
I have one that is bluetooth to cassette. Unfortunately, it has a lot of artifacts during playback. Opted for a bluetooth transmitter that connects to an empty radio channel? Frequency? Works well.
The bluetooth to FM transmitter works well for you? I've tried them several times over the decades, even the expensive ones seem to suck. Maybe not as much as your bluetooth to cassette, I've never seen one of those for sale or used one.
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When I get my IROC I'm planning to do this.
Grandma, what's an iPod?
I had a fuckin boombox in my back seat for a while, then I upgraded to one of those portable ipod docks and plugged that shit into the cigarette lighter. Actually was pretty decent lol
I remember showing mine to a friend once and she straight up was like "Oh wow! I wonder if they make these for CD players instead of cassette tapes."
🤦♂️
So the thing about these is they always work unless you physically damage it in a completely obvious way and then you get another $5 adapter. You know unlike figuring out how to make your phone talk to a stupid car.
I used to make mix tapes by recording mp3s onto cassettes so I could listen to them in my car.
I remember excluding cars with CD players from my purchasing decisions for this reason! Should either have a tape or aux in.
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