How to make MP3 adaptor cassettes look good

mmcodomino · Apr 25, 2010

Hello guys,

I just thought I should post my experience here: I have a few boxes without line-in or any other input that would play directly over the speakers. So I got this little nice adaptor cassette on eBay:
[ebay]220593345752[/ebay]
It works very good but I just hate that look with all that junk printed on it. The back of it is blank and white :-D

But if you just insert it like that, it won't play anything :-/

So I unscrewed it and took a look at the inside. It turned out you can turn this tone-head around so that you can insert the cassette with the blank side facing to the front :w00t:

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And if you have an upside-down cassette deck, you can also throw out all those stupid wheels and gears out of it and just let the wire come out of the bottom of the cassette. That is what I did to mine. :-)

Now it looks neutral and is not saying that I am cheating my old 80s boombox :lol:

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Of course you can also paint the white cassette then to make it look even cooler...probably a cassette look sticker to it :lol:

Now just hide the wire...If you want use your cassette deck for MP3s permanently then you can modify your boombox, too.
Just put the wire inside and make it go to the place where the MIC plugs are etc. or to the back. Screw a small hole there and let the jack look out there to plug in MP3 devices :-)

I hope this might be helpful for some of you :-)

Jovie · Apr 27, 2010

Thats an interesting idea to run the wire internally.If you could decide on a look for the front of the cassette you could leave it in well permanently.Perhaps come up with an industrial design look that complements the design of the box.Leaving slack inside would allow you to pop it out if you want to play regular cassettes.In a box with dual wells you wouldnt even have to do that.Im going to revisit this idea for my Sanyo.Thanks for throwing this out there :-)

redbenjoe · Apr 27, 2010

thanks max , for the cool idea :hmmm:

kittmaster · Apr 27, 2010

Some decks monitor the rotation of the reels, so that solution (removing all the gears) would not work on many up the higher end boxes.

mmcodomino · Apr 27, 2010

kittmaster said:
Some decks monitor the rotation of the reels, so that solution (removing all the gears) would not work on many up the higher end boxes.

You can leave all the gears in there as well. They just disturbed me and were making noises when it was turning.
You can still pause the cassette and it keeps on playing :-)

kittmaster · Apr 27, 2010

good point, but some boxes also mute their inputs when the pause function is activated.

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

kittmaster said:
good point, but some boxes also mute their inputs when the pause function is activated.

Okay, but those boxes usually DO have a Line-In :lol:

The adaptor solution is for cheaper ones ;-)

Fatdog · Apr 28, 2010

I wonder if you could take an old reel cassette and turn it into an MP3 adapter. :hmmm:

That would be really cool! :yes:

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

Fatdog said:
I wonder if you could take an old reel cassette and turn it into an MP3 adapter.

That would be really cool!

Sure you can! Just take the stuff out of the MP3 adaptor and put it in the other cassette. I am going to try it and post a photo if it works :yes:

Fatdog · Apr 28, 2010

mmcodomino said:
Fatdog said:

I wonder if you could take an old reel cassette and turn it into an MP3 adapter.

That would be really cool!

Click to expand...

Sure you can! Just take the stuff out of the MP3 adaptor and put it in the other cassette. I am going to try it and post a photo if it works

Awesome!

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

Fatdog said:
mmcodomino said:

Fatdog said:

I wonder if you could take an old reel cassette and turn it into an MP3 adapter.

That would be really cool!

Click to expand...

Sure you can! Just take the stuff out of the MP3 adaptor and put it in the other cassette. I am going to try it and post a photo if it works

Click to expand...

Awesome!

Okay, I just tried it and it would work but I would need to cut parts out of the cassette so there is room for the tone head. I am not willing to sacrifice a cassette for that :lol:

Anyway, you get the whole stuff out of the adaptor cassette, a small board and the tone head. I am probably going to do it but not right now :-)

Fatdog · Apr 28, 2010

Hey Max, maybe you can find another "donor" case for the reel experiment. As long as it is transparent, it should work. Maybe? ;-)

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

Fatdog said:
Hey Max, maybe you can find another "donor" case for the reel experiment. As long as it is transparent, it should work. Maybe?

You really want to see how it looks, huh? :-P

Okay, I am going to try it out tonight :yes:

Fatdog · Apr 28, 2010

mmcodomino said:
Fatdog said:

Hey Max, maybe you can find another "donor" case for the reel experiment. As long as it is transparent, it should work. Maybe?

Click to expand...

You really want to see how it looks, huh?
Okay, I am going to try it out tonight

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

Okay, done with it. :-D

It was tricky but worked out just fine with some double sided glue-tape to hold the tone head in place. :-)

Here's a pic:

I transplanted the head back to the old cassette though because it was not that steady, with some hot glue it would be but I really just did thid very quickly. I am sure you can get better results. :yes:

Fatdog · Apr 28, 2010

Nice. That might be an option for boomboxes with no line-in. Maybe try one like this.

Thanks for checking to see if you could do it. ;-)

mmcodomino · Apr 28, 2010

Fatdog said:
Nice. That might be an option for boomboxes with no line-in. Maybe try one like this.

[ Image ]

Thanks for checking to see if you could do it.

I really would love to have those R2R cassettes but I just don't know where to get them :-/

redbenjoe · Apr 28, 2010

hey max --they are not that hard to find -- --

bet you can find some on uk germany --
and fatdog has a link for a good ebay uk reel guy :-)

some of us in the usa got white reelies from him last month

ViennaSound · Apr 29, 2010

mmcodomino said:
Fatdog said:

Nice. That might be an option for boomboxes with no line-in. Maybe try one like this.

[ Image ]

Thanks for checking to see if you could do it.

Click to expand...

I really would love to have those R2R cassettes but I just don't know where to get them

Remind me before the dessau meeting!
I will bring you a original sealed ROTORCHROME tape. ;-)

mmcodomino · Apr 29, 2010

Yeah, thanks Roman :-D

I just wanted to add that I had to get a new adaptor cassette today because while transpanitng the old one a few times, some wires came off and it is not working anymore :lol:

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Fatdog, you should pay for it since you wanted me to modify it :lol:

I kid you

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For Sale:
Broken MP3 adaptor cassette, pay shipping and it is yours

How to make MP3 adaptor cassettes look good

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