There will never be anything quite like the mix tape. For better or worse, it really changed the way people listened to music. So it’s sort of bittersweet to see Sony releasing its final cassette-playing boom box ever.
Think about it: cassettes were the first medium that allowed people to put a bunch of different songs in one place in whatever order they wanted. It broke the iron grip of albums, which required that you listen to the same songs in the same order every time. Not after cassettes came along. And of course blank CDs and MP3s have only sped up that shift, but cassettes, they were the trailblazers.
And now they’re pretty much dead. Sony’s new CFD-A110 boom box has a cassette player, a CD player, an AM/FM radio and an external mic jack for karaoke sessions. It’ll cost about $215 wen it drops in Japan next month, which is a lot to pay for a cassette boom box. But hey, this is your last chance! What’s a little money in the face of history? [Sony Japan via Impress Watch via Engadget]
