QFX RETRO-39 Portable Shoebox USB to Cassette Tape Recorder, Analog Cassette Tape Deck with Built-in Microphone, 3.5" Bluetooth Speaker with FM Radio

I bought this to make my sister's mix tapes for X-Mas. There is something about mix tapes that are unique and cassette tapes is the only medium that it really works on. Mix CDs, close, but not the same. The songs need to be listened in order.First remember - this is a tape player, so the sound is not as good as other mediums. cassettes are the worst sound quality. This is not the tape players fault. Hence me grading it an 8. It works as well as expected and for 30 bucks I cannot imagine something sounding better.The built in microphone does not work well. if you are buying this to record your voice memos, you shouldn't. I am not going to ding my score based on this.The line in - This works well. The quality was decent when recording from my phone. There are a lot of variables in play here. The best thing to do is max your volume when imputing. Remember, your cable has a lot to do with it also moving around ect.Why I gave it 5 stars. The USB jack. Despite there being absolutely no documentation on it, once I figured out how to get this to work perfect and I decided not to give it a 1 star and return it.The way the USB works is. Put your songs or what you want to on the USB drive. plug it in. Put into USB mode. It will play the audio files on your USB. Sadly, it doesn't transfer the meta data, but remember, it is an analog cassette tape.temper your expectations to that and the product will suit your needs, especially if you are making mix tapes.finally, my wife's old mix tapes play wonderfully on the device. Line out works great if you want to transfer them that way, however I think there are better methods to export mixtapes.

I'm old and I got a desire to play a cassette tape that I had, and after looking around I settled on this. I really like it. I like the ka-chunk buttons, the styling, and I really like the heft of it when it's full of C batteries. The speaker is small but I like it too. It's nostalgia overload for folks of a certain age.One thing to be warned about, it's not designed for recording mix tapes and things from the external line in. The record function only works through the integrated microphone, so the record function is really for recording dictation and the like, as the old versions were. You will need to acquire a tape deck that can record from a line in in order to make your own mix tapes. But as a player with line out, bluetooth, and USB support, it's a surprising amount of modern stuff built into an adorable package. If QFX made a modern retro tape deck that could record from an external source, I'd have bought that too!

I purchased this to use with some other music production equipment and wanted to record some sounds from phone to tape loop cassettes and add a lo-fi background sound. I've tried via the line in connection, through Bluetooth and via the built in microphone. Every try results in a horrible hissing white noise sound and the recorded audio is drowned out by this noise. I've tried multiple Cassettes and every one has the same result. I've also tried from pc and tablet and also tried recording from a mixer and directly from instruments. It's all garbage. If you're looking to record anything on this "recorder" it will not work. Also, when ejecting my first cassette, the door shattered. The buttons are super flimsy and probably won't last long. It's pretty much unusable for what I was wanting to do. If you have a pre-recorded cassette it might sound fine but if you're looking to do ANY recording on your own avoid this unit at all costs. It's a shame that Amazon allows such horrible products to be sold on its site.

Super portable the performance was great it was really loud but a little flat I think it's a great value for your money it seems pretty durable as long as you're not dropping it from higher than knee height its size is pretty good as well!

This is a cool cheap item. The packaging was damaged. I wish Amazon would put it in an outer box. Nonetheless I kept it because it was so amazing. Looks and feels exactly like similar items sold in the 70s. It does everything they did and more. Imagine the unit acting like a blue tooth speaker. It will pair seamlessly with your iPhone and when you play songs on your phone they will play through the cassette recorder’s speaker. If you now engage the record mechanism with a tape in it: voila you are making a tape of what’s playing in your iPhone! You can also control forward, back and pause of your iPhone with tiny buttons on the unit. Just like a Bluetooth speaker. You can also play FM radio and record that. Who the heck listens to radio anymore? Regardless the FM radio gets amazingly good reception! No way of telling which station you are listening to. Allows an external mic 🎤 or a line in from your stereo. I would not hesitate to buy this just for fun. I’ll be interested to hear the quality of a tape made from Blue Tooth, and then played into a stereo through the line out. Will it be high fidelity? Will it have the tin AM radio type sound?: I do not know! Will be fun to play with. In any case buy without hesitation, and then get some blank tapes and 4 C cell batteries while you are at it. One thing it does not do is allow you to listen to it with a set of blue tooth headphones. You would have to use wired ones through the line out. How 70s! Have a blast!