Julius Curt's Lo-Fi Cassette Machine Brings Magnetic Media to Bear on Bluetooth Streaming
Clever tape delay gadget offers "real analog warmth, tape saturation, and that wobbly lo-fi character."
Maker Julius Curt has built what he describes as "the ultimate DIY lo-fi machine" for music playback, blending a classic medium with a modern twist: a Bluetooth-capable cassette tape deck.
"I built the ultimate lo-fi cassette machine — a fully analog tape loop player with Bluetooth input, a glowing VU [Volume Unit] meter, custom PCBs, and a stainless-steel enclosure," Curt explains of the project. "It streams music over Bluetooth, records it onto tape, and plays it back with real analog warmth, tape saturation, and that wobbly lo-fi character."
Readers of a certain vintage will well-recall the popularity of Sony's Walkman, which took cassette tapes — compact magnetic tapes onto which tens of minutes of music could be recorded on either side for later playback — out of the living room or den and onto your belt for music on-demand wherever you were. The birth of Compact Disc Digital Audio (CCDA, or Audio CD) and the launch of disc-based portable players capable of longer run-times and higher audio quality put paid to cassettes, then in turn were all-but killed off by the rise of streaming services.
Curt's creation blends classic tapes with modern streaming, connecting to a nearby Bluetooth-capable audio device — but rather than simply acting as a Bluetooth speaker, it takes the incoming audio and records it to a looped tape before playing it back through a built-in speaker and amplifier. "Some of you might recognize this type of device as a tape delay with extra steps," Curt says. "And yes, I also added input/output jacks to be able to use it as a tape delay or tape saturation machine."
The device itself is based around a stainless steel chassis with 3D-printed and laser-cut parts, with custom PCBs created in KiCad carrying "a mix of Bluetooth modules, op-amps, [an SGS-Thompson] TDA2030 speaker amp, and a reclaimed CCFL [Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp], this thing is as DIY as it gets."
The gadget is documented in full in the video embedded above and on Curt's YouTube channel, as well as its project page on Hackaday.io where you'll also find schematics.