When I was nine, my grandparents gifted me with my very own boombox. I remember it vividly: I felt so cool, being able to blast songs from my favourite CDs and the A- and B-sides to my old cassettes. A few years later, I got my first discman. And needless to say, I felt even cooler than before — my portable CD player came with headphones, along with a strap so I could walk or jog around with it. Eventually, this was replaced with a first-generation iPod, followed by an iPod Nano, and so forth. (Oh, technology!)
Fast forward to today. We mostly listen to music on our smartphones; but a lot of the time, many of us find ourselves missing the good old days. For instance, remember when we could go on a run with our little MP3 players and not worry about having our phone screens get shattered into pieces? Or, don’t you remember how exciting it would be to purchase actual albums and play them on our stereos or CD players?
Artists are still coming out with cassettes, CDs, and vinyl records — and you know what? They aren’t just decorative items. You can still play them, so long as you still have the necessary gadgets. If you’ve given yours away a long time ago, the great news is you can still buy them online. Take this opportunity to snatch up these retro music players before they’re obsolete!
Also read: Your Unused Mobile Data and Broken Phones Are Recyclable — But How?
From vinyl to MP3: Retro music players you can buy online
Vinyl record player
If you used to own a turntable but were quick to get rid of it when newer music gadgets came into the picture, we can imagine how regretful you probably are right now. After all, there’s nothing quite like listening to songs on vinyl — regardless of how old or new the record is. Thankfully, you can still purchase turntables until today. From vintage stores to Lazada, there are still countless offerings on the market nowadays!
Shop for a vintage record player on Shopee or Lazada.
Boombox
Boomboxes will always remind me of one thing: John Cusack’s iconic scene from Say Anything. For all you Gen Z readers, a vintage boombox is portable and plays cassette tapes, along with AM and FM radio.
Eventually, more advanced versions were made with the same features, plus the additional capability of playing CDs. You’ll notice that in order to accommodate the CD player function, these are more round in shape than the original boombox!
Shop for a boombox on Shopee or Lazada.
Also read: Why You Have to Try Listening to 8D Music on YouTube
AM/FM radio
Before cassettes, CDs, and MP3 files, all we had was radio. And hey — it’s something we still get to enjoy up to today! Nowadays, though, I mostly just tune in to the radio when I’m on the road. But with regular rotational brownouts and weather-related power outages, it’s smart to have a radio on hand. When TV and the Internet aren’t available, a radio can help us stay up to date on the news.
Shop for an AM/FM radio on Shopee or Lazada.
Portable AM/FM radio
Don’t have much space to spare? Well, it’s a good thing AM/FM radios are still available in portable sizes. They even come with AUX ports for those who prefer to listen to the radio with headphones!
Shop for a portable AM/FM radio on Shopee or Lazada.
Also read: 8 Wireless Earphones You Can Buy Online for Less Than ₱2,000
Portable cassette player
Can you believe some artists still release cassette tapes? At first, I thought they were purely decorative — but it turns out that there are still audiophiles out there who actually prefer cassettes over Spotify. I can’t blame them at all; sometimes, you just want to get lost in the music and nothing more!
Shop for a portable cassette player on Shopee or Lazada.
CD player
CD players are very much back — and this particular model is actually a crowd favourite, especially among K-pop fans. Since K-pop albums are often released in various designs, fans often try to collect each and every one. This aesthetic wall-mounted CD player is popular among fans, since it allows you to let your CDs double as display items!
Shop for a CD player on Shopee or Lazada.
Also read: 12 Aesthetic Items to Decorate Your Room With
Portable CD player
Angsty teens of the early 2000s will surely remember what it was like to have a Discman or portable CD player. We’d grab our fave CDs (perhaps even ones we had burned ourselves — major #throwback!), turn up the volume, and tune out the rest of the world. That sounds quite tempting right now, don’t you think?
Shop for a portable CD player on Shopee or Lazada.
MP3 player
Remember when the iPod shuffle came out and it was the coolest thing? Then, with the arrival of more sophisticated MP3 players, these were quickly forgotten. Now, I hear of people on the hunt for these old music players — and I totally understand why. They’re small, portable, and you get to enjoy music without the ever-present distraction of social media.
Shop for an MP3 player on Shopee or Lazada.
Also read: These Companies Can Convert Your Old VHS Tapes to MP4 Files
Who would’ve thought that we’d end up missing these retro music players, right? Let this remind us that a lot of the things we deem out of style are very likely to make a comeback. So, be sure to take good care of the gadgets you have now — they might be worth a fortune in the future!
Featured image credit: Abderrahmane Meftah |Unsplash
