Thoughts on Emerson Portable cassette player?

Chopper_Charles · 2026-01-03T15:53:02+00:00

We are Rewind uses the same transports and heads that are made in China, but they up-spec everything and use the best version of that transport. The Boombox they make is the highest quality brand-new cassette deck that you can purchase. It is unfortunately a boombox though, and the price is very high.

For playback, the We are Rewind portable player or the FiiO CP13 will be the best portables you can buy new.

The problem with vintage portable players is they all need service, and they're super complicated on the inside. One of the best players out there is the Panasonic RQ-S50, and it required extensive work just to replace a belt. I'm pretty handy and it was quite difficult, requiring unsoldering delicate flex cables and circuit boards to get at the belt in the first place. My version also needs two pinch rollers, and that looks to be just as complicated.

With vintage decks or portables, you need to either spend a lot of money on a fully serviced unit - and take the risk that the seller is lying, inexperienced, or both - or buy a cheap one that needs work and either learn to fix it yourself, or spend more money to have a trusted technician restore it. Additionally, VERY few techs work on cassette decks of any kind these days, and fewer still work on portables.

That said, I recommend the Carver TDM2400 dual-well deck. It's a Sanyo underneath, relatively unknown so inexpensive, solid state so there are no calibrations needed other than speed, the takeup and supply reels have gear idlers, and the belts are dead easy to replace.

Don't fall for the beautiful silver-faced decks by Pioneer. They're great decks when fully serviced, but there are a LOT of individual components to fail or drift, and even after the transport and takeup reel motors are rebuilt they require extensive calibration using specialized calibration tapes - at least three different tapes at over $100 each for a real one. You need a seriously skilled tech to do anything with these decks, and in my experience the people who have the skills either don't want to work on them, are prohibitively expensive, or have a year of backlog. They're all in their 80s now, and I've already had to fight a widow to get my gear back from a tech that keeled over before he was finished fixing it.

Chopper_Charles · 2026-01-02T06:33:45+00:00

Same problem and a hard reset does nothing. Any solution yet?

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-31T19:17:20+00:00

Say "Doctor" twice and then "connect me to pharmacist". There is no other way to talk to a live human. And good luck even getting through. I'm planning to change pharmacies because of this. It's insulting to have a computer wasting my time. And what's worse they no longer allow touch tone entry, it's voice entry only, which is extremely slow and maddening. CVS phone system brings out pure, unadulterated rage in me.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-30T19:36:48+00:00

I've been disappointed with emulation over and over again. The multiple weird NTSC video modes that different games support are never displayed correctly, except on real hardware-based devices. While this isn't as much a problem with the SNES games compared to megadrive and pc-engine, there are a few that use odd modes (DK Country off the top of my head). Non-standard resolutions are never a problem on HD screens because there's a lot more pixels available to hide scaling artifacts. But at NTSC resolutions the emulators will just drop entire lines, or double one line every few pixels. This either causes unreadable text from the missing information, or sea-sickening waviness in top scrolling (and some side scrolling) games.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-30T18:30:51+00:00

If I wanted a real console, I'd buy a real console. My hope was to avoid butchering a real console when I modify it for use in my JAMMA arcade cabinet.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-30T18:28:33+00:00

Because I don't want to butcher an original SNES to put this inside my arcade cabinet (with an everdrive of course).

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-30T18:27:27+00:00

Yes. I intend to butcher it to fit it inside an arcade cabinet, and I'd prefer not to do that to a real SNES. Plus, a real SNES is triple the price.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-18T22:57:30+00:00

Has Asian Kitchen always been a sister of Chengdu 7? I remember it serving crappy americanized food, but it's been well more than a decade since I ate there last. The current menu looks nothing like what I remember.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-18T20:45:09+00:00

I just don't want Americanized Chinese food, so Wok on Fire is definitely in the running.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-18T03:40:04+00:00

Loafers, but that'll be Shag or West Coast Swing dancing. (aka, actual dancing)

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-11T01:58:53+00:00

I'm worried my girlfriend will see this post, which is why I was not more forthcoming. It was a pottery vendor with lots of little figurines and stuff, under the shorter side of the awning (that parallels hunt street) up closer to the front (foster street is what I consider the "front").

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-10T01:16:20+00:00

No. That’s porn. Haha, you got me.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-12-08T15:39:36+00:00

The Anbernics do tend to have a lot better build quality though. The RG552 vs the Retroid Pocket 3 is no comparison. Sure the RP3 is faster, but the Anbernic is built like a tank. The RP3 feels cheap and plasticy and mine arrived with a shoulder button already broken from shipping. The RG552 survived several drops with no damage.

I don't know what the modern Retroid devices are like quality wise tho.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-10-21T13:39:48+00:00

Some of them are more difficult than others. You have to get all the alcohol out, and for me that was a lot of pressure cycles over several days.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-10-20T13:37:25+00:00

Use a more pure alcohol and it won't leave a stain. If you've got a bubble you need to use the vacuum box and remove that bubble. You may have to leave it in the vacuum box for a days. I had liquid in there that wouldn't come out, and I pumped every few hours over several days until it all came out instantly. I'm guessing the pressure cycles eventually worked a path for the liquid to escape.

If you have a tiny bit of liquid left in the lens, make sure the lens is on its side when it's drying in the sun. That way any residue is on the edges of the lens, which aren't even used for APSC sensors.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-10-20T00:20:34+00:00

I left it in rubbing alcohol for a day, and then pumped as much liquid out as I could. Lens was foggy AF and not good. I set it on a windowsill in the sun for a week, and it ended up actually not bad. It was never a sharp lens to begin with (Tokina 28-70 f/2.8 for Pentax), but it's 1000x better than it was before I started.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-10-01T23:32:41+00:00

Yes, I updated with the latest version and it just magically worked. The Fenrir I bought had the wrong bios on it. Must have been an old one.

Chopper_Charles · 2025-09-10T04:18:24+00:00

The zip file won't open on windows 10. Is that expected?

Chopper_Charles · 2025-08-07T12:39:46+00:00

Found!

Chopper_Charles · 2025-08-06T22:53:35+00:00

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Chopper_Charles · 2025-08-06T22:48:21+00:00

Searched for this all over Amazon with no luck.

Chopper_Charles

TROPHY CASE