You Refused to Junk Your Cassette Tapes. Smile Smugly. ADAM BAER
As cassette tape decks faded from the standard lineup of home audio equipment, it appeared that a generation's mix-tape memories might be headed the way of the vinyl disc and eight-track. But a new product from the Korean company BTO promises to help cassette fans resurrect their 80's glory days.
The $150 PlusDeck2, available from online gadget stores listed at plusdeck.com, is a cassette deck the size of an internal CD-ROM drive that pops into any desktop PC's 5.25-inch drive bay. It can turn your beloved tapes into MP3's - or, for true retro music fans, record MP3's onto blank cassettes (which, by the way, remain cheap, light, slim and droppable).
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The deck includes installation and music software on CD-ROM, as well as cables and a connection card. You can use simple manual buttons on the device's face, or operate it with the software, which mimics the look of a tape player.
The deck also allows you to play tapes through your computer. But its most important feature may be validation: pack rats who saved hundreds of tapes, to the annoyance of their significant others, will suddenly seem to be masters of foresight. ADAM BAER
