Finding a box of my old tapes (and why I finally bought that Victrola)
So. I was cleaning out the basement—you know, the kind of weekend where you tell yourself you’re just “tidying” and then four hours later you’re sitting on the floor surrounded by stuff you forgot you had. And there it was: a beat-up wooden crate, shoved behind some old board games and a lamp that’s been “temporary” for a decade. Inside? Hundreds of my old cassette tapes and CDs from when I was a teenager.
I’m talking the whole era. Mix tapes I made off the radio. CDs I saved up for. Albums I borrowed from friends and… definitely returned. (Sorry, Mike.) The second I cracked that crate open, it was like a time machine. I wasn’t just looking at plastic and cardboard—I was looking at sleepovers, bus rides, the exact songs I had on repeat when I thought nobody understood me. The flood of memories and nostalgia was ridiculous. I just sat there for a while, pulling out one after another and grinning like an idiot.
The only problem? I hadn’t had a way to play any of it in years. My current setup was all vinyl—which I love—but my tapes and CDs had been sitting in storage, basically retired. I didn’t want to buy a bunch of separate players. I wanted one thing that could handle the records I’m obsessed with now and all this old stuff I’d just rediscovered.
That’s when I started looking for something that could do both. I ended up going with the Victrola Century 6-in-1—turntable, CD player, cassette, Bluetooth, the works. It satisfied my current vinyl kick and let me actually play every single one of those old tapes and CDs again. First night I had it set up, I put on a cassette I hadn’t heard in maybe twenty years. No joke, I got a little emotional. It’s cheesy, but that’s what finding a box of your old music does to you.
If you’re in a similar spot—digging up old formats or just want one hub for vinyl, CDs, and cassettes—we wrote up a full review of the Victrola Century on our gear page. Worth a look. And if you’ve got a crate of your own gathering dust somewhere… maybe it’s time to drag it out. You might be surprised what’s still in there.