As someone who has released music on cassettes recently, the unfortunate part is that few people seem to have cassette decks anymore but many people have low end turntables. I suspect even bad sounding records would sell better than cassettes or CDs.
All new cassette players are very low quality, and the old ones are slowly falling apart. Even though they're often not beyond repair, not a lot of people have the willingness to put in the effort.
In the age of AI fakes and perfect high fidelity available to anybody, the “crap” noise and distortion of this kind of thing is going to become a signal of reality that will be sought after.
Ya they just invented distortion no one does that in music right? It's not like they make pedals and plugins specifically for distortion. Instead you should pay TE for this revolutionary rebranding of an existing device.
It's really no more nonsense than lo-fi tracks having rain sounds in the background or hiphop producers running old school beats through a 12-bit sampler to crush it up a bit.
Producers use a ton of subtle tricks to make you unknowingly enjoy their work more with a touch of nostalgia.
My Roland sampler has a "simulate vinyl" effect that's trying to do the same as this product, but in software.
Yes as I said there are already many distortions and bit crushers in use by people making music today, this little overpriced record cutter isn't revolutionizing anything because of distortion.
Nobody that's buying this (including me) is buying it for its pure utility. They're buying it because it's cool-looking, fun, interesting, educational, or whatever. If my goal was good audio quality, of course it's not what I'd buy. I already own a high end flash recorder, multiple very capable computers, etc. (I also own two of Gakken's earlier wax cylinder gramophones and a few of their other kits.)
It is bad audio quality - but I find it potentially an interesting effect. I could see myself using it in the studio; not for final master of course, but as an effect for a section of a song or instrument. Compared to a guitar pedal, the price is right.
Also see this DIY project - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y7osjazhLE