I own maybe fifty albums on vinyl and less than a dozen cassette tapes. I don’t buy new releases on vinyl — everything I have is either belonged to my parents, is from my own childhood, or was purchased to tickle some nostalgic sense. I don’t think I paid more than a dollar or two for any of them. Most of them pop, hiss and crackle and I like it that way. I’m less nostalgic about cassette tapes. I digitized all my childhood radio recordings years ago and only have a handful of tapes from local bands that never made the leap to CD.

When it comes to digitizing this stuff, I have some pretty good gear. I have Kenwood tape deck and a decent turntable that I hooked up to my computer. This setup was good for digitizing stuff, but not great at listening to it.

Enter the Looptone 9-in-1 stereo system.

I was eyeing a similar system but in a “boombox” form factor at Sam’s Club the last time I was there, but this unit adds the ability to play records which is what pushed me over the edge.

Not only does this compact unit play records, it also plays cassettes, CDs, and has an AM/FM radio built in. It also plays mp3s off of a USB stick or an SD card, has a 3.5mm aux input, and supports Bluetooth. Unless you have a collection of music on 8-track, this thing should play it.

For outputs the unit has two speakers built-in to the sides, a 3,5mm headphone jack, and two RCA jacks on the rear for connecting to an amplifier or some powered speakers. The built-in speakers are “okay” for listening to music but for big room sound you’ll want to add some external speakers.

The unit also came with a remote which can be used to control the CD player and your digital files. The device also has the ability to record any input out to mp3 on either a USB stick or SD card… but with a catch. The mp3s are hard set to 128kbps. The best thing I can say is that if you don’t know what that means it probably won’t matter to you, and if you do know what that means, you’ll be disappinted.

(There was a time when 128kbps m3ps were considered to be “CD quality” and were a good compromise back when hard disk storage was more expensive, but today it’s not considered to be very good. If you’re Gen-X or older and/or not an audiophile you may not even be able to hear a difference, but… yeah. It’s a bit of a bummer and while it would work fine for capturing an old record or cassette tape, no real audiophile would use this for that purpose.)

The main reason none of that upsets me is that that’s not why I bought this device. What I was wanting was something to occasionally listen to old records and cassettes on in one compact form factor. This meets that goal perfectly. I occasionally purchase used records for sale to put in our toy booth and this will make it much easier for me to give them a listen and make sure they play and aren’t scratched.

This probably isn’t for the audiophile in your life (and that person probably already has a nice stereo), but this would make a cool little player for someone young or someone old.

If you want to check it out, here’s a link to it on Amazon: Looptune 9-in-1 Stereo

EDIT: Amazon has an updated version of this same unit with slightly different styling that also offers Bluetooth in AND out and, more importantly, is only sale for about $40 less. Looptone 10-in-1 (Updated Model)