NINM Lab Long Time No CD Player Review: The Most Fun CD Player in 2023

NINM’s Long Time No See Bluetooth 5. 0 CD Player is pure retro fun. I thought I was done with CDs and CD players forever when I got my first iPod over 17 years ago.

But then Linkin Park released on CD in April, sending me down a deep rabbit hole in search of a good CD player. The Sony Walkmans and Aiwas of my youth had long hit the landfill. Naturally, after ordering the three-disc album on Amazon, I typed “CD player” into the Everything Store to see what would come up.

The results weren’t great. As expected, Amazon is filled with what can only be described as cheap and shoddy garbage. The CD player choices essentially amount to some plastic junk from Craig Electronics (somehow still around) or some plastic junk from a brand you’ve never heard of.

Good luck figuring out whether HOTT, ByronStatics, or SingingWood are reputable because the myriad fake four- and five-star reviews aren’t helpful. Such is the current state of Amazon: a wasteland of knockoff products knocking off other knockoffs. Other big-box retailers such as Best Buy and Target returned similar bargain bin options or none at all.

I made a checklist of features I wanted in hopes of narrowing down the options: Honestly, I knew I didn’t need all the bells and whistles, but if features, like Bluetooth to connect , were available then, sure, why the hell not? An AM/FM tuner never even made it on my list. I used my PS1 to play the Linkin Park CD until the Long Time No See CD Player arrived. Paging through the sea of CD player trash on Amazon, I came across one design that reminded me of a product I had wanted when iTunes and streaming music services hadn’t overtaken optical audio discs yet: .

(Full disclosure: I worked at Muji from 2008–2010, at which point any affiliation ended. ) Designed by renowned industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa in 1999, the Wall Mounted CD Player, for its . It had three charms: the built-in speaker system design mounted to a wall; when played, CDs became spinning, mesmerizing artworks; to play a CD, you simply pulled on the cord.

Aside from its gorgeous design — worthy of being in MoMA New York’s permanent collection — I remembered one thing while pining for it as a Muji employee: it was expensive. Unfortunately for me, the Wall Mounted CD Player is no longer sold in the U. S.

and importing one from overseas would come with a hefty fee on top. . It was $40, a fraction of the $200-ish retail price it’d cost to acquire a new Muji one.

But as soon as I set it up, it became apparent that the bootleg — even with more modern features like Bluetooth and the ability to play music off a flash drive — from Shiwakoto was a dud. The dual stereo speakers were tinny, Bluetooth connectivity with my iPhone was janky, and I’m pretty sure it put a sizable scratch in one of the discs. Plus, buying the cheap carbon copy wasn’t nearly as satisfying.

. Translucent/transparent tech is having a moment again. Many, YouTube videos, tweets, and Instagram posts later, I landed on the .

(Yes, that’s really the name. ) It turns out that I had previously come across this CD player a few years ago and then briefly sold at Urban Outfitters (purveyors of all things old that are hot again). While not much cheaper than the MSRP of Muji’s Wall Mounted CD Player, the Long Time No See CD Player ($919 Hong Kong dollars or about $117 USD) struck me as an attractive cross between Fukasawa’s design and the world’s first portable CD player, the .

The ’90s-inspired transparent design — a nod to plastic jewel cases — won me right away. You do know that and are back, right? More than anything else, the CD player straddles the line between retro and modern with its modular form factor. It’s portable and magnet-mountable to a metal surface, designed for private or communal listening, and has Bluetooth connectivity.

The Long Time No See CD Player with the included speaker cover attaches to any metal surface (like a fridge) via magnets on the backside. I’m sure if you look hard enough, you could find a knockoff of the Long Time No See CD Player, but you’d be depriving this Hong Kong-based brand of its deserved earnings. The brand is so small that it declined to be interviewed.

Similar to the Muji Wall Mounted CD Player, MoMA agrees that NINM’s CD player is equal parts art and technology to . NINM’s Long Time No See CD Player ticks off almost all of the aforementioned feature boxes for me. However, as with any form of retro technology that’s not fully functioning vintage, you often have to accept some rough edges.

If you’re wanting the CD player, the Long Time No See CD Player is not going to cut it. The speaker cover that fits over the CD with a satisfying snap is scratchy-sounding at best. It also uses two AA batteries; purists will nod their heads, but I would have loved a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The silver lining is that you can use and charge up AA Ni-MH batteries, but the downside is that it does so via a Micro USB port, not USB-C. The CD player uses two AA batteries. I just love looking at the circuitry inside of gadgets.

Minor inconveniences aside, it’s been a total blast using the Long Time No See CD Player. I dug up my old pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones — the — and let me tell you, and sounded than listening to the same tracks on Spotify using AirPods connected to my iPhone. Much like where the image quality can’t hold a candle to an interchangeable lens camera or even the , there is a certain audio to the sound of a CD.

Even though songs are encoded as 0s and 1s onto the disc and read by a laser in the CD player, there’s the subtlest of roughness — imperfection — that gives the stereo sound a soul that the perfectly cleaned-up streams don’t reproduce. I’m not much of a vinyl guy, but it’s similar to that segment of fanatics who feel CD quality is lifeless in comparison. Not to mention, the entertainment value of listening to a CD on a CD player isn’t about the audio fidelity so much as the experience of setting aside time to to an album and knowing there’s a finite number of songs, placed in a very specific order by the artist and producer(s) to tell a story from beginning to end.

The Long Time No Play CD Player has a 3. 5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 5. 0 for connecting to wireless earbuds/headphones and speakers.

åç Sure, the Long Time No See CD Player has physical buttons for play, pause, and previous and next track, but there is no shuffle button. The CD player is a distraction-free music experience; there is no algorithm; there is . There is no random bouncing between artists or genres unless you put a new disc in — are in full control.

There are no notifications buzzing you. Streaming music services offer access to near limit-less songs, which I can’t deny is great for exploring music tastes, but there’s a real calming effect to giving your undivided attention to one album and one artist at a time. And, I love kicking back on my bed or couch, CD booklet in hand, following the printed lyrics.

CD booklets and artwork — they’re cool! Recently, I took NINM’s CD player to a picnic and brought exactly one CD in it: Daft Punk’s and forced — nay, enlightened — some friends who had never heard it. Again, the speaker cover was rusty even at its loudest volume setting. Connecting it to a easily fixed that, adding stronger bass and less distortion at higher volumes, though the pairing process to a speaker or a pair of Bluetooth headphones can be hit or miss.

While I had no issues pairing the XB100 speaker, Nothing Ear 2 earbuds, and to the CD player, neither of my two pairs of (first and ) would connect. Pairing typically took 10–20 seconds, but without a screen, troubleshooting is all but impossible other than turning off the Bluetooth switch and retrying the pairing process. Connecting the Long Time No See CD Player to a Bluetooth speaker will get you better sound.

All of this is to say, I the Long Time No See CD Player. Though not remotely perfect nor practical when you want the best sound quality or longest battery life (it’s good for around 8 hours on a pair of AA batteries, 6-ish hours connected to Bluetooth, and between 4–5 hours with the speaker cover), there’s just something very redeeming and nostalgic to using it. I rediscovered a finer appreciation for the artistry, if you will.

Sometime between April and June, Urban Outfitters refurbished by Retrospekt. Had the Walkmans — believe it or not, I owned three of the models — been available in the spring, I probably would have gone with one of them for a purer throwback. I’m glad they weren’t, though, because the Long Time No See CD Player’s modern upgrades and striking design are superior on every level.

If you’re going to buy a portable CD player in 2023, make it this one. .