We Are Rewind WE-001 Cassette Player Review (2) – A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing

The WE-001 was provided by We Are Rewind for our reviews and can be purchased directly from www.wearewind.com for $159 USD/€149 EUR.

Inveterate Dylan fan that I am, I went to a surprisingly crowded matinee of “A Complete Unknown,” which was neither as bad as I feared nor as good as hyped. Timothy Chalamet does well with the singing and playing but isn’t much of an actor—his Dylan is more whiny adolescent than charismatic mystic—while the rest of the characters (other than a really hot Joan Baez) are one-dimensional toss-ins.

It did inspire me to pull out Dylan’s debut, which to my ears has held up much better than his next three. Also, “Lo and Behold” by Coulson Dean McGuiness and Flint, a set of obscure early-60’s Dylan covers. A few of these songs showed up on “The Basement Tapes” but AFAIK most were never released and almost all are fantastic—the title track woulda fit nicely on “Sticky Fingers”, while “Sign on the Cross” sounds like a lost Aretha classic.

Such nostalgia brings me, in an admittedly roundabout way, to the French-made WAR WE-001, a $160-ish portable cassette player which evokes the Walkmen of old but adds recording and Bluetooth functionality. Aluminum casework (esp. my orange model) looks really purty and feels premium—this is not your disposable plastic player of old. My artsy wife, who is largely indifferent to audio gear, was enamored of the design and wanted one as an objet d’art even before she knew what the device actually did.

Control buttons on the WE-001 feel durable, though  I would have preferred a larger volume knob with more sensitive adjustments. Oddly, there’s no eject button–you need to open the door manually to insert or remove tapes. The WE-001 is quite large and heavy for an ostensibly portable device, which is a double-edged sword—on the one hand it’s too big for most pockets, but on the other it has a reassuring solidity. The playback mechanism is extremely smooth and silent; I couldn’t tell when it was fast forwarding or rewinding. I experienced no skipping or pausing even at full trot, and specified battery life of 13 hours seems about right.

As Jurgen notes (review here) the WE-001 screams for pairing with old-school open-back mini headphones, and I did most of my listening with the (50oHm) Koss KSC-75; as he further notes more challenging cans like the Senn HD650 sound underdriven with the WE-001, which made the Senns’ low end sound slow and sludgy. Generally speaking, the inboard amp is pretty modest, so you’re best served with efficient phones.

Paired with the Koss, the WE-001 sounded pretty freakin’ good—warm, organic and vinyl-like, with a full, prominent midbass and more high end extension that you’d expect for the media form. I would describe the subbass as “analoguish,” which is to say that it has limited extension and sounds a bit billowy/fat (as opposed to taut and sculpted) but is very musical and has good energy and impact.  

Dynamic contrasts (always a limitation for tape decks) are quite dramatic. There’s not a ton of microdetail, and piano keys and cymbal heads sound a bit smoothed over/blunted, but it’s the type of non-fatiguing presentation that rewards extended listening  Despite the absence of Dolby, tape hiss is almost completely absent and I didn’t perceive any pitch variations (wow and flutter). 

I compared playback on the WE-001 to the headphone outs on a couple of decks I have on hand, a 70’s Pioneer CT F7171 and a 90’s Sony TC-WA87ES. Both of the decks (esp. the Pioneer) had richer, smoother sound, with  thicker note texture and deeper bass. However both the Pioneer and Sony had significantly more tape hiss and showed less high end detail; they also sounded relatively congested and midrange-focused, with less precise instrument separation and dynamic contrasts that the WAR.

Now, I’d likely achieve better results by connecting the conventional decks to a dedicated headphone amp like my Pro-ject Head Box, but fairly compared, the WAR sounded better through its headphone outs than the others did through theirs.

(Note that I was impressed enough with its headphone playback to try connecting the unit via 3.5mm to RCA cable to my two channel system. Unfortunately, the WE-001 lacked sufficient gain, even with volume maxed, and the results were veiled and poor. In fairness, We Are Rewind doesn’t advertise using the WE-001 as a conventional player).

I next tested the recording function by plugging my Pioneer Elite DV79 CDP into the 3.5mm input of the WAR and recording a couple of well-produced CDs (Freedy Johnston’s Bad Reputation, Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous) onto a new normal bias (Type I) BASF tape. The end result was playable and noise-free, but audibly “softer” and less crisp than the same discs recorded onto my Pioneer deck.

There’s also no ability to adjust the recording level—the stock level is low, which impairs clarity and low end impact, and I’m not sure it sounds better than my phone. That said, as long you’re not expecting audiophile results the WAR would be a useful tool for say, recording a concert onto tape

The inclusion of Bluetooth initially seemed gratuitous to me—essentially, you’re using a compromised technology to play a compromised audio source—and I struggle to find a use case for it (listening to Dead concerts while shoveling snow?). Some other pundit also suggested that it does enable you to use ANC to listen more clearly to tape hiss. However, the BT sounded much better than expected—note texture is leaner, and you lose some of the analog quality of the headphone out, but actually hear a more chiseled, detailed rendering even if the BT sounds a bit flatter and less punchy at the low end.

Value? Well, Amazon is now full of battery-powered Chifi portable decks in the $20-40 range which perform the same basic function, although they look plasticy and lack BT; whether they sound as good as the WE-001 is TBD. The $80 Fiio CP-13 (Jürgen’s review here), which also has fancy alloy casing and a premium look,  looks like a closer competitor; we will undoubtedly do a comparo between the two.

Yet even as someone with only mild interest in aesthetics, I can’t help but be impressed with the look and feel of this thing; even as a paperweight it’ll yield you $160 worth of pleasure. That it actually sounds good is icing on the cake. I would expect future iterations to have a smaller form factor and a lower ticket, but this one is unique and very well done. My compliments.