A blast from the past combined with robotic futurism at Crosley Brands

To so many of us, Music is Life. And Crosley Brands is right there with us. There is always so much fun stuff to explore and we have an absolute blast when we visit their booth at CES. Honestly, this year may just have been the most fun yet. The retro feel and cool vibes come second only to the hospitality of the Crosley crew. They always share our excitement while giving us a tour of their new products.

First up was Jason Menard, Director of Marketing, to show off their new cassette players. That’s right, radios with cassette tape players. These sweet little players were brought back by popular demand as many customers have been asking for them. And as cute as they are, don’t let the retro look fool you. They are chocked full of every modern technical convenience that you want. You can make bae a rad mixtape easier than ever before thanks to the ability to use a flash drive, sd card, and four different radio bands. And you won’t need to dig out your Mr. Mike to sing along with the recordings of your favorite tunes because there’s a mic built right in. And the upgraded model boasts a functional VU meter. You’ll be able to ramp the volume up to the max and adjust the bass and treble to your own specs with the adjustment knobs on top. If you’re ready to start a new mixtape collection of your own, you can grab yours from Amazon with the following links, CT100, CT200.

Next up was the most impressive and fascinating new product in their line. It provided almost as much entertainment as the Bellagio fountains for our PLuGHiTz Live crew, as it was equally hard to pull ourselves away from the musical theatrics. Chris White from Sound Leisure demonstrated the full-sized LP Jukebox that he designed. Everybody knows that we love all things robots and this masterpiece is integrated with lights and music. So basically, all of our favorite things. We were mesmerized! In the past, they’ve done the 7-inch singles, CD’s and Digital in past jukeboxes but this is the first one that’s playing full-size records. It holds ten LP’s and it’s mechanical so it will change them automatically. You can play each side. It also has Bluetooth and auxiliary inputs and outputs that allow you to run extension speakers off of it, as well. There’s a fully functioning remote control so you can even change the color of the lights with the flick of a button. You’ve got 10 hours of music really without leaving your chair. And really, you won’t want to because it’s truly music and a show.

Lastly, we had the pleasure of speaking with Scott Bingaman, President of Deer Park Distributors and Carrie Colliton, Co-Founder of Record Store Day. In recent years, Crosley has celebrated Record Store Day with a special new product. This year it’s the adorable RSD 3 Mini Turntable. It uses 3-inch vinyl records, which were popular in Japan in the early 2000s. They are bringing them back for a launch with the mini turntable on Record Store Day, which is April 14th. It will be available in hundreds of record stores on that date, along with an assortment of vinyls for playing. Titles from artists like the Foo Fighters and Jack White will be among the first released. This cute little guy is small in size but large in sound. It has a built-in speaker but also a USB power headphone jack and can be hooked up to any external speaker. Carrie pointed out that this is a perfect way to celebrate the day. Record enthusiasts will have a cute, portable little turntable that will play one song and bring happiness. The vinyls can be played and shared like playing cards as people listen together. The price point is still to be determined, but they expect it to be in the $70 range. I know that we’ll be looking out for one of our own. If you purchase one as well, don’t forget to come back and leave comments about how you like it and which tunes you have.

To get more information about these and their entire product line, check out their website.

Interview by Daniele Mendez of The New Product Launchpad.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More