My 1984 Walkman fixed my impatience problem, not the other way around

I used to rip tapes to mp3s in about 10 minutes flat, but last month I spent 3 hours re-belting a WM-2 I got at a garage sale in Portland. The difference is I wasn't trying to finish, I was just checking the speed with a strobe disc and realigning the capstan. Now I actually listen to whole albums side A then side B, no shuffle. Has anyone else found that the slower repair process changed how they hear the music itself?

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dakota_fox2mo ago

The strobe disc thing really gets you in a different headspace, doesn't it. That repetitive check, adjust, check again rhythm is almost meditative. Nobody rushes a capstan alignment, it just doesn't work that way. So yeah, the tape deck teaches you patience by force, not by choice. Makes you wonder what other stuff we'd slow down for if we actually fixed it instead of replacing it.

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