Love to listen to music or audio books while you drive? Like to get into the digital music scene, but find yourself tied to that old cassette technology in your car? The new Digisette Duo-DX may be the answer to your prayers. Digisette is an MP3 digital music player, but it is shaped like and looks like an old-fashioned audio cassette. Combining the old with the new, this cleverly designed device also works like a cassette tape. Put it in your car, or any cassette player, and you can listen to the music or audio books you just downloaded from your computer.

This device has far-reaching appeal. Geeks will love its cool high-tech appeal, on-the-fly encoding, and multifunctionality. Non-geeks will be attracted to the way it subtly combines the new with the old while making recording and playing digital music easy. This player supports MP3 and WMA formats and is audible-ready. With the included software you can transfer your favorite songs from any CD to the player quite easily. You can purchase audio books from Audible.com and play them on your Duo-DX. You can pop the DX into any tape recorder, hit record, and record the audio just as if it were a blank cassette tape. You can record your own voice using the DX’s built-in microphone. In case you are not yet amazed by the multifunctionality of this player, I’ll give you one more… You can also plug the DX into any external audio source like a CD Player (using the included cable with 1/8-inch jack) and record audio. The DX uses a DSP direct-to-digital encoding chip that transforms the analog audio file into a digital file that is stored on the player and can be easily transferred to a computer. This makes the often-complex chore of getting audio into your computer quite easy.

Given the multifunctionality of this product, and constrictive form factor, the folks at Digisette did a remarkable job of designing this product. In order to fit everything into the shape and size of an audiocassette, however, they had to keep all of the buttons and switches very small and flush with the face of the player. While everything works quite well, people with large fingers or poor eyesight may find this player difficult to use. It seems that size and shape constraints also kept Digisette from including a display for the player. With other MP3 players, you can usually see which track is playing and navigate the recorded audio via the display. The DX leaves you in the dark when selecting audio tracks or trying to navigate through an audio book. It is, however, perfect if you want to listen to music and/or books   you will play straight through, simply starting and/or stopping as the need occurs.

The DX player is enclosed in a sturdy, durable aluminum case. It runs on a rechargeable NiMH battery the size of a stick of Dentyne gum. In my testing, one battery lasted several hours, but if you use the player a lot, you will want to spring for an additional $14.95 battery to have a spare. A wall battery charging unit, a USB cable for transferring files onto the player, a carrying case, ear buds, and Windows software (DUO-DX Manager, Windows Media Player, and Audible Manager) are included. The DX is also compatible with iTunes for Mac OS 9.x and higher.

The on-board 96MB of memory is expandable with the use of multi-media cards (MMC). These stamp-sized memory cards fit into the top of the player and can be used to hold different varieties of music and/or books.

In actual use, the DX performs admirably with excellent sound quality. Expect, however, to spend some time learning how this player works. A small LED on the player will blink in different colors to confirm commands; such as, play and stop. Many functions require memorization or a quick look-up in the small manual. For instance, to delete you must press FF and REW simultaneously for two seconds. The manual is adequate, but some things could be stressed and explained more clearly. Again, in many circumstances the DSP needs to be reinitialized by turning the player to On and pressing the Play button for 2 seconds. If you don’t do this before inserting the DX into a cassette deck, it won’t play. This is something that is not terribly bothersome, but can be a roadblock if you don’t read and follow the instructions.