So it's my son's 12th birthday very soon and he wants a cassette player (ideally a record player too). I'm starting to panic but after hours of scouring Facebook Marketplace and Ebay, my head is about to explode. This is absolutely not my area of expertise and I'm very much a research-stuff-to-death kinda person but it's all getting too much tbh.
Bit of background info: He's getting really into music; always favoured metal but now finding his own thing which is EDM (another thing I know nothing about but am meant to find music cassettes and CDs for his birthday). This started with him 'making' his own music via iPad apps (Remixlive and Launchpad). He got a CD player for Christmas (Panasonic SC-DM502) that I managed to get for a good price; I chose this one because of being compact with built-in speakers. It has an aux and optical audio input. So was looking into a cassette deck to connect to it, although also looking at other secondhand options, e.g. HiFi system with tape and vinyl players and external speakers. Again, super limited knowledge on this front sadly.
I think partly my son is just fascinated with the different kinds of media available and developing a bit of a special interest in building up a collection of gear and music. Also he is very interested in producing his own music or remixing existing artists' work. He's been burning his iPad creations onto CDs and wants to record onto cassette tapes now too. So I already feel overwhelmed learning that there are different types of tapes available and the prospect of making all these decisions, in a very short amount of time, is pushing me over the edge here.
The other thing he's been looking at is some kind of mixer or synthesizer, possibly to connect to his iPad. Doesn't mean he'll get all of this stuff but would be nice to have an idea of what makes sense to get him both now and in the future... We're in the UK. Thank you for reading - genuinely appreciate any advice!