Gadhouse Miko Review

Introduction

Gadhouse is the latest brand to get in on some retro cassette action with its new Miko cassette player.

Its philosophy is similar to the FiiO CP13 and We Are Rewind WE-001 players that I’ve looked at before – to revive the nostalgia of the cassette and physical media at a time when we’re mostly listening to music via digital means.

This one comes with a similarly retro look, plus modern conveniences such as USB-C and Bluetooth 5.3 to pair with wireless headphones. At £69.99 / $99, it’s significantly more affordable than the FiiO or We Are Rewind, although it remains to be seen if Gadhouse has gone for style over sound, or a good mix of both.

I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks to find out.

Design

• Cheaper-feeling, plastic frame
• Leans into a nineties aesthetic
• Tactile controls

Gadhouse says the Miko player is designed with the mid-1980s to mid-1990s in mind, when it says cassettes were at the forefront during a period “known for expressive industrial design and vibrant audio aesthetics”.

It’s available in two colours, with either a mint green or grey available; my sample shipped in the latter. It’s clear that the brand is leaning into a different aesthetic than what I’ve seen before, with elements such as its translucent black plastic door and the silver plastic frame evoking the 1990s more than the 1980s.

This is a substantially different design approach from the likes of We Are Rewind, whose chunkier WE-001 looks are based on Sony’s first-ever Walkman, the TPS-L2.

When picking the Miko up, it feels a little plasticky against the aluminium finish of the WE-001, although I quite like the more rounded shape, which makes it a little easier to pocket. Unfortunately, there isn’t a belt clip supplied in the box if you want to affix it to your jeans.

There’s a pleasant Miko logo on the front of the player, plus a small circular window in the door that you have to manually open from the top. On the top side are the cassette player’s controls, which are oddly the wrong way around as you look at the player, as indicated by the play button triangle facing to the left, so you have to turn the unit around. 

The controls from left to right in the correct orientation are as follows: record and play, rewind, fast-forward and stop.  The buttons aren’t soft-touch and have a pleasant tactile finish when pressed with a strong click.

The right side houses the Miko’s ports, with an on/off switch that also handles Bluetooth pairing, a headphone jack, a 3.5mm aux port and a volume wheel. On the other side is a USB-C port for power, even though this player needs two AA batteries to run. 

Specification

• Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity
• Headphone jack is suitable for easy-to-drive, low impedance cans
• Runs on AA batteries

The spec sheet on the Miko is quite threadbare, although there is still some useful information worth talking about here.

The manual isn’t specific about the type of cassette that this player works with (We Are Rewind says the WE-001 works with Type I through IV and looks to have the same mechanism), although it specifically states not to use C-120 tapes with this player.

Gadhouse also isn’t specific on the frequency response of the Miko, although it notes it supports Bluetooth 5.3. No specific codec support is listed, whether it’s SBC or AAC, or even something more advanced, such as aptX HD. Quite frankly, the fact that it supports Bluetooth in any guise seems like a bit of a novelty, but it paired okay with both my Focal Bathys and Audio Pro C10 MKII during testing. 

The output of the headphone jack isn’t powerful, with it providing 3.8mW per channel into 32 ohms. This makes it more suitable for use with easy-to-drive headphones, rather than more difficult ones that would usually need their own amp or DAC.

As for recording powers, this Gadhouse player has a microphone built in, so you can record directly to a blank cassette. There is also the option to use the Aux input for recording, which the manual says may lead to higher quality output.

The Miko runs on two AA batteries, evoking a retro sensibility that I imagine most of us would like to forget. The USB-C port on this unit is therefore for ‘continuous wired playback’, according to Gadhouse, and doesn’t charge the unit.

Other choices in this space have their own rechargeable internal cell, and unless you’ve got rechargeable AAs, such as the Paleblue AA USB-C Rechargeable Batteries, then you’ll be swapping them out every so often.

Performance

• Seems a little less organised and clear than competing choices
• Compression and saturation seem part of the experience
• Auto-stop is a convenient and welcome addition

It’s very easy when reviewing all kinds of audio stuff to get stuck on a lot of jargon, and be quite analytical and scientific about how a product sounds. With something like the Miko, it almost feels wrong to do so.

After all, cassettes weren’t the be-all-and-end-all of fidelity when they were new, and using them again in 2026 is more of an experiential undertaking than a scientific one. Therefore, it warrants a different kind of perspective. 

Nonetheless, I still undertook the same test as I did with the We Are Rewind WE-001 I tested, taking an album I knew like the back of my hand, listening through it all on the Miko, and then comparing it to the original mix via streaming. 

The cassette choice is a rare Abbey Road real-time cassette copy of Marillion’s Afraid of Sunlight, and for comparison, I listened to the original 1995 mix using my Honor Magic V3 and an iFi Go Link Max I had lying around over Tidal for a ‘modern’ equivalent.

As with the WE-001, listening to Afraid of Sunlight via cassette is a completely different experience from either the CD or the streaming version. The first noticeable difference is that the soundstage isn’t too wide, and things can sound quite congested compared to listening on digital means, but there is a strange appeal to it. 

Against the We Are Rewind, though, the Miko lacks a certain finesse that can colour the sound signature somewhat. There’s a small amount of hiss and a slight sheen over the tape against how it sounds on the WE-001, which is a lot cleaner in its presentation, almost eschewing any tape hiss in spite of not having any Dolby Noise Reduction.

This lack of finesse became more apparent as the cassette moved into Cannibal Surf Babe, the album’s second track. Throughout the entire song is a meaty bassline and some crisp percussion work that’s a lot clearer on the WE-001 and especially when listening via Tidal. On this Gadhouse player, it almost melds into one, and the percussion elements lose some vital clarity and detail.

I won’t go as far as to say the Miko sounds tinny in places, but I’m not quite sure what’s going on with this player against the WE-001, as both look to use the same internal mechanism and have very similar features, and it makes sense to expect them to sound quite similar as a result.

That demonstrably isn’t the case, unfortunately for Gadhouse, owing to more tape hiss and seemingly more compression than I would have necessarily expected.

In spite of this, I appreciate what this player is trying to do in reviving physical media and, in turn, the linearity of listening to an entire album that you own, rather than picking and choosing between songs on a streaming service. It’s a pleasant reminder of the lost art of listening to the full duration of something you’d actually have spent proper money on.

One thing I’m also appreciative of that Gadhouse has included with the Miko is the auto-stop function when either fast-forwarding or rewinding a tape to its end. This means you don’t get a horrible thud when the tape ends, preventing the horrible motor whine you’d be likely to encounter from the internal mechanism. It’s an underrated inclusion for quality-of-life purposes and for safeguarding your tapes. 

Should you buy it?

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