Rewind: Cassettes are making a pop-culture comeback

TAMPA, Fla. - Your computer and your phone can deliver whatever song or album you want, when you want it, with a simple click. But a growing number of music lovers is pressing rewind to embrace the old school -- cassette tapes.

"We buy and sell them on a regular basis nowadays," said Erin Stoy, co-general manager for Sound Exchange in Tampa.

Erin's father, the audio resale store's other general manager, Ron Stoy added, "We're seeing the beginnings of nostalgia on cassette."

At their store, you'll find a wall of cassettes and even a bin of the 8-tracks.

Sound Exchange in Tampa keeps popular cassette tapes stocked.

"For about five or 10 years, there weren't any cassettes really in the store. We started seeing an interest in them coming back with an event called Cassette Store Day that piggybacked on Record Store Day," Erin said.

Back in the day, cassettes had an advantage over vinyl.

"People like tapes for their convenience and their size and portability and price," Ron said.

At resale store Sound Exchange in Tampa, cassettes are rising in popularity.

Fast forward to now, with streaming and downloading services providing all of that and then some, what's the draw to cassettes? There are a few thoughts.

"People who are just collectors of a particular genre of music, mostly heavy metal or punk, who will take their music on any format they can find it in," Erin explained. "Another group would be the younger people who have grown up in the streaming world and they're getting kind of used to a physical format and they like the novelty of it... We get people who are just price-conscious and when they can get an entire album for $1.99 instead of spending more on a CD or record version then they are happy to do that... People with older cars that have cassette players in their vehicles so they can play older music like that in their cars."

If you're thinking about unloading some of that nostalgic taped treasure lingering in your house for extra cash, don't expect a big payout.

Used cassettes sell for a dollar or two at Sound Exchange.

"You have to remember the average cassette sells at retail here at least for 99 cents, $1.99, so people are not going to get wealthy from their old cassette collections unless they have something extremely unusual," Erin added.

But by hitting play, you can enjoy a trip back in recording history.