buttons, knobs, and dials!
my partner bought me a used Marantz PMD222 for my birthday and holy heck this thing is better than I realized was possible. like, I can record something on this and play it back on the amazon cheap "tomashi" and it still sounds good??? this thing has automatic noise canceling and gain control and real-time monitoring. it's almost too easy to get a good recording on this thing. and then it has an entirely separate set of knobs for playback if you just want to use it as a hi-fi output device too. it's a bit heavy but honestly this thing can sit on my desk forever, it's glorious. if you've only ever used cheap lightweight cassette players you're missing out!
the downside of course is that now the bar is raised for my garbage meme tapes. I will have to up my game.