As someone who has owned and used cassettes since I was 14, I will say this.
Almost all and I mean all Portable cassette players are bad, the only good ones I would say are worth your money or time are the later models of the Sony Walkmen.
Even then, you will need to repair or fix something eventually because they were not made to last at all. I would say use a stero cassette deck for your cassettes if you wanna listen to them properly.