Apparently, all of the audio cassette players being produced now use the same mechanism (perhaps from multiple factories). Some upscale brands like Fiio use basically the same mechanism but use some more premium parts in places, swapping out plastic bits for metal ones. If you need low wow and flutter, it makes sense to seek out vintage players that were built like a tank.

A great youtube channel on both modern cassette players and legacy audio formats is Techmoan. I never knew I was interested in this topic before watching those videos.