Cassettes are making a small comeback, why?

[EJ3]

Pencils will make a comeback soon too…

With erasers to roll up the cassette tape tight?

 

[AdamG]

With erasers to roll up the cassette tape tight?

Finally……….

 

[EJ3]

Sounds great on el cheapo bluetooth pod/bar/speakers. AND they don't know any better.

It's possible that even my singing might sound good to someone using those type of speakers.

 

[JSmith]

JSmith

 

[EJ3]

I'd guess it's something you can do without needing a touch screen, app or subscription, and you can still score old cassette tapes pretty cheaply, unless they're NOS, in which case they are sought-after collectables. But I wonder if premium, metal particle tapes have since turned into ferric oxide..?

Mine haven't.

 

[AdamG]

View attachment 389112


JSmith

It’s a lost art. Like Pinball Wizards. It’s all in the wrist and you have to feel the end coming or disaster is imminent…

 

[EJ3]

I was old enough to use tapes in their heyday and hated them.

I hated the pre-recorded ones. Never had an issue with any others (of course, none of the folks I knew bought bottom of the barrel tape. We'd wait until we had the money rather than buy junk.

 

[EJ3]

I was old enough to use tapes in their heyday and hated them.

I hated the pre-recorded ones. Never had an issue with any others (of course, none of the folks I new bought bottom of the barrel tape. We'd wait until we had the money rather than buy junk.

I had a Teac deck with bias calibration that required the purchase of a signal generator. I used a lot of high end tape. I used tapes in the car and as a means of preserving vinyl. When we moved 8 years ago I got rid of my tapes, ripping some to FLAC with slightly enhanced high end harmonics.

Used to preserve the vinyl first, used to play in the car second, used to make mix tapes for my friends (to party while we worked on things & used to make mix tapes for my loves (I did not marry until I was 48, so, yeah, there was more than one over the years).

 

[EJ3]

As compact disc was just about to be released, we were pushing the limits of high quality cassette deck and tape formulations, recording our mint LPs. I was a teenager and my best friend and I were climbing the HiFi ladder one piece/step at a time.

Quickly went from single capstan sendust headed decks to closed loop dual capstan titanium heads, dolby C/dbx, switchable MPXs and rec cal etc. We could hear the effect of the MPX filters back then when we were young. They key of course was a great deck, careful setup and the best tapes for each formulation/deck to get the most out of them.

Many of the tapes I recorded back then are still as good as the day I made them. Tapes could only ever be played on the deck recorded on and never, ever played on anything like a car deck, portable etc. You'd make sacrificial tapes for car use as the environment in a car deck was not great. I'd tweak the car decks alignment to match the home deck the tapes were recorded on to preserve the HF and channel balance.

It was fun at the time.

Terminating with Dolby S (and, of course, there was the DBX stuff).

 

[EJ3]

But anyone with a CD/DVD burner can do the same with much greater fidelity.
I say it's pointless nostalgia and I say the hell with it.

It's hard to get good, recordable, archive media in cassette or CD these days.

 

[EJ3]

The "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies.

I bought one of the tapes. It has no DOLBY (my decks do). So it sucked.

 

[Sal1950]

Strange that I never got into the cassette thing. I had 8 tracks in my cars back in the day but never got further into car audio than that. Mostly just never spent that much time in the car. The big deal was sitting at the drive-thru's where we were always trying to pick up the car-hops and other hang-outs, but this went on no later than the very early 70s. After that I was picking up chicks at the bars and playing the jukebox.

 

[EJ3]

For sure... I want table service, decent comfort food, good whiskey and a steady flow of people... Sounds like Vegas!

I.m glad that you did not forget the important part (although I will add another word to it): good "sippin" whiskey.

 

[EJ3]

There was no bigger user of the cassette format than me. I invested more time and money into creating a superior cassette experience than anyone would do these days with the silly "resurgence" and limited existing resources and tools. The fact no one talks about calibration and such shows what a pathetically uninformed and nostalgic "trend" this is. Yeah, bring out the format without any of the education and tools to make borderline tolerable.

In 2002 or so I threw my TEAC 8030S straight into a trash bin.

Compact Cassettes are a totally stupid trend. Not even nostalgia or large print album art (like vinyl) remotely justifies it. The remaining players and new cassettes are either worn out or poor quality.

SAD!

 

[EJ3]

One other factor to consider is that almost any reasonable deck will be very old by now. There hasn't been a decent mechanism manufactured for nearly 2 decades.

for many, the repair parts are available (and they are not expensive).

 

[EJ3]

Would you say that a tape, that leaves the rollers altogether and goes wandering around the innards of the car dashboard, has ‘mis-tracked’? I sure would, and it was a depressingly common occurrence.

Never had it happen. Heard about it and seen the evidence...
I guess that there is something to maintaining everything that you own, just like I was taught.

 

[EJ3]

But he knew it was audiophile junk in terms of performance being outdated. Its being audiophool treasure 22 years later does not refute that.

Sell or gift to someone less fortunate, perhaps. I never just throw something away unless it is no longer functional AND cannot be economically repaired.

 

[JSmith]

After that I was picking up chicks at the bars and playing the jukebox.

I saw you;

JSmith

 

[izeek]

Nostalgia, I suppose...

Same as records, except as far as I know there are no claims of cassettes being better than digital.

I grew-up in the days of 8-tracks, cassettes, and records. I never owned an 8-track. At one point my parents had one in their all-in-one stereo but they never had more than 1 or 2 tapes.

I had a cassette deck and I used to copy my records to cassette for playback in the car. (I never owned a car with an 8-track.)


But you can't easily skip to a particular track like you can with CDs (or records). And like records you have to flip it over half way through.

i cant remember the brand or model but in the mid 80s, i had 2 decks that would locate the space between tracks.

 

[mhardy6647]

Finally……….

Cassettes are making a small comeback, why?

It seems that cassettes are making a small comeback. There have been some new portable cassette players that have been released. In addition people like You Tuber Mary Spender just released some of her own music on cassette which is just one example of younger people being interested in...

www.audiosciencereview.com

and

Cassettes are making a small comeback, why?

It seems that cassettes are making a small comeback. There have been some new portable cassette players that have been released. In addition people like You Tuber Mary Spender just released some of her own music on cassette which is just one example of younger people being interested in...

www.audiosciencereview.com