How About Creating a Modern Cassette Player?

[rdenney]

In the age of streaming, recording makes little sense unless one is recording performances of one's group or of a group for someone else. Otherwise, streaming makes more sense.

I live in a rural area with spotty cell coverage and no internet linear infrastructure to our house. Streaming hardly ever makes sense.

I have moved lots of needledrops and rips from CD's to my phone, and once there I can create playlists if I choose to. That seems to me preferred to bringing some physical media along on a road trip. Or, I can move my library to a thumb drive and plug that into the car.

Once all my vintage field recordings are transcribed to the computer, I'll be able to retire my cassette decks.

For making field recordings, little MD devices sure were handy--I still have one from 20-odd years ago. They came out before hand-held digital recorders with the integral microphones. Setting the levels required fiddling, but was at least possible. I used an old Audio-Technica AT-822 stereo microphone with unbalanced connections for the MD recorder, which is actually still pretty good.

Rick "eschewing solutions that require continuous internet access" Denney

 

[bluefuzz]

If someone is going to make a hipster-friendly portable tape machine then they should try replicating this:

 

[mjgraves]

I think people fundamentally underestimate the problem of media. There's very little magnetic tape being made today. It tends to be for people who use open reel decks, since they are willing to spend significant sums for new blank media. There's only one company making cassettes, and they make what would previously have been considered poor quality ferric oxide tape.

 

[Robin L]

I live in a rural area with spotty cell coverage and no internet linear infrastructure to our house. Streaming hardly ever makes sense.

I have moved lots of needledrops and rips from CD's to my phone, and once there I can create playlists if I choose to. That seems to me preferred to bringing some physical media along on a road trip. Or, I can move my library to a thumb drive and plug that into the car.

Once all my vintage field recordings are transcribed to the computer, I'll be able to retire my cassette decks.

For making field recordings, little MD devices sure were handy--I still have one from 20-odd years ago. They came out before hand-held digital recorders with the integral microphones. Setting the levels required fiddling, but was at least possible. I used an old Audio-Technica AT-822 stereo microphone with unbalanced connections for the MD recorder, which is actually still pretty good.

Rick "eschewing solutions that require continuous internet access" Denney

Streaming might not make sense to you, it doesn't work for me, but just about everyone I know uses streaming. My wife has an old IPod in the car with MP3 files that I occasionally add files to, but she mostly she streams video at home. If I want to hear music at home, I've got a pile of CDs that just keeps getting bigger. There's a CD player in my car. I've got vintage cassettes and a functioning cassette player, but never use it. I also have two handheld digital recorders, use one weekly to record school assemblies. I've got a DAP with 1600 CDs worth of music in ALAC files, rarely use it. It's good for portable replay and sounds fine.

Your situation is not common. Even though sales of cassettes are creeping up, streaming still is saturating the market. In order for a new cassette player to make sense, there has to be a real demand for such a device. I'm not seeing that demand. Considering how cheap handheld digital recorders are, and how well they work, cassette recorders make no sense at all to me. My sub $200 Tascam handheld digital recorder has balanced microphone inputs and 48v phantom power. It works better than the DAT recorders I've used for recordings that got turned into CDs. It's 24 bit capable, after all. I've made thousands of cassette recordings, know full well the limitations of that recording media. I would think that folks with vintage cassettes have vintage decks to transfer those tapes to a more accessible medium. If not, they shouldn't have too much trouble finding one. Making a new cassette deck would be like re-inventing the wheel.

 

[DavidShe]

No, no, no, no. Just no.

How about a modern Wax Cylinder player?

Is the Wax Cylinder the Next Big Thing?

If we look back over the last 140 years of sound recording, it seems that formats come and formats..

www.linkedin.com

 

[JCM800]

Ah-HA!!! I stumbled onto this purely by accident, and remember seeing it before. This is essentially what I want, @Fosi Audio (compact, minimalistic small footprint desktop player). Pay that designer and take my money

 

[rdenney]

...

Your situation is not common. ...

That's not the point, though it's more common than you think on a global scale. It's very easy for urbanites to assume everyone lives in range of cheap broadband.

But when I was in New York two weeks ago, I made some interesting observations: Cell service sucks there in many places. If I was out for a jog and streaming music over a cellular device, there would be many dropouts without considerable buffer storage. And in buildings, it's worse. One does not have WiFi access in every building in which they are meeting. I could not, for example, check email on my government phone (Verizon) while in a meeting deeply downtown in Manhattan (Beaver Street, which is even south of Wall Street). My agency's office in New York is adjacent to the Bowling Green subway station, and cellular service there are often buried in demand even if one has workable line of sight. While I was there, I had to download the podcasts I listen to in advance to listen to them without dropouts. Living where I do, I'm used to that.

The younger folks I talk to believe that we've always just had to suffer with interruptions and dropouts.

People extrapolate their own conveniences into what they believe are general solutions for all use cases, and industry targets the Pareto Front--20% of the market that brings 80% of the revenue. It did not used to be quite that way.

And then we have to wonder if major parts of the third world are interested in music, or if we just expect them to live in mud huts and play their own primitive music. That said, I think cell service in large swathes of the third world are better than rural northern Virginia, which is within 20 miles of the center of the Internet.

Rick "grumble, grumble, grumble" Denney

 

[Joe Smith]

I think the only "real" justification for a new, inexpensive cassette player in the $250-300 range (and the fairly low-fi sound that would go with that price point) is all the band tapes that are out there - a lot of local bands are recording cassette EPs if they can't afford vinyl (or don't have enough material yet) and for people without a big cassette library, there's less impetus to track down an older high quality cassette deck in good repair that won't require "fiddling" soon or eventually.

But there's clearly a trade off that would be needed between the robustness of the mechanism/quality of playback/features and the price that this segment would want to pay.

For those of us with interest in maintaining the format as a higher quality option, and with a "library" of sorts, having a small fleet of older decks in good repair is the way to go...

 

[Robin L]

That's not the point, though it's more common than you think on a global scale. It's very easy for urbanites to assume everyone lives in range of cheap broadband.

Like I said, I don't stream.

But when I was in New York two weeks ago, I made some interesting observations: Cell service sucks there in many places. If I was out for a jog and streaming music over a cellular device, there would be many dropouts without considerable buffer storage. And in buildings, it's worse. One does not have WiFi access in every building in which they are meeting. I could not, for example, check email on my government phone (Verizon) while in a meeting deeply downtown in Manhattan (Beaver Street, which is even south of Wall Street). My agency's office in New York is adjacent to the Bowling Green subway station, and cellular service there are often buried in demand even if one has workable line of sight. While I was there, I had to download the podcasts I listen to in advance to listen to them without dropouts. Living where I do, I'm used to that.

The primary reason I don't stream is because of that problem with dropouts.

The younger folks I talk to believe that we've always just had to suffer with interruptions and dropouts.

People extrapolate their own conveniences into what they believe are general solutions for all use cases, and industry targets the Pareto Front--20% of the market that brings 80% of the revenue. It did not used to be quite that way.

Don't know about that. Once 78s were no longer a "thing", support from the record companies evaporated. Cassettes were popular for a brief spell before CDs appeared, then they were not. As regards music media, popular trends clearly guide industry targets. Otherwise, no LP revival. If you know anything about the "Music Industry" you know they're only in it for the money. Always have been.

And then we have to wonder if major parts of the third world are interested in music, or if we just expect them to live in mud huts and play their own primitive music. That said, I think cell service in large swathes of the third world are better than rural northern Virginia, which is within 20 miles of the center of the Internet.

I suspect major parts of the "Third World" have more live music than canned. But that's just a guess.

Rick "grumble, grumble, grumble" Denney

I just got five CDs of music I want to hear, DDD recordings, major artists in the realm of Classical music. $5. I'm taking advantage of the great CD sell-off and happy as a clam that there's been no CD revival so far.

 

[kelesh]

Like I said, I don't stream.

The primary reason I don't stream is because of that problem with dropouts.

Not only that, but the whole idea of having your entertainment controlled and handled by a private business (your ISP) is bizarre, risky and just plain inconvenient. And you have to pay them on top of that, not to mention additional payments to your streaming "platform". The internet is a great tool, but it should be used carefully and always keeping in mind that this assistive commercial phenomenon is not guaranteed and can be altered/manipulated/managed by incompetent idiots, etc. etc.

I just got five CDs of music I want to hear, DDD recordings, major artists in the realm of Classical music. $5. I'm taking advantage of the great CD sell-off and happy as a clam that there's been no CD revival so far.

Same here, though I think prices have started to creep up. Maybe it's just "normal" inflation.

 

[Blahzot]

Not the lack of pre-recorded media. Never was any significant amount of that for MD. The lack of new, blank media is a problem. NOS cassettes of any sort are quite pricey these days, expecially on a a price/performance basis. MD are much better, but also have not been made in years.

OK, I see what you mean. True, although MDs appear to last far longer than cassettes and you can still pick up plenty of blank MDs from Japan. The machines are more likely to fail before the media.

 

[Blahzot]

In the age of streaming, recording makes little sense unless one is recording performances of one's group or of a group for someone else. Otherwise, streaming makes more sense.

That could be a blanket answer for this whole thread. Some people still prefer physical media.

 

[Robin L]

That could be a blanket answer for this whole thread. Some people still prefer physical media.

That's why I still collect CDs.

 

[mjgraves]

That's why I still collect CDs.

Also, because physical media sees the artist paid better. Most especially if bought from them directly.

 

[RayDunzl]

I'm pretty sure everything I (and AudioBuddy) had on tape (our own performances for the most part) has long since been digitized (and sometimes speed corrected as necessary) and filed away on CDs someplace.

I think I bought one (count 'em) commercial pre-recorded cassette when they were a thing.

 

[Mnyb]

I’m not sure it can be done ,maybe as a novelty gadget .


you can’t find the blank tape good enough.
no one makes the mechanism or tape heads of good enough quality anymore.
it will sound terrible .

Prerecorded tape sounded horrible back when the format still was in demand. The only tapes the sounded good where your own recordings .

So if one really wants to manufacture this . It’s a tall order kind of a mini moon shot/manhattan project.
the whole tooling to make the mechanics and tape heads has to be resurrected and done in house.
you also need to resurrect machines to make the blank tapes of good enough quality metal or chrome tape.

this is expensive so the product will be too . So you pull out all the stops and go for it VU meters Dolby B and C adjustable recording levels and all the nice stuff and old top of the line deck had . It’s has to also be a 3 head deck while our at it .

wonder where you get calibration tapes from so that head alignment could be done and adjustment of bias etc .

Can I get a demagnetiser so I can demagnetise the deck sometimes after my weekly cleaning ?

 

[mhardy6647]

I’m not sure it can be done ,maybe as a novelty gadget .


you can’t find the blank tape good enough.
no one makes the mechanism or tape heads of good enough quality anymore.
it will sound terrible .

Prerecorded tape sounded horrible back when the format still was in demand. The only tapes the sounded good where your own recordings .

So if one really wants to manufacture this . It’s a tall order kind of a mini moon shot/manhattan project.
the whole tooling to make the mechanics and tape heads has to be resurrected and done in house.
you also need to resurrect machines to make the blank tapes of good enough quality metal or chrome tape.

this is expensive so the product will be too . So you pull out all the stops and go for it VU meters Dolby B and C adjustable recording levels and all the nice stuff and old top of the line deck had . It’s has to also be a 3 head deck while our at it .

wonder where you get calibration tapes from so that head alignment could be done and adjustment of bias etc .

Can I get a demagnetiser so I can demagnetise the deck sometimes after my weekly cleaning ?

Used from eBAY any time, any place, any quality, any price.
New from, e.g., Splicit (although I don't know if the 'wand' is small enough for practical use on a cassette).

Tape Head Demagnetizer

High quality audiophile Han-D-Mag demagnetizer. This unit erases magnetic build up from your tape heads. Your highs will be bright and sharp again and you will have the full spectrum of frequency in your recordings once again.

www.splicit.com

 

[Joe Smith]

Actually, as far as new tape production goes, the "fox" ferric tapes from Recording the Masters in France is pretty good and not terribly expensive. Not CrO2, but decent. I have used the :60s and made good recordings with Dolby. They make :90s now too, I believe.

Type II and Type III tape are less likely to come back...the "new" Type II from National Recording Company here in the U.S. is nothing to write home about.

 

[Joe Smith]

"Prerecorded tape sounded horrible back when the format still was in demand. The only tapes the sounded good where your own recordings ."

This is really not true. Many of the classical cassettes that I went off to college with in 1977 still sound very good. The Advent CR70 tapes from the mid 70s are excellent, rivaling the later Nakamichi Reference Recordings of the 80s. Cassette sound got steadily better through the 80s with more widespread use of CrO2 tape and HX Pro recordings. At the end of the "cassette era" there were titles on very high quality Type II tape with Dolby S. Yes, the mass market Rock & Country early tapes in the 60s and 70s were so-so, usually in sealed rather than screwed shells and using inferior ferric tape, but there were many exceptions.

 

[Robin L]

"Prerecorded tape sounded horrible back when the format still was in demand. The only tapes the sounded good where your own recordings ."

This is really not true. Many of the classical cassettes that I went off to college with in 1977 still sound very good. The Advent CR70 tapes from the mid 70s are excellent, rivaling the later Nakamichi Reference Recordings of the 80s. Cassette sound got steadily better through the 80s with more widespread use of CrO2 tape and HX Pro recordings. At the end of the "cassette era" there were titles on very high quality Type II tape with Dolby S. Yes, the mass market Rock & Country early tapes in the 60s and 70s were so-so, usually in sealed rather than screwed shells and using inferior ferric tape, but there were many exceptions.

I was charge of the Classical cassette section of Tower records, Berkeley, in the mid-eighties. Very few classical cassettes were up to the standards of LPs at the time, and the quality of LPs in the mid-eighties was nothing to write home about. There were only a few runs of commercial cassettes of high quality during the peak years of the cassette, none from major manufactures like EMI and Polygram. The only ones that come to mind are from Connoisseur Society, those were not commonly found in retail outlets.