Inventor compact cassette Lou Ottens passed

[Zoomer]

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...ventor-audio-cassette-tape-dead-obit-1139657/

Dutch: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/179094/uitvinder-cassettebandje-lou-ottens-is-overleden.html#reacties

 

[GGroch]

“Cassettes didn't play a role in hip-hop in the early days. Cassettes WERE hip-hop.” Cassette: A documentary Mixtape

"Cassettes are time travel, right?," writer ROB SHEFFIELD says in Taylor's documentary "If, God forbid, the day would come that I don't remember the SECRET STARS or I don't remember the RAINCOATS or I don't remember the SOFTIES, I'll be able to go through a shoebox of these tapes and go, like, yup, this. I remember this. I will not forget this. These moments that would otherwise be lost in time like tears and rain."

So someone invented time travel. He invented hip-hop, too, And punk-rock. And mixtapes. And GRATEFUL DEAD fans. Oh, and he did his best to kill his own baby. Still at Philips in the early '80s, he was on the team that invented the CD

Link to excellent Redef article.

 

[Berwhale]

Another artcile in The Guardian: Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape, dies aged 94 | Netherlands | The Guardian

Nice quote at the end...

Ottens, who died on Saturday, had little patience with the renewed popularity of the cassette tape – or even vinyl.

“Nothing can match the sound of the CD,” he had told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. “It is absolutely noise and rumble-free. That never worked with tape … I have made a lot of record players and I know that the distortion with vinyl is much higher. I think people mainly hear what they want to hear.”

 

[JSmith]

Gee 94, a very good run.

RIP Lou Ottens.









JSmith

 

[mhardy6647]

Saw this posted at the Polk forums a few days ago.
I did not realize that one individual at Philips had been as involved as he in both the genesis of the CompactCassette and the CD ("digital audio disk") until I read his obit.

(nice photo of Mr. Ottens posted on the Polk forums by moderator Kenneth Swauger)

End of an era (hiss and 'rumble' notwithstanding).

casettebirthday_v2-lrg by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

pencil stat by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

tapes of questionable repute by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[Wes]

Not long after the debut in 1963, the cassette headed towards HiFi goals:

 

[GGroch]

And by 1979:

Why can't today's electronics have such a wonderous panoply of knobs and switches with which to fiddle?

 

[murraycamp]

Lou Ottens: Dutch inventor of the cassette tape dies age 94 - CNN

 

[Phorize]

Lou Ottens: Dutch inventor of the cassette tape dies age 94 - CNN

RIP. Those were the days.

 

[Harmonie]

I have sweet memories with voices of people I miss, recorded with the supplied mike on this one

 

[Wes]

after the Model 200, Advent shifted to a Wollensak transport - dunno if they kept the Nakamichi Research electronics

I had both units, tho this is a stock photo:

But what I lusted after was the Nakamichi 1000, which I first saw when one of my professors invited a bunch of us kids over to his home.