Show us your vintage cassettes!

[tmtomh]

I can't believe no-one has posted the TDK MA-R90; it's all I used to buy. Of course they go for crazy money now. I'm sure I threw away dozens of them many, many years ago.

Martin

@restorer-john , great topic! I Got rid of most of my cassettes when I ditched LPs and went all CD in the mid'80s and never looked back - but I still have a soft spot for cassettes and I did keep a handful, including a still-sealed Maxell XLIIs, and an opened but minty Teac CRC-90, which I loved because it had an open-reel look:

(Not my actual cassette; just an image I found online)

My favorite all-time cassette, though, was that MA-R. As a teen I saved my money and bought a single one. It's my one cassette regret: I have no idea where it is. I wouldn't have sold it, and I wouldn't have tossed it, so I must have misplaced it decades ago. Alas. I don't miss it enough to pay the stupid money they go for now, but I'd dearly love to come across my old one one of these days. Good memories.

 

[Sukie]

I still look at sealed cassettes and almost drool. They just look so good. Maybe it is the mental pathways forged when I was young with music, recording and mates, cassettes in the car etc.

I know they are old in real terms, but they still look totally awesome to me.

The thrill of buying a 5 or 10 pack. Which would it be? A mix tape or a whole album? C60 or C90?

I was always more of a cassette boy than a vinyl boy. Just seeing all of these great pictures brings back so many good memories.

 

[gvl]

I still look at sealed cassettes and almost drool.

You drool, ha. I grew up in one big red union where the supply was spotty and each was worth a tad less than 10% of an engineer's monthly paycheck, so you'd buy one after setting some lunch money aside for a couple of months or get it as a birthday present. Taking off the shrink wrap was not unlike sex. Those memories are burnt into my subconscious.

 

[paddycrow]

None of my tapes have survived, but I still have this.

 

[restorer-john]

None of my tapes have survived, but I still have this.

Teac's answer to Nakamichi. Very nice deck.

 

[RayDunzl]

I think I bought one pre-recorded cassette.

It sounded so bad that it was the end of my consumption for that media.

Cassettes we recorded ourselves from LP were fine.

Cassettes of live music recorded on boom-boxes aren't too bad now that we can speed-adjust and re-eq them as necessary.

 

[paddycrow]

Teac's answer to Nakamichi. Very nice deck.

Just had the belt and other rubber parts replaced.

 

[restorer-john]

I think I bought one pre-recorded cassette.

It sounded so bad that it was the end of my consumption for that media.

I bought maybe 12 pre-recorded cassettes as a young teen. SQ was horrible when compared to our own recordings.

Then when CD arrived, I traded-in all those pre-recorded commercial cassettes at "the record market" for one and a half CDs. First CD I bought was The Best of Eagles, the second one was Daryl Hall & John Oates, Rock and Soul Part 1.

 

[restorer-john]

My favorite all-time cassette, though, was that MA-R. As a teen I saved my money and bought a single one. It's my one cassette regret: I have no idea where it is.

I only have a few MA-Rs and MA-XGs. They were so expensive here in the early 80s. IIRC, the very first one I bought was $18.99 and I only ever used it for test purposes.

 

[Helicopter]

Here's the carry case I bought when I was a kid:

Inside:

NOS Realistic 8 Track Tapes:

 

[Helicopter]

I think I bought one pre-recorded cassette.

It sounded so bad that it was the end of my consumption for that media.

Cassettes we recorded ourselves from LP were fine.

Cassettes of live music recorded on boom-boxes aren't too bad now that we can speed-adjust and re-eq them as necessary.

Cassettes from CDs were fine for a long time too before we had mp3s and CD burners.

 

[restorer-john]

Here's the carry case I bought when I was a kid:

View attachment 85622

Inside:

View attachment 85625

NOS Realistic 8 Track Tapes:

View attachment 85626

Gotta love that music collection with the token classical in there. 5150, what a great album!

 

[Helicopter]

@restorer-john , great topic! I Got rid of most of my cassettes when I ditched LPs and went all CD in the mid'80s and never looked back - but I still have a soft spot for cassettes and I did keep a handful, including a still-sealed Maxell XLIIs, and an opened but minty Teac CRC-90, which I loved because it had an open-reel look:

View attachment 85608
(Not my actual cassette; just an image I found online)

My favorite all-time cassette, though, was that MA-R. As a teen I saved my money and bought a single one. It's my one cassette regret: I have no idea where it is. I wouldn't have sold it, and I wouldn't have tossed it, so I must have misplaced it decades ago. Alas. I don't miss it enough to pay the stupid money they go for now, but I'd dearly love to come across my old one one of these days. Good memories.

Those Teac tapes with reels are awesome. There are reproductions on ebay. I wonder what kind of tape they use.

 

[restorer-john]

Those Teac tapes with reels are awesome.

Radio Shack used to have some as well back in the 1980s.

All I know was the Teac ones had pretty average tape in them- they looked great but were disappointing sound wise.

 

[PierreV]

One of my old stacks got to exercise a few months ago.
Still have a working Sony Trinitron as well, which means I have a complete home theatre

 

[paddycrow]

One of my old stacks got to exercise a few months ago.
Still have a working Sony Trinitron as well, which means I have a complete home theatre

View attachment 85627

You got shielded speakers?!

 

[Wes]

...

 

[pseudoid]

I had a pair of Harman/Kardon decks: CD-400 and CD401.
They were both 'calibrated' for the TDK SA-X 90-minute tapes. 90 minutes tapes was said to be thinner but could reliably hold 2 LPs.
We used to buy them (in boxes of 10) from some outfit in PA. << They used call that 'mail-order'!
I am not sure how many members were aware that there was a "excise tax" imposed on recordable cassettes, by the hooligan bastards...
I think it was 10c/90minute tape... but can't be sure...It was another one of their early shenanigans!

 

[mhardy6647]

Maxell UDXLII C90 blown away scan tweaked 02Oct2021 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

I -- ahem -- obscured the "Ideal for CD" sticker because it seems kind of oxymoronic to my way of thinking.

 

[MRC01]

Speaking of old cassettes, my buddy recently got an old Mercedes sedan. He wants to preserve the original look of the car interior, which means keeping the factory stereo with its tape deck. I found an old tape deck on eBay, had good luck calibrating and measuring it, so it's ready to go. But the car's old deck didn't play a test tape properly, so this weekend he's pulling the factory stereo so we can get it working again. If we are successful, he'll be rocking out in full vintage 1980s style while he cruises.

Now all he needs to find is a well-priced source for decent cassette blanks: TDK SAX, Maxell XLIIS, BASF Reference II, etc.