Show us your vintage cassettes!

[mhardy6647]

Anyone have any miniDisc media laying around for a photo shoot?

sure...

(sounds of Marky scurrying around in the basement, cockroach-like)
This little MD recorder and (at least*) one shrinkwrapped disc was given to me by an exceptionally nice Massachusetts audiokarma member.



hmm... I guess I should take a better photo of just the disc, eh?

_________
* I actually think I might have a couple of minidiscs... but, on short notice, I am just pleased that I could actually remember where the recorder was... so finding one disc was a bonus!

 

[mhardy6647]

I scanned it

 

[Chrispy]

Sold all my remaining minidiscs and the player (after the player got damaged by battery leakage)....but curious why this has to do with cassettes? The minidiscs were far superior to the generally crappy cassettes.

 

[pseudoid]

...minidiscs.......but curious why this has to do with cassettes?

his daddy was TDK cassette and mommy was Sony DAT!
During one of the US introductions of the Sony MiniDisc, few of the invitees could not help but loudly giggle when one of the Sony Engineers actually said "Perfect disc forever!", at the podium. Honest! In some VFW post near Westlake Village, CA!

 

[Chrispy]

his daddy was TDK cassette and mommy was Sony DAT!
During one of the US introductions of the Sony MiniDisc, few of the invitees could not help but loudly giggle when one of the Sony Engineers actually said "Perfect disc forever!", at the podium. Honest! In some VFW post near Westlake Village, CA!

LOL. Still, way better than f*cking cassette tapes

 

[Robin L]

Some of my weird cassettes. Top left two, Music from the Hearts of Space cassettes of shows I worked on, next an early iteration of a collection that eventually turned into a radio show, followed by a collection of noises and skits from someone I knew decades ago. Next row: I recorded Julian White and turned out small batches of his concerts on cassette. This is a tape from a little earlier than when I worked with the pianist. A gentleman who worked for a books on tapes series lived in the same apartment as me around 1989, gave me a number of tapes including this Rilke collection. My favorite was John Cleese reading "The Screwtape Letters", the middle manager from hell [literally] is a perfect fit for John Cleese. "Big Ego" is a collection of Giorno Poetry Systems Recordings, as is the cassette in the lower right hand corner as well, filled with ageless words of wisdom from William S. Burroughs. "Lizards" comes from the same guy who cooked up "The Eternal Ohm", "Liquid Sound" as well, the sort of weird tape mixes that emerge in the wee small hours of the mind. Haven't heard any of them in at least a decade.

 

[Chrispy]

LOL so hard to imagine so many of you still have/use cassettes. I got rid of those asap.

 

[pseudoid]

LOL. Still, way better than f*cking cassette tapes

You had asked and I provided you the answer.
What other choice did anyone really have as a portable media before the miniDisc was born?
There was a point in Japan, where the miniDisc was said to be the music media of choice by 50+percent of the music listeners.
Remembering that the CD was introduced before 1980 and that the miniDisc circa 1992: It was Sony's attempt once again at the "prorietary format wars".
It has been said that the miniDisc (lossy format) was the "forgotten format". Amen to that!

 

[Robin L]

Four cassettes I worked on. Recorded the concert and dubbed the tape copies of the first 100 or so of "Kitka in Concert with Ensemble Alcatraz". I recorded all of the San Francisco Bach Choir concerts between around 1992 to 1997. There were usually three concerts of a given program in three different locations, the best [or best bits] of the three would be edited and tweaked and then copied [I got TDK SA in custom lengths, clear housings] somewhere between about 50 to 150 copies for the group. Their antiphonal Christmas concerts were very popular. Next row, a test cassette for Kitka's "Voices on the Eastern Wind", their first CD. Finally, one of a number of tapes I made for Julian White, a notably fine interpreter of Brahms' late works for piano.

 

[ThatM1key]

I think the RIAA should've looked at the DAT more closely, you could duplicate at 1x and you needed the proper machines. If FLAC was invented in the 1980s and also hearing that you fit 2 CDs on 1 CD using that, it would tickle that RIAA nutsack quickly.

Speaking of piracy, Metallica was against it and wanted people to buy there music, fair enough I guess. The problem I have with that band is that they suck at remastering and that they encoded there albums in MQA on purpose and still proud of it, like really?

I prefer tapes over records. No tape cleaning, good sound quality, small size, very little tape deck maintenance, etc. I can fit about 30 records in a 18 gal tub versus hundreds of tapes in the same tub. I need to get belts for my Digital Noise Reduction Pioneer CT-W606DR. After decades of building turntables from many companies, do they come with pop, click and noise removal chips?, they don't. Cassette decks advanced way more than turn tables did but sadly new tape decks these days are junk.

 

[Robin L]

I think the RIAA should've looked at the DAT more closely, you could duplicate at 1x and you needed the proper machines. If FLAC was invented in the 1980s and also hearing that you fit 2 CDs on 1 CD using that, it would tickle that RIAA nutsack quickly.

Speaking of piracy, Metallica was against it and wanted people to buy there music, fair enough I guess. The problem I have with that band is that they suck at remastering and that they encoded there albums in MQA on purpose and still proud of it, like really?

I prefer tapes over records. No tape cleaning, good sound quality, small size, very little tape deck maintenance, etc. I can fit about 30 records in a 18 gal tub versus hundreds of tapes in the same tub. I need to get belts for my Digital Noise Reduction Pioneer CT-W606DR. After decades of building turntables from many companies, do they come with pop, click and noise removal chips?, they don't. Cassette decks advanced way more than turn tables did but sadly new tape decks these days are junk.

There are, or so I have read at this forum, phono preamps---working in real time in the digital domain---that de-click LPs on the fly. When I made hundreds of needledrops of dodgy, beat-up old records, "Click Repair", relatively inexpensive software available online, was quite good at cleaning up clicks and pops on the files I recorded. It worked best if the file was first processed back to front, then again at the same settings front to back. This seemed to better mask sharp, high frequency "ticks". I have yet to encounter anything that can deal with the horrendous distortion of a well-worn groove. That sort of thing can be somewhat alleviated through the generous use of high frequency filtering above 4khz or so.

 

[ThatM1key]

There are, or so I have read at this forum, phono preamps---working in real time in the digital domain---that de-click LPs on the fly. When I made hundreds of needledrops of dodgy, beat-up old records, "Click Repair", relatively inexpensive software available online, was quite good at cleaning up clicks and pops on the files I recorded. It worked best if the file was first processed back to front, then again at the same settings front to back. This seemed to better mask sharp, high frequency "ticks". I have yet to encounter anything that can deal with the horrendous distortion of a well-worn groove. That sort of thing can be somewhat alleviated through the generous use of high frequency filtering above 4khz or so.

Those special preamps are not cheap at all. I loved using clickrepair but archiving records is not fun.

 

[mhardy6647]

LOL so hard to imagine so many of you still have/use cassettes. I got rid of those asap.

Have and use are two different things!

Meanwhile -- since I am all about scope creep...






(I'll stop now, honest)

 

[pseudoid]

I think the RIAA should've looked at the DAT more closely, you could duplicate at 1x and you needed the proper machines.
If FLAC was invented in the 1980s and also hearing that you fit 2 CDs on 1 CD using that, it would tickle that RIAA nutsack quickly.

Can you whistle me a couple of more notes, so that I can understand what you are meaning?
I don't understand the 2nd part (duplicate @1x) or even the rest of (FLAC/fit2CDs/nutsacks) your post.
Please and 10Q!

 

[usersky]

 

[ThatM1key]

Can you whistle me a couple of more notes, so that I can understand what you are meaning?
I don't understand the 2nd part (duplicate @1x) or even the rest of (FLAC/fit2CDs/nutsacks) your post.
Please and 10Q!

RIAA was worried that DAT could record a perfect copy of a CD, that's why they wanted it dead. The thing RIAA didn't see was the DAT machine made perfect copy was in Realtime, it would be like ripping a CD at 1x. I'm saying that if FLAC, if it was created way earlier, the RIAA would go after that too because it created a perfect copy in a compact size, so compact that you use that format to put 2 or more CDs on 1 Data CD.

Metallica in the late 90s wanted "full control" of the piracy market (mainly Napster). The problem is that Metallica is really bad at remastering albums these days, you know its bad when it got wholeheartedly released in MQA. Ironically Metallica fans that care about audio quality will either hunt down the actual good CDs on eBay or "Find a perfect copy online".

I used to enjoy records a-lot but I dumped all my record players and most of my records. My problem with turntables is that they didn't advance that much in terms of technology. Cassette tape decks over a few decades advanced from speech recorders to CD equivalent machines. Now when you look at record players, they didn't change that much. The most that came from record players was track skipping, "Automatic" play, & built-in preamps, that's about it. If this was 2012, I could've gotten a Pioneer tape deck that could digitally remove noise in real time versus turn tables that are belt driven and come with $20 cartridges & built in phono preamps. You would think there would be somewhat cheap turntables that could remove noise, pops, clicks, etc these days judging by what tape decks went though. A 1970s turntable shouldn't technically match and surpass modern day turntables, but it does. It would be like saying that 1970s tape decks are better than 1990s tape decks. Turntables are really comparable to soviet union cars, there here for many decades but barely change a hair. The sad thing is that todays tape decks are built very terrible for the money there asking, the parts come from cheap $20 boomboxes and they use Non-Dolby regular "B equivalent" noise reduction.

I have this record but I don't feel like pulling out my tub for a picture, so here's somebody else's:

 

[mhardy6647]

You would think there would be somewhat cheap turntables that could remove noise, pops, clicks, etc these days judging by what tape decks went though.

Well, I mean... way back when... there was this.

source:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/70s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1978-02.pdf

 

[ThatM1key]

Well, I mean... way back when... there was this.



View attachment 189809
source:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/70s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1978-02.pdf

I think it would be neat to see that tech built into turntables, I'm sure these days it doesn't cost a lot to do or at least make a modern one for dirt cheap instead of using software. I guess you could argue that you could buy a used vintage one but there kind of pricey.

 

[pseudoid]

HooliganB*st*rds tried all the shenanigans they can to prevent DAT from getting in the hands of consumers... and they won.

=

RIAA was worried that DAT could record a perfect copy of a CD, that's why they wanted it dead.

Ok! We were singing in key!

 

[ThatM1key]

I came across this: