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Show us your vintage cassettes!

John, any room on the thread for one of these?

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Still have mine. Must be forty years old.
I think it was £15. With bankster's inflation (theft) that's about £70 today!
 
pseudoid said:
I don't see a built-in battery or a power input jack. A lot of people can use a portable version for demagnetizing their heads, in this polarized world.:p
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Top left (terminals with red & blue wires) - there a little well that holds a button cell for power.

I had the TDK morph of this gizmo and used it and liked it. I should use the present tense... it's still here someplace ;) but I haven't seen it lately. In fact, I am not sure I've seen it since we moved to NH from MA... but I could be wrong about that. :rolleyes:

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source: https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/I...e-0040.pdf#search="tdk cassette demagnetizer"


The way it works is rather clever -- it essentially reproduces the proper technique of using a "wand" demagnetizer using a decaying field. :)

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source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1979-03.pdf
 
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mhardy6647 said:
index.php

Top left (terminals with red & blue wires) - there a little well that holds a button cell for power.

I had the TDK morph of this gizmo and used it and liked it. I should use the present tense... it's still here someplace ;) but I haven't seen it lately. In fact, I am not sure I've seen it since we moved to NH from MA... but I could be wrong about that. :rolleyes:

View attachment 204284
source: https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Audio/Archive-Audio-IDX/IDX/70s/Audio-1979-04-OCR-Page-0040.pdf#search="tdk cassette demagnetizer"


The way it works is rather clever -- it essentially reproduces the proper technique of using a "wand" demagnetizer using a decaying field. :)

View attachment 204286
source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1979-03.pdf
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Had it, used it.
 
IME, none of the cassette tape style demagnetizers work. Even a fresh battery doesn't seem to provide enough power to create a strong enough field to really demagnetize the head.
I've had much better results with the wand-style demagnetizer that you plug into the wall.
I've confirmed this by activating them next to a mountaineering compass. The cassette tape style barely move the needle, if at all. The wand style instantly swing it to a different setting and hold it there as you move the compass around.
 
I bought these back in the dark ages:

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MakeMineVinyl said:
I bought these back in the dark ages:
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I looked at your 3-cassette Classical collection and had to ask myself:
"Hey, Self! How many times did you buy a Classical music 'collection' and never finished listening to all... or even most""
Self answered:
"Gulp!"
How would you answer that question, @MakeMineVinyl?:cool:
 
pseudoid said:
I looked at your 3-cassette Classical collection and had to ask myself:
"Hey, Self! How many times did you buy a Classical music 'collection' and never finished listening to all... or even most""
Self answered:
"Gulp!"
How would you answer that question, @MakeMineVinyl?:cool:
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Those are just three I pulled from my box of cassettes. I used cassettes very little and only for my car generally.
 
MakeMineVinyl said:
I used cassettes very little and only for my car generally.
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Yeah! Exactly!
I toiled for years and spent many thousand$ to duplicate my music onto cassettes. They had to be "road-worthy" collections, since they accompanied us on all our looooong road trips... When gas was still under 50cents/gallon and no such thing as a 'point-system' existed...
Like Muzak-of-yore, Classical is best left for homes, elevators and mortuaries!
 
Is this vintage now? Am I old ?
 

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I found the recipe for baking vintage tapes (not just cassettes); so don't bug me like I am being OT.:cool:
Pretend as if I am just the messenger.
It starts out like this:
202206_TapeBake.jpg

Read {Crazy] Eddie Ciletti's full recipe here.
 
A week ago at a pawn shop, I saw a Sony dual-deck that had Dolby S. I was interested in it because they only wanted $20 for it. The problem is that it was "well used", so used that one of the rca's jacks was discolored. The last time I saw a Dolby S machine was at another pawn shop, which was a Sony single-deck, it was a very clean unit but the price was $100 and the spec sheet was very unimpressive, it was similar to my Non-DigitalNR Pioneer dual-deck.

Personally, I'm not a "recording" person when it comes to cassettes anyways and there's not that much Dolby S tapes out there.
 
The lack of overcompression in older cassette recordings may make sound very good to our ears, as our ear/brains sound evaluation does not care about SINAD wars at all, but is very sensitive to unnatural music compression which is a standard in most streaming services and remasters.

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pma said:
The lack of overcompression in older cassette recordings may make sound very good to our ears, as our ear/brains sound evaluation does not care about SINAD wars at all, but is very sensitive to unnatural music compression which is a standard in most streaming services and remasters.
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That may be an unfair association.
I'd prefer to listen to the latter (local remaster) rather than the former (streaming) any day.
Not that I've done any meaningful or explicit comparison(s) of the two 'formats'.
I just prefer a large local library in comparison to one that is distributed/accessed thru any network that is not under my control.
Although, my daily music feeds also rely on SXM and Cable ISP music channels.:facepalm:
 
Heh, I have about 150 of recorded vinyl…all fully indexed by song and tape settings with custom printed labels I made using FileMaker Pro!

I last used them before I sold my 2007 Acura TL…which (amazingly) was equipped with a factory deck.

90 min tapes mostly, I will dig out examples.
 
pma said:
The lack of overcompression in older cassette recordings may make sound very good to our ears, as our ear/brains sound evaluation does not care about SINAD wars at all, but is very sensitive to unnatural music compression which is a standard in most streaming services and remasters.
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I agree. I'm incredibly sensitive to over aggressive and multiple layers of compression, something you hear on plenty of FM broadcasts and some streaming services. When you constantly hear pieces of music you know intimately, it gets rather disheartening.

I'd rather listen to a bit of hiss and a rolled-off response, in preference to some so-called 'expert's' idea on what is my perception of what is audible and what is not.
 
Plcamp said:
Heh, I have about 150 of recorded vinyl…all fully indexed by song and tape settings with custom printed labels I made using FileMaker Pro!

I last used them before I sold my 2007 Acura TL…which (amazingly) was equipped with a factory deck.

90 min tapes mostly, I will dig out examples.
Click to expand...

At least take a few photos, I wanna see all that effort on cassette! :)
 
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