U.S.A.'s last cassette tape manufacturer spews B.S.

[JSmith]

Cassette tapes had quite a poor SNR... although much better with Dolby noise reduction;

Audio measurements and Dolby, dbx noise reduction

Audio engineers in the 1970s became aware that many of the traditional distortion mitigating methods were unsatisfactory. In this context, dbx and Dolby

www.testandmeasurementtips.com

How does dbx perform in dynamic range, s-n ratio, frequency response?

From what I've read so far I'm assuming the dynamic range and signal to noise ratio of dbx with a good chrome or metal tape is 90 db-ish. And with a chrome tape I got well into 19 kHz. I highlighted 20 kHz for reference and there wasn't much signal left at 20 kHz anyways.

www.tapeheads.net

dbx (noise reduction) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Measurements of Nakamichi Dragon Cassette Deck

This is a detail measurements of the iconic, Nakamichi Dragon Vintage cassette deck. It was kindly brought to me at a meet at our local audio store (Gig Harbor audio). For those of you too young to know :), the Nakamichi Dragon has the reputation of being the best cassette deck available at...

www.audiosciencereview.com

JSmith

 

[Chrispy]

Interesting but just cannot imagine caring about cassette tapes again....just not as capable as other technologies. Maybe if you have an old car with a functioning deck only?

 

[Joe Smith]

I think it's all what you grew up with, and with appreciation that "this sounds better than it ought to." I have a library of about 300 higher end prerecorded cassettes (mostly classical and jazz) and I still get a kick out of playing them. Some have been with me since college days (1976-1981). Long time. Now. that's far smaller than my vinyl and CD holdings, but I still enjoy them. I never did reel to reel, nor (thankfully) 8-track. But I'll keep a little light on for cassettes. They're part of my life, and somehow, a system still doesn't seem complete unless I have a deck included.

It takes a little bit of care and pampering to keep the decks working well too...point of pride? I own three lower end Nakamichis and scores of others - I would have committed armed robbery to have any one of them back in my high school days.

If I lived in a much smaller house than I do, they would not be on the "keep" short list. But for now, I'm continuing to enjoy them.

 

[Joe Smith]

Here's a gift to cassette player aficionados that fancy adding a Nakamichi Dragon to their collection of obsolete gear- seek the true top of the line Nak instead, the ZX1000

And here's where I depart from the true tape aficionados...I never went up the chain, even to a three head deck. In the 80s, made more sense, but now? I enjoy my lower end playground. Plenty good for the sound quality and I don't need to pay $2000 for the deck, another $1000 for a re-build and $300 in freight to get it back and forth to Connecticut. But if it's your thing, have at it.

A Dragon or a ZX1000 is a beautiful thing to look at...I prefer to keep our relationship just that way.

 

[Waxx]

Cassettes are a hype among hipsters here in Europe, now vinyl got too mainstream for them. I find it funny, cassettes have a very limited sound quality, but still they prefer them now, with all the noise and his included.

I still got a cassette player, and a whole bunch of cassettes of my youth times. But i don't know if they still work, i did not listen to them anymore since at least 15 years and i'm not planning to do it anytime soon. I remember when minidisk (that is also not that good to modern standards) came arround i left cassettes and moved on and never looked back...

 

[polmuaddib]

I remember when minidisk (that is also not that good to modern standards) came arround i left cassettes

Don't worry. I am sure DAT and MiniDisk are to make a comeback in a couple of years. It's gonna be like it's pure analog digital or something like that.

 

[Waxx]

Don't worry. I am sure DAT and MiniDisk are to make a comeback in a couple of years. It's gonna be like it's pure analog digital or something like that.

Maybe i can sell my old but still working Sony MD player to some audiophool for way to much money...

 

[anmpr1]

Cassettes were a great boon to the consumer, and a very practical medium for the time. You could easily create your own 'portable' mix, carry a handful in a pocket to a party or picnic, give them away to friends without worrying too much about expense, and avoid loaning out your records (which always came back scratched and finger printed).

Cassettes were always about convenience and portability. But quality was there too--in context. Automobile based cassette decks featured both superior quality and convenience than whatever eight (or four) track cartridges offered.

In the home? From my experience, Type IV (metal) tapes were the best of the bunch, fidelity-wise. I never heard a cassette deck (even the high end Naks) that could match a top tier record player. Or even a mid-range open reel deck at 7ips. But the best of the bunch were pretty good, and given what they had to work with (tiny tape at a low speed), pretty amazing.

Some claimed that Dolby S was quite effective in advancing the medium's sonic limitations, but by then the format had been mostly abandoned. I never heard a Dolby S deck. There were a few made--I think Pioneer and HK sold them. I read that Dolby no longer licenses any of their NR for consumer decks. Last I checked, the latest and greatest Teac didn't have NR. Which kind of surprised me since there were other non-Dolby NR schemes available--some said to be 'compatible' with Dolby B. JVC, Nakamichi, and the totally different dbx offered their own takes on NR.

Record companies hated cassettes because of their inherent 'piracy factor'. But it was too late in the game for them to do anything about that. And soon they had digits to worry about. Their push against DAT (along with that format's expense and technical complexity) all but killed portable digital tape as a consumer medium. I think it lasted longer in Japan. Really, once people figured out how to make their own CDs it was goodbye Charlie for cassettes.

If someone came to me and said, "Which business would you like to invest in?", I don't think cassette tapes would be on my short list. But I wish this guy well. I guess.

 

[Multicore]

I think the fragility of the medium and its tendency to degrade with time, use, and careless handling is central to their appeal. If the object is a computer file, or something easily ripped to one, then we are invited to consider it trivially reproducible, renewable, and transmissible, i.e. anyone can have it for virtually no cost and it needs little care and attention from its owner, just a backup. A small run of cassettes otoh, you can buy one and feel you've got something special.

Personally, I prefer digital for convenience, SQ, and environmental but while I like listening to ditial music don't love owning it it the way, for example, I loved my LP of King Crimson Discipline before I even got it home on the bus from Virgin, or the cassette I made from Majella Stockhausen playing Klavierstück XIII - Luzifers Traum that I made off BBC R3.

I wrote about this years ago.

Compact Disks make you immoral

Archive post from June 4 2008

thefsb.substack.com

 

[fpitas]

You've heard the phrase "puff piece"? This is an example of one. Tapes are fun promo items for some bands who have used up all their trucker hat ideas.

"But it's so ironic!"

 

[Joe Smith]

I think NAC will continue to do fine with their bread and butter business, tape duplications/longer runs. The home taping market is a niche for them. Their new tape is better suited to the high speed tape duplication business. They do seem to keep trying to make the home tape versions better, at least.

A lot of up and coming and regional/local type bands do sell their music on cassette for EPs and even albums as vinyl production is more expensive. My 33 year old son is really into cassettes, as it's how his bands and other bands can make and sell their music. That side of cassettes is increasing, not decreasing, at least what I am seeing here in the U.S.

 

[mhardy6647]

If cassettes come back... I'm ready.


(these are just a sampling of the bottom of the barrel)

Just sayin'.

 

[Capitol C]

I was disappointed in the quality of classical cassette recordings compared to records or reel to reel 7.5 ips tapes. Maybe I gave up too soon, though.
One thing I got a kick out of in the article was the statement that making a copy quickly gave better fidelity. Nonsense, of course.

 

[Multicore]

If cassettes come back... I'm ready.


(these are just a sampling of the bottom of the barrel)

Just sayin'.

Samantha Fox? wow! I'd forgotten about her. What a star.

 

[fpitas]

Samantha Fox? wow! I'd forgotten about her. What a star.

She certainly had her outstanding points.

 

[Zensō]

First off, let me say up front that people should listen to whatever gives them pleasure. That said, I found the Smithsonian article sad and perplexing. One would assume cassettes were put to rest the moment CD’s were released, but here we are in 2022 and they’ve made a comeback. It seems like one small part of the larger anti-science movement that is infecting society.

 

[Multicore]

First off, let me say up front that people should listen to whatever gives them pleasure. That said, I found the Smithsonian article sad and perplexing. One would assume cassettes were put to rest the moment CD’s were released, but here we are in 2022 and they’ve made a comeback. It seems like one small part of the larger anti-science movement that is infecting society.

Sad? I think it's cute and mostly harmless. (Smithsonian is late to this party anyhow.) I see it as more a positive statement about what's tangible and what people like to own than a negative statement about science. I commented about that above.

In any case CDs didn't replace cassettes, which were awesome because you could make a tape of your pals' (or the record library's) LPs or CDs or off the radio. Look at @mhardy6647's photo above! See all those blank cassettes carefully recorded and labeled. They are unique. Those represent a personal investment in a collection. It's lovely.

Life is about more than features and benefits. Science is one language and mode of thought among many and shouldn't feel threatened that others exist. Tangibility of things is important in how we relate to them. Right at the start of "We Have Always Lived In The Castle" Shirley Jackson wrote:

We dealt with the small surface transient objects, the books and the flowers and the spoons, but underneath we had always a solid foundation of stable possessions. We always put things back where they belonged. We dusted and swept under tables and chairs and beds and pictures and rugs and lamps, but we left them where they were; the tortoise-shell toilet set on our mother's dressing table was never off place by so much as a fraction of an inch. Blackwoods had always lived in our house, and kept their things in order; as soon as a new Blackwood wife moved in, a place was found for her belongings, and so our house was built up with layers of Blackwood property weighting it, and keeping it steady against the world.

Good luck relating to a WAV file like that.

 

[Multicore]

She certainly had her outstanding points.

She was well loved by many. Probably still is. Good for her.

 

[Xulonn]

Although I abandoned cassette tapes for CD's, and CD's for hard disks and USB flash drives, my sentimental/nostalgia connection with the "physical" aspect of audio is now limited to vacuum tube amplifiers. I find them attractive, and wrote this THIS POST about "beautiful amplifiers" recently here at ASR.

I have a beautiful amplifier on a separate stand next to my media center that is not currently hooked up, although I do have a speaker/amp switch that will allow me to connect it to the L/R speakers in my main system for nostalgia listening sessions.

I even have have coffee/tea mugs and T-shirts with about 10 of my favorite vacuum tube amplifier designs for sale at the website I built and administer for my artist friend Richar Huisa [LINK]

 

[Joe Smith]

First off, let me say up front that people should listen to whatever gives them pleasure. That said, I found the Smithsonian article sad and perplexing. One would assume cassettes were put to rest the moment CD’s were released, but here we are in 2022 and they’ve made a comeback. It seems like one small part of the larger anti-science movement that is infecting society.

Well, I think still using and liking cassettes does not make one anti-science. I'm very pro-science. Very. In this pandemic, I feel that science has been about the only part of our societies that performed or overperformed!

Some using tape still like to push to the very edge of what the medium can do - which is exactly what about 95% of the people on this forum like to do with their various digital and analog gear. Now, that's not me. I'm happy with "that sounds pretty darn good" and I'm very much a 2.0 channel guy. People still try to get cassettes to sound as good as digital, which they inherently can't...but people are funny. And that's why Dragons and other 40-year old Naks still sell for outlandish sums - that, and the bragging rights. (They are lookers, though, you gotta admit.)

Steve, the owner of NAC, likes to talk up his product. Just like a bunch of other audio salesmen on here that we all know and love. Grains of salt all around. I wish their new tape was better. Maybe it will get better. I'm glad cassettes are still around, because they do actually still have a function for all the startup bands, if nothing else.

And yes, the tangibility, the ownership. That's a big, big part of the vinyl resurgence too, we all know it.