Cassette tape decks, what is the fascination?

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source: http://www.preservationsound.com/?paged=2&tag=vintage-hi-fi

We had one of these (stereo); similar if not identical to the one in the ad photo above. (second speaker was in the lift-off top cover).
 
Fascination is early 70's I suppose. I remember those days well being in my early 20's.
 
We are always trying to return to our youth. Still have my 1973 Tandberg TCD-300. It needs some tlc but the tapes were second to none. This was our portable music source. Cars, boom boxes what ever we could take the music with us. As always the world keeps going faster, and we like to slow down are listen.
 
I understand we have to talk about frequency this mechanism that etc. etc. For me personally I let my ears decide & the physical part of putting in a tape & flipping it over. Finding nice prerecorded ones while simply enjoying this fantastic format, I just popped in some Cassandra Wilson, Sting, Robert Cray & Will Downing last night and couldn’t be more happy with the experience.
 

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Techmoan did a video about the RCA Sound Tape Cartridge:


It didn't die as quickly as people think -- it hung on in the educational market until the early '70s. And nor was it exactly "RTR quality". The sound tape cartridge used 3¾ IPS when most reel-to-reel tapes were still using 7½ IPS, so there was a noticeable degradation of audio quality.
Ive seen plenty of pre recorded albums done at 3 3/4 On RTR tapes. Still better than the small cassette. I wonder if the big cassette would hold up at 7 1/2 IPS?
 
I do still use mine. I was digging out parts yesterday for a project and listened to severel tapes. If I didn't have so many tapes I probably wouldn't have one though.
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The cassette format was strictly a connivence product. With sophisticated noise reduction the cassette format could provide acceptable sound for a fraction of the cost of R2R tape in a much smaller size, too. The quality could easily surpass mass produced LP if desired, though not always accomplished. Lps take infinitely more care to maintain top notch performance from day one. Cassettes not so much. But if your tape deck isn't well maintained you can easily destroy a tape in a fraction of a second. When Maxell was producing Cassette tapes the UD series shells and tape were guaranteed for life. I still have all my UD tapes with only a few having failed because of a compromised Ford cassette player in a Car. My Nakamichi decks still perform Quite well. Sure the tape path needs cleaning, O rings, belts and tires need to be cleaned and maintained and guides and heads eventually replaced. Everything mechanical eventually wears and becomes unserviceable. I still have 2 Nakamichi that I use to make CD's for friends and to make tapes to play in my Dodge Diesel pickup. I may have to bow to technology some day and install a new sound system. But till then its cassette for the Ram truck.
 
If Marantz made a full logic with those VU's, it'd be soooooo perfect!
Yup. A few in the 80's were nice decks. The 5020 and 5220 just look cool and for playback they do fine. I also had a 5220 and after changing the belts I gave it to my son.
 
The cassette format was strictly a connivence product. With sophisticated noise reduction the cassette format could provide acceptable sound for a fraction of the cost of R2R tape in a much smaller size, too. The quality could easily surpass mass produced LP if desired, though not always accomplished. Lps take infinitely more care to maintain top notch performance from day one. Cassettes not so much. But if your tape deck isn't well maintained you can easily destroy a tape in a fraction of a second. When Maxell was producing Cassette tapes the UD series shells and tape were guaranteed for life. I still have all my UD tapes with only a few having failed because of a compromised Ford cassette player in a Car. My Nakamichi decks still perform Quite well. Sure the tape path needs cleaning, O rings, belts and tires need to be cleaned and maintained and guides and heads eventually replaced. Everything mechanical eventually wears and becomes unserviceable. I still have 2 Nakamichi that I use to make CD's for friends and to make tapes to play in my Dodge Diesel pickup. I may have to bow to technology some day and install a new sound system. But till then its cassette for the Ram truck.
You run into those tapes from time to time that really do sound great. To bad they all didn't. The only tapes I have that went bad are those that car decks munched. Keep your deck clean and demagnetized and those old tapes last a long time.
 
I like recording from XM radio deep tracks and BB KING BLUESVILLE and other stations I've got a pretty good collection of cassettes, I like TDK AND MAXELL high bias mostly. I had high end Onkyo deck for 20 years it finally had to go eating tapes. I picked up 3 decks on E bay , a JVC 65, I use in my work out room in the basement about 5 times a week, a Dennon 800 A I'm not using right now, and a high end JVC TD V621 for recording with my main system, it's nice to be able increase the db,s and filter out background noise really making different nice sounding music, and you get to pick only the song's you want. I love my albums, and CD,s and have many of them, but for the costs of 1 CD i can get 3 90 minute high quality tapes from Amazon and i can get about 4 hours of just the music I want. With the long winters here in upper IL you have to stay busy. O and I have a mint low mile 93 ford F 150 the wife and I trailer a motorcycle and travel with and it has a cassette deck.
 
One poster said that the cassette was a superior format. I disagree. I've had cassettes fail mechanically internally. I've had prerecorded cassettes that were recorded on very poor quality tape. But most of the cassette tapes, whether purchased pre-recorded or as blank tape were satisfactory and some were much better than others. I have a lot of cassettes partly because I didn't get a CD deck until that format had been around for over 15 years. Consequently, much of the new recordings I bought in that time were on cassette, especially those from folk musicians I had heard live, as fewer and fewer new recordings were coming out on vinyl as those years continued. I also dubbed mix tapes, or two-album tapes for playing at home or in a vehicle. I also recorded some live music, concerts and friends jam sessions. I also like the idea of preserving different audio formats--my record collecting started with collecting 78s.
 
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