Cassettes On the Rise?

[Archguy]

Doubt you will see them being stock in cars again, but one could purchase a new deck for their car. And yes, there is a generation of younger kids finding out about cassette tapes. I still have a few from my youth, no deck to play thme on.. not that I'd really sit and listen to Wilson Phillips album on tape... actually ... I would.

I never did learn if they won that award or not..

PS: I just bought my first cassette player since the 1980s last week
--to co-ordinate with an integrated amp I also just bought

 

[Poinzy]

When I was working in a record store, cassettes were for the people who couldn't afford anything better. Now they're "audiophile" items. What's next, "audiophile" wire recordings?

 

[Audiotfoot]

I never got rid of my cassette player. There were too many cassettes I had recorded off FM back when. Anyone here remember Hearts of Space? Or the program that gave cues to start your recording? Long gone now, but there are still plenty of those tapes in my collection. Just yesterday at the thrifts seven or eight cassettes were added to the collection, classical, jazz, big band. - 50 cents each. There are also recordings of vinyl that is no longer in my collection, and some of my daughter's high school music competitions - she had/has a beautiful voice. Lots of reasons to keep the cassette player around.

Cassette isn't the only media used here, but it's played a fair share of the time.

 

[musichal]

I got back into cassettes about 6 years ago. Perryinva sold me a refurbished Dragon...a deck I could have never afforded in the 80's and 90's while raising two kids. It's been great. I've never been a big digital fan but I do listen to CD's and I stream music in the background. There's just something about squeezing really good sound out of cassettes, and I really like recording.

If I had a Dragon, I'm sure I'd play with tape a little more often, but not enough to make it worth the time or investment. However, that has a lot more to do with my physical limitations than the media format, even though it does come with its own set of issues. I have used a Dragon quite a few times, though I never owned one, and it's a beaut.

 

[noobydoo]

Just picked up a mid level yammy dual deck as a throw in with some other gear I bought. When I worked in a record store back in the 80's I would make copies of all the audiophile discs that came in on maxell or BASF metal tapes. FR was a good as vinyl and I usually recorded without dolby so no compression/ decompression issues. I got invited to a lot of parties just because of those tapes . I still have a box or two kicking around my moms somewhere. Time to dust em off maybe.

 

[Lavane]

Back then when friends bought a new album you liked you would haul your deck to their home and record it. Only a few of my friends and I would let each other take an album home to record it. It all depended on how someone treated the records and what we had for turntables. I have a Steely Dan Asia tape I made from a friends album when it first came out. It was only the second time the album was played when I recorded it. We would buy and listen to an album, then call a friend you could trust with the new record to see if they wanted to make a tape before it was played any more all to try and get a nice copy. I dont record anymore, but still collect cassettes. Recently I have thought about borrowing a few LP's from my son to tape though.

 

[noobydoo]

Back then when friends bought a new album you liked you would haul your deck to their home and record it. Only a few of my friends and I would let each other take an album home to record it. It all depended on how someone treated the records and what we had for turntables. I have a Steely Dan Asia tape I made from a friends album when it first came out. It was only the second time the album was played when I recorded it. We would buy and listen to an album, then call a friend you could trust with the new record to see if they wanted to make a tape before it was played any more all to try and get a nice copy. I dont record anymore, but still collect cassettes. Recently I have thought about borrowing a few LP's from my son to tape though.

We had a sealer at the store. If you've ever wondered how new records could have scratches and or thumbprints on them....

 

[adj69]

I kept most of my cassettes from my younger years and have been buying ones from thrifts, GW, etc. in the last 6 or so years. During that time, I have also acquired several cassette players with the intent to get them working again. The problem is usually the belts that go bad, which for some brands/models are either hard to identify, find or replace due to the complexity of the mechanics. Currently I am using a Technics RS-B48R that is working good for now. It's just fun to find a tape of a band that I don't have on any other media and also to find a "rare" one that is hard to find and actually has a higher value than you bought it for.

 

[noobydoo]

I meant to comment in passing that I NEVER heard a decent quality prerecorded cassette. My listening was restricted to music taped from vinyl on to metal type IV. Could easily cover the FR and dynamic range of vinyl. I even made copies of cd's for the car deck and most people thought I had a cd player in the car.

 

[Powertech]

I still have a Teac V1050 in near perfect condition that I no longer use. I've had it for over 30 years. I dug it out a few months ago, just to try it out. I bought a couple of metal and superchrome tapes and after a clean up (just wipe the dust off really) and a general check over, I gave it a go on my main system. I recorded and played back some vinyl and CD and I have to say I was surprised at just how good it sounded. Yes I could tell the difference between the original and the recording by switching between the two, but it wasn't terrible in any way. The V1050 is a 3 head machine and I believe it was based on a Tascam studio deck.

 

[RobRoy]

I'm hearing there is a Cassette sub culture out there. Not only those that want to use cassette tapes again but Bands that record original material and use Cassette as their reproduction format of choice. I've got a couple high quality decks here that I've cleaned up and gotta admit that there's something to be said for all this. I get the nostalgia factor but am not sure about these Bands producing for cassette distribution. Can this mean the resurrection of the tape deck in the car?

Nope. Cassettes are a nostalga thing. Nothing more and nothing less. It's another "hipster" phase. Cassettes do not bring the same pluses to the table that records do. They are cool only if they are unique. I say that as someone who uses a CT-F1250 and have hundreds of pre-recorded and blank tapes as well as several bricks of NOS blanks.

I also used to sell Hi-fi between 1976 and 1982 and was a huge cassette user.

 

[MannyE]

Been back into tape for about five years....

People in New York have been using the old microphone mixer and a great cassette recorder to make and sell mixed tapes forever it seems. There are electronic repair shops in NYC that specializes in boombox repair... Used dual-well cassette decks have been for sale and being sold on Fleabay and Amazoo since they were made. New blank cassette tapes have always been made and sold by......duplication.ca

Actually cassette never went away, just ended up with a smaller following....

Indeed. I think bands and aspiring DJs kept cassette alive all these years and I think they are fun. Cassettes are still the thing no one buys at the thrift and I can still ask, "how much for all of them?" and the happy clerk will often say something like "Twenty dollars....but you have to take ALL of them!" Then I take the few I want and donate them again down the street.

The same thing used to happen with vinyl until about 5 years ago.

 

[Falstaff]

MOST people haven't heard a descent quality pre-recorded cassette. Then again, most people listened to them on portable player, boom boxes or cheap car stereo systems. Not exactly a formula for a great impression of what they may offer. There are even Mofi cassettes out there. But if you listen to them on a sub-standard system, you get sub-standard sound. Like listening to your records on a Crosley and expecting audiophile quality sound. Not going to happen.

Cassettes are just like records when it comes to sound engineering. A badly engineered recording will produce a bad record or cassette. Trash in = trash out. It applies to every medium out there. But as we all have experienced, good recordings played on a great system can sound amazing.

 

[MannyE]

MOST people haven't heard a descent quality pre-recorded cassette. Then again, most people listened to them on portable player, boom boxes or cheap car stereo systems. Not exactly a formula for a great impression of what they may offer. There are even Mofi cassettes out there. But if you listen to them on a sub-standard system, you get sub-standard sound. Like listening to your records on a Crosley and expecting and expecting audiophile quality sound. Not going to happen.

Cassettes are just like records when it comes to sound engineering. A badly engineered recording will produce a bad record or cassette. Trash in = trash out. It applies to every medium out there. But as we all have experienced, good recordings played on a great system can sound amazing.

Even back when cassettes were popular up until the late 80's maybe even early 90's I didn't have the patience or frankly, the money to invest in Nakamichi Dragons and take the time to make tapes, etc.

 

[HTHMAN]

MOST people haven't heard a descent quality pre-recorded cassette.

That is because they were so rare. I used to really like cassettes. I bought vinyl and recorded to good quality tapes for use in my car and I played them on my home system to keep the vinyl pristine. I still have 4 decks and a bunch of tapes I have recorded over the years. Once I could record CD's they replaced the tapes.

 

[AdamAnt316]

The first format I had any experience with was cassettes. When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was a Fisher Price 826 cassette recorder, which allowed me to "discover a world of sounds." When I got older, a Sony Walkman was one of my main gadgets, and got lots of use. Eventually, I wanted something better, which led me to the world of cassette boomboxes. A trip to Toys 'R' Us in the early '90s led to the purchase of a Sony CFS-1200, which was essentially my main stereo until the CD came along.

I've had a cassette deck as part of my component systems ever since I first set one up. First one was a Sony TC-127 top-loader which had belonged to my father. Eventually went through several decks, including an Akai GX-F31, before I found a nice Nakamichi BX-100. It's no Dragon, but it did a nice job until something inside it got jammed up (it's currently holding my pre-recorded copy of Supertramp - Crime of the Century hostage ). Sometime afterwards, I found a nice Tandberg TCD-440A at a thrift store for a good price, and now have a Pioneer CT-F900 which should do the trick if it escapes the issues that normally affect this model.

Of course, I haven't used cassettes much for making mixtapes from my LPs and CDs in quite some time. However, I do make use of them as part of the low-fi keyboard music I make under the name of Dr. Optigan. Most of my music recording is done to Maxell XL II 90 blanks (which I've stockpiled a number of from yard sales and thrift stores) using a Fostex XR-3 cassette multitrack, though I also have a Tascam PortaStudio 01 and a Fostex 250 which I'm hoping to get working at some point. I recently picked up a Telex Copyette 3-tape cassette duplicator which I'm hoping to use to crank out some mixtapes of my own music using blanks I've found at rummage sales.
-Adam

 

[Djcoolray]

Indeed. I think bands and aspiring DJs kept cassette alive all these years and I think they are fun. Cassettes are still the thing no one buys at the thrift and I can still ask, "how much for all of them?" and the happy clerk will often say something like "Twenty dollars....but you have to take ALL of them!" Then I take the few I want and donate them again down the street.

The same thing used to happen with vinyl until about 5 years ago.

Indeed. I think bands and aspiring DJs kept cassette alive all these years and I think they are fun. Cassettes are still the thing no one buys at the thrift and I can still ask, "how much for all of them?" and the happy clerk will often say something like "Twenty dollars....but you have to take ALL of them!" Then I take the few I want and donate them again down the street.

The same thing used to happen with vinyl until about 5 years ago.

Not in the Seattle Area, all recorded mediums have increased in price. This is not most people but I see it occasionally ....It’s sheik to go to Starbucks and plop down a Walkman with some fashionable headphones and play games on an iPad. Cassettes are actually hard to find here especially any of the metal bands and R&B. All the good stuff is mostly gone....just the junk left over sitting in the racks. At the PX, I hear young people on base talking about the stuff they buy online while at the food court. There is allot of places across the world where there is no interest in cassettes at all, I remember in 2000 stopping at JFK INTERNATIONAL on the way back to Germany buying a mixed tape from a kid in the airport that promised me that the tape was DOPE. Gave it to one of my soldiers in the barracks that had a dual-well tape player. The NY DJ scene is all about making a name for yourself and selling mixed tapes until you get signed and same thing with hip-hop. They could be selling CD’s....

 

[jobrewer1983]

I never did learn if they won that award or not..

PS: I just bought my first cassette player since the 1980s last week
--to co-ordinate with an integrated amp I also just bought

I have not watched that in years!! Lol

What pioneer model is that? It's clean as all get out!

 

[sqlsavior]

AFAIK my cheap Technics cassette deck still works. My wife inherited some tapes, and was surprised when I told her we could play them. I have some favorite mix tapes, both that I made and that friends made for me. That will be the extent on my own cassette revival, however.

 

[Gnesen]

I did get back into cassettes a few years ago to record local weekly radio shows that focus on Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. But the radio station started offering on-demand streaming of the recorded shows, so I got out of the habit.

Still, this thread has me considering hooking a deck back up, mostly because I still have a couple of mixed tapes given to me by ex-girlfriends. Could be interesting to take a listen — I doubt my wife would give a darn after 15 years together. Hmmm.