Cassettes On the Rise?

Back in the day I used nice blank cassettes for the reasons most people did. To get my LP's into the car and it worked splendidly. Equally important was also using them in the house to keep the wear on the records to a minimum. That paid off handsomely as most of them are still virtually new. With nice blanks and good decks I didn't feel like I missed much when I listened to them instead. Cassettes can sound great.

Obsolete tech, but so what? A lot of the fun of this hobby is the equipment. I mess around with almost every format. Because it's fun. And almost all of it sounds pretty darn good
 
cassettes and their decks are cheap today since they're on the tail-end of the curve.

you can pickup collections of Rock for pennies each - and no pops, ticks, scratches
and above all NO BEER crusted layers destroying your TT.

then you can now pickup a used Nakamichi Dragon for far less than it was back in the day.

in the 1980s they sold for about $1k depending where you bought it. in 2018 dollars
that's over 3K.

in the bay area you can find them for $500 and even if you throw in 400-1k for repairs
you now have something that will last long enough to play a lot of cassettes.

and cassette decks coming back into new cars? unlikely, they'd have to find say
10+ million cassette machanisms, get some branded supplier agreement to put it
into one/some/all cars, then charge a premium for nostalgia? in add-on head
units? probably less than a million DIY guys across this country. maybe only one.
I love cassettes but am I willing to take apart a car dash to add a replacement
head unit just to play cassettes? nope - worst case, FM from cassette deck to
factory built-in audio center.
 
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The other day I parked next to an older Honda Civic and was surprised to see an actual cassette tape sticking out of its tape player slot, instead of one of those cassette-to-line-in adapters.

And if your vehicle lacks a cassette player, you can always use a Walkman connected to its aux input (or played through an FM modulator, if it lacks an input).
 
The other day I parked next to an older Honda Civic and was surprised to see an actual cassette tape sticking out of its tape player slot, instead of one of those cassette-to-line-in adapters.

And if your vehicle lacks a cassette player, you can always use a Walkman connected to its aux input (or played through an FM modulator, if it lacks an input).
I might have replied this in this thread, or it might have been another thread, but I'll say it again since great men repeat themselves anyway! I miss having a cassette player. My '93 Buick had a tape player when I bought it from my dad, but it mysteriously quit. It was the best of both worlds. I could play a tape in it, or I could use the cassette adapter to play my phone or iPad through it. With a cassette, you can do up to 110 minutes of music; with a CD, you're limited to 80 minutes unless you do an mp3 disc. With mp3, however, you are sort of hamstrung by the fact it arranges by filename instead of the actual order you choose.
 
cassettes and their decks are cheap today since they're on the tail-end of the curve.

you can pickup collections of Rock for pennies each - and no pops, ticks, scratches
and above all NO BEER crusted layers destroying your TT.

then you can now pickup a used Nakamichi Dragon for far less than it was back in the day.

in the 1980s they sold for about $1k depending where you bought it. in 2018 dollars
that's over 3K.

in the bay area you can find them for $500 and even if you throw in 400-1k for repairs
you now have something that will last long enough to play a lot of cassettes.

and cassette decks coming back into new cars? unlikely, they'd have to find say
10+ million cassette machanisms, get some branded supplier agreement to put it
into one/some/all cars, then charge a premium for nostalgia? in add-on head
units? probably less than a million DIY guys across this country. maybe only one.
I love cassettes but am I willing to take apart a car dash to add a replacement
head unit just to play cassettes? nope - worst case, FM from cassette deck to
factory built-in audio center.

I feel like an idiot. Last fall I had a Nakamichi cassette unit that might have been a dragon but I chucked it because I couldn't get the tray mechanism to work. This unit had a feature in which you could load about five tapes into it and it would play them consecutively...so, was it a dragon?
 
not a NAK, I recall Sony, pioneer, and I think Mitsubishi made multi-cassette changers.
(there may have been rebranded car decks ...)

Dragons mounted and played only one cassette at a time.
 
I purchased this NOS Aiwa portable cassette player last year....

35615792812_18d5b35564.jpg
 
I might have replied this in this thread, or it might have been another thread, but I'll say it again since great men repeat themselves anyway! I miss having a cassette player. My '93 Buick had a tape player when I bought it from my dad, but it mysteriously quit. It was the best of both worlds. I could play a tape in it, or I could use the cassette adapter to play my phone or iPad through it. With a cassette, you can do up to 110 minutes of music; with a CD, you're limited to 80 minutes unless you do an mp3 disc. With mp3, however, you are sort of hamstrung by the fact it arranges by filename instead of the actual order you choose.

I had several of those slotted cassette brief-cases, one for rock, one for classical, and etc jazz and country and blues. Held about thirty each? Maybe twenty-something. So easy to lug around and keep out of hot, parked cars and such. Now with my Zune, I have hundreds of albums, set to synch at 192mbs (from 320), and about the size of a single cassette. So while I can wax all nostalgic over audio tech history, I like the convenience and the sound of more current tech.
 
Cassette System.jpg View attachment 1126798

I'm using them down at work at the moment, and recently bought another one of those 100-unit Napa wood storage racks so I could organize both my pre-recorded and self-recorded. Seems that I have about 230 in all, a reasonably sized collection. Most of it I don't have in another format, but there are some overlaps.The sound is good with a decent deck (you don't need a Nakamichi to get that) and can be enhanced a bit with a preamp - I'm currently using my NAD 1020 for that purpose, makes a nice headphone amp with tone controls. Takes me back - cassettes were my sole music during my college days, I'd sold my first system when I left LA and I wanted to travel light. Still have most of those classical cassettes in my rotation.
 
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I had several of those slotted cassette brief-cases, one for rock, one for classical, and etc jazz and country and blues. Held about thirty each? Maybe twenty-something. So easy to lug around and keep out of hot, parked cars and such. Now with my Zune, I have hundreds of albums, set to synch at 192mbs (from 320), and about the size of a single cassette. So while I can wax all nostalgic over audio tech history, I like the convenience and the sound of more current tech.
If I'm listening to a box set, for instance The Complete Hank Williams, mp3 is the perfect source. One CD holds all 10 CD's worth of music, plus a couple of other albums. If I want to listen to all one artist, again, mp3 works great. My CD player in the car doesn't have an aux input on it, so that leaves out doing a random playlist. Plus I guess I wax nostalgic. :cool:
 
I recently scored a Harman Kardon TD262 cassette deck for peanuts. And I also scored about 15 new TDK and Scotch tapes for free.

The deck has a frequency range of 20-20kHz and a fine bias adjustment. I made some vinyl dubs and I can barely tell a difference.

And it takes me back to the 80s, when dubbing vinyl onto cassette, and making mixed tapes, was de rigueur.
 
If I'm listening to a box set, for instance The Complete Hank Williams, mp3 is the perfect source. One CD holds all 10 CD's worth of music, plus a couple of other albums. If I want to listen to all one artist, again, mp3 works great. My CD player in the car doesn't have an aux input on it, so that leaves out doing a random playlist. Plus I guess I wax nostalgic. :cool:

Yeah, I wax that way, too, betimes. I wish I had my '62 Fury back, and damn right I'd want a cassette deck. Had Pioneers's Supertuner (I, II, III?) component system. Their very first 'separates' for car. Bought the 20wpc amp, the other option had more power. Twenty was plenty. I retract my remark and now wish I'd hung on to all those old tape cases.
 
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I got a dual Teac player sitting round doing nothing for years.
It's kind of a dead format for me though I thought I could re-incorporate it into my music with the old college try. Dint work.
Only cassettes I may use anymore are for recording on the portable player.
Gave all my old tapes away after years and thousands on various car and truck players.
And mostly homemade on TDK, BASF, Maxell and Sony Chrome. Thousands.
Another vote for Pioneer Supertuner car tape players (and cd), and the old Concord tape players.
They sounded better than any Blaupunkt or Alpine and were built NAD style: minimalist features few lights.
And for the Kraco tape players with stereo indicator light, tone control and locking FF, Worked in a pinch.
 
I still record on a tape deck at least two shows a week all blues shows I follow non-commercial radio stations. But in a tape set it properly and got an hour and a half of new music no commercials no talk talk talk just music and who you just listened to. I have seen more radio stations disapear then I have tape decks. Well that might be over kill but know your specs and buy a deck been at it for many decades.
Canton
 
We have a factory CD/cassette/radio player in our 2006 Nissan Murano. I tried the cassette player for the first time about two months ago. It sounded unbelievable. Really. I was shocked at how good it sounded. Better than any of the cassette players I had in my various cars growing up. And I always installed the best cassette decks I could find.
 
I recently picked up a Yamaha K-540 in a package deal and might just keep it around if I can find any decent tapes to play. I haven't owned a cassette in years but I do see them at the thrifts pretty often. I found that you can get replacement belts and pinch rollers on eBay which is good to know.
 
Our family has many cassette decks/players sitting around, including two higher-end dual cassette decks, three boom-box type AM/FM/cassette players, even a few personal cassette players. Almost all need belts to being 'em back. Rather than buy individual belt kits for each one, I'd love to buy square belt and flat belt assortments in bulk. But many of the online bulk belt sellers/auctioneers get poor reviews. And belt quality REALLY impacts wow and flutter. Anyone know of a good, trusted source? Or at least a good source for reasonable kits? (Some of our boombox-type players probably aren't worth $20 of belts and several hours of research/order/repair time.) Thanks in advance. BTW, did you catch the tongue twister: "bulk belt sellers?"
 
if you're just looking for belt kits try MCM, they're also good for the idler tires that plague the low
end Nakamichis. I used buy them, replace the tires, and give them away.
 
Thanks, Bob. Good to hear from you. Yes, MCM belts seem to get good reviews on that big online retail site. The assortments look good -- I have so many cassette decks/players to repair.
 
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