Cassette tape resurgence ?

[maxhifi]

Thank kev. I had two windows up and posted in the wrong window.

I hope there's a cassette resurgence. And I hope it ain't a fluke. I don't think it is.

Americans are less social and a majority haven't made a new friend in the past decade. Maybe that's adding to the population in the audiophile hobby. I'm only now becoming an audiophile... I was always a buy and throw away. Out with the old, in with the new. Nowadays I hate the new. I'm hooked on the old.

Then I discovered this youtube video titled "The Cassette Tape Revival Is Pointless".

No offense to this young man but I never felt so offended and insulted by his pov. He's so young, but claims he's old and wise. And he's basically ordering all of us to stop listening to cassette tapes because he said so. As if we're all badgering him about it every day. Talk about someone who just doesn't get it.

To counter his main point... "Why would you want to listen to cassette tape, having to rew and ff to everything you want to listen to.

I guess that's the mentality of the new generation... short attention spans. His loose description of music appreciation sounds like he's advocating "bouncing around from one song to another, one album to another...ff into the song... never listening to one song beg to end. To me, that feels more utilitarian. Yuk.

What I realize about cassette tapes is they make you listen to the music. I can only wonder how many times this guy cuts out of a song on CD and whips to another song... then a minute later onto something else before he turns it all off and watches South Park reruns.

And by the looks of his videos (all modern pop music), his tastes look extremely unappealing and uncultured. Forgive me if I'm just old, but I can't listen to any of these new boy bands and diva singers. I just don't hear any passion in the music. Even country music went all "American Idol" on us. Remember when Madonna was talented? Where did her talent go? Her spirit?

Maybe the cassette resurgence is an escape from the modern music that has degenerated down to everything sounding the same. All bad.

One has to wonder, has this young man and his ilk ever listened to Abbey Road from beginning to end without interruption? That's the way it was intended to be listened to. The idea that those guys labored over what to put where on the album, then mix it together in a story, only to have this guy bounce out to a Taylor Swift song he describes as "godlike sound".

I highly doubt this kid knows about the storytelling in rock albums. Would it be horrible torture for this young man to sit him down and make him listen to a chrome/metal cassette of Uriah Heep or Stevie Ray Vaughn from beginning to end?

As the saying goes, "To each his own".

Cassette resurgence. I'm so in.

YouTube videos like that are usually about about stirring the pot with a provocative title in order to get views. I bet if he did a balanced comments on the pros and cons of the cassette in 2019, it would be totally lost in the noise that is YouTube, and he'd get no advertising revenue.

 

[oldvinyldude]

What I realize about cassette tapes is they make you listen to the music. I can only wonder how many times this guy cuts out of a song on CD and whips to another song... then a minute later onto something else before he turns it all off and watches South Park reruns.

Yes-tapes are a serial format, like vinyl. Vinyl is faster for "changing tracks", unless it's on the flip side. Tapes require the most patience\time to get to the next track. As a result, out of laziness, many will just let tape run. This is not a bad thing. Sequencing of tracks can have a significant impact on one's appreciation of an artist's work. Compare listening to Dark Side of the Moon, with listening to a "Pink Floyd's Greatest Hits" (if there were such a thing).

I would like to think some sort of revival is lasting. Younger folks have been convinced about the quality of listening to vinyl, LP artwork and packaging, etc. Cassettes don't offer the quality, their packaging lacks much of the interesting qualities of an LP.

My perception is the attraction for younger folks comes from the "underground" vibe. Tapes are sold by local\regional bands, with the "exclusive" cachet that comes from limited quantities produced. Younger buyers are needed to sustain the revival, if that's an accurate description.

 

[maxhifi]

I think the limiting factor in the cassette revival's staying power, is the complete absence of any good quality newly made cassette players or recorders, and the cost associated with bringing them back into production for the volume which would be sold. A record player by comparison, is fairly easy to make in low quantities.

 

[vwestlife]

Then I discovered this youtube video titled "The Cassette Tape Revival Is Pointless".

No offense to this young man but I never felt so offended and insulted by his pov. He's so young, but claims he's old and wise. And he's basically ordering all of us to stop listening to cassette tapes because he said so. As if we're all badgering him about it every day. Talk about someone who just doesn't get it.

Then maybe you'll like this video better, "13 Reasons Why Cassettes Are Cool Again":

 

[Taketheflame]

I think the limiting factor in the cassette revival's staying power, is the complete absence of any good quality newly made cassette players or recorders, and the cost associated with bringing them back into production for the volume which would be sold. A record player by comparison, is fairly easy to make in low quantities.

That's certainly a challenge for the format, no doubt. But I do think that with modern manufacturing technology advancing as it is (i.e - advances in 3D printing, automation, and such), a quality deck being made again at some point might not necessarily be an infeasible endeavor - especially for the handful of manufacturers who never entirely left the tape game/if demand for tape & machines continues to grow.

It just depends on how things continue to play out, I think. For now, there are plenty of good machines left (with many hours of use left in them) out there to meet existing demand. But eventually, they will all need unobtainium parts to keep going - the big ones being certain ICs, transport parts, and heads.

 

[Reelist]

I will say, I do get pretty divided opinions among my peers for getting into cassettes. Some think it's great, and others ask "why!?". I'm still awaiting an opportunity to show some folks in the latter group how good a nice machine can sound.

You can't ignore this new attraction or shall I even say fascination with cassette. "Cassette Comeback" over in the UK has really opened my eyes to the art of cassettes. Cassettes have transgressed into this new folk art. A functional folk art. I look at all the various blank cassette tapes and the vintage artwork on the labeling... It gives one a feeling of nostalgia like a good Rembrandt would. I just learned audiophiles now have these things called "blank tape collections". Metal-IV tapes going for $20+ a pop now. I ain't complaining. Heck no.

These new old stock blank tapes have a patina to them now that they didn't have back in the day when they were utilitarian. And isn't that what hifi is really... Art in the form of sound? Why are cassettes making a comeback if they are? The only answer I can come up with is it's like that statue in Maude Chardin's living room. She explained it "having no use whatsoever except for something she can touch once and awhile. A tactile experience"... which is what life is. A tactile experience. RIP Hal.

There's one thing, I think, that could launch a new era of cassette hounds. If Schiit Audio put out a decent, bare bones, audiophile cassette deck. Preferably with Akai's old GX head design. I bet that might get the blank tape market going again.

 

[Taketheflame]

There's one thing, I think, that could launch a new era of cassette hounds. If Schiit Audio put out a decent, bare bones, audiophile cassette deck. Preferably with Akai's old GX head design. I bet that might get the blank tape market going again.

I'd love to see it too - but from what I've read over on Tapeheads, good quality cassette heads may be the biggest challenge to bring back into production (as opposed to transport parts and such), and thus, one of the biggest obstacles in a nice deck being made right now.

Lots of engineering knowledge has been lost or is at risk of being lost after cassettes tanked in the mainstream market - this certainly happened with chrome and metal tape production equipment and know-how, and it's likely happened with great head designs such as the Akai GX, Nakamichi Crystalloy, certain amorphous heads, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if engineering documentation has been destroyed/shredded by now, as the information was likely considered "worthless" by the companies that eventually bought out such respected names in the tape business when CDs took over.

Perhaps some of the few companies still making heads have someone/people with the talent to come up with something new and great, or the ability to reverse-engineer something out of one of the great old designs - but there needs to be the market for it before someone takes the plunge.

You certainly won't see anyone making a modern Dragon or 3014A equivalent today or anytime soon, as it would likely cost $5-6K+. But we've at least made it to the point of having a brand new dual well deck out there, so maybe a decent, basic 3 head deck isn't out of the question.

 

[50nstillhifi]

Admire you have kept those cassettes and now want to play them.. I suppose for nostalgia sake. I wouldn't recommend you do this with a cassette deck you value. Cassettes in ill repair and worn or thin in material design were notorious for unwinding, breaking or sticking with potential damage to a sensitive cassette drive system.

Recommend you get a basic deck, single transport, Dolby B, and screen those tapes. You can borrow my "red dot/green dot" sticky sorting method .. and you'll have fun.

But do avoid purchasing a top-end deck, than destroying it with "untested" cassettes.

 

[Joewag]

Just my two cents. There are quite a number of things about compact cassettes that make collecting them a fun hobby. The sound quality for the most part is never going to compare with good SACD's, but with a good Nak or Aiwa or Denon or really a bunch of others they can sound respectable. Part of the fun, though, is finding unusual ones like those with clamshell cases or sliders. It's kind of like collecting toys you'll never even take out of the box. You don't listen to many of these early examples...you just hoard them like any other collection. If you want to hear the music, you can call it up on YouTube. What you get, like in most collections, is pride of ownership. I know people who are trying to find every type of blank tape ever made. There's lots. Some are genuinely hard to find. I get a little thrill every time I find one of those reel to reel looking ones. I own about eight of these in different types and colors. That's the result of about thirty five years of hunting. Obviously these are not the only thing I'm hunting for. My life would be even less meaningful than it is. To some extent, I can't describe what kinds of cassettes I'm looking the hardest for since I'm always hunting for something I've never seen before. One of the other rewards is finding artists you can't find on any other format. Or can't afford on vinyl or reel. Some of those psychedelic garage bands that didn't succeed sound pretty darn good. The only way you'll ever hear them is compact cassette. This kind of stuff is rare, but that's again part of what makes it fun to hunt for. Certain live concerts would be lost to history if it wasn't for cassettes. I know bootleg stuff isn't technically legal, but if it was done forty years ago I suspect all the damage has been done. Find it. Buy it. Trade it. Never sell it. A merciful God will forgive you. I'm getting long winded (or long fingered), so I'll wrap this up. I'm just saying that collecting cassettes is relatively inexpensive harmless fun. Those that denigrate it should realize that hobbies don't need to have a purpose. I've been collecting and listening to compact cassettes (and the original non compact cassette called a sound cartridge) for over fifty years and my ears are not bleeding. To the best of my knowledge my hobby has not hurt anyone else (except maybe my wife...but she's been pretty good about it).

 

[MaxxVolume]

Just my two cents. There are quite a number of things about compact cassettes that make collecting them a fun hobby. The sound quality for the most part is never going to compare with good SACD's, but with a good Nak or Aiwa or Denon or really a bunch of others they can sound respectable. Part of the fun, though, is finding unusual ones like those with clamshell cases or sliders. It's kind of like collecting toys you'll never even take out of the box. You don't listen to many of these early examples...you just hoard them like any other collection. If you want to hear the music, you can call it up on YouTube. What you get, like in most collections, is pride of ownership. I know people who are trying to find every type of blank tape ever made. There's lots. Some are genuinely hard to find. I get a little thrill every time I find one of those reel to reel looking ones. I own about eight of these in different types and colors. That's the result of about thirty five years of hunting. Obviously these are not the only thing I'm hunting for. My life would be even less meaningful than it is. To some extent, I can't describe what kinds of cassettes I'm looking the hardest for since I'm always hunting for something I've never seen before. One of the other rewards is finding artists you can't find on any other format. Or can't afford on vinyl or reel. Some of those psychedelic garage bands that didn't succeed sound pretty darn good. The only way you'll ever hear them is compact cassette. This kind of stuff is rare, but that's again part of what makes it fun to hunt for. Certain live concerts would be lost to history if it wasn't for cassettes. I know bootleg stuff isn't technically legal, but if it was done forty years ago I suspect all the damage has been done. Find it. Buy it. Trade it. Never sell it. A merciful God will forgive you. I'm getting long winded (or long fingered), so I'll wrap this up. I'm just saying that collecting cassettes is relatively inexpensive harmless fun. Those that denigrate it should realize that hobbies don't need to have a purpose. I've been collecting and listening to compact cassettes (and the original non compact cassette called a sound cartridge) for over fifty years and my ears are not bleeding. To the best of my knowledge my hobby has not hurt anyone else (except maybe my wife...but she's been pretty good about it).

Many moons ago, I purchased (off The Bay) a VHS tape (!) of Pink Floyd`s "Live In Pompeii" concert from a guy in Germany (I don`t think there were any available here in the states at the time). In with it, he also included a little bonus, an unmarked/ unlabeled TDK cassette of a bootlegged Floyd concert, obviously somewhere in Europe in the very early `70s, it has a bunch of material from Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother on it, good quality recording, too....it is one of my "prize" cassettes....

 

[Hajidub]

I was a super collector of pre-recorded cassettes, but recently got back into recording (using sealed thrift store Type 2 tapes) and I must say I can get them about a notch or two below vinyl quality output. I use them for albums compilations or to record valuable albums I don't wish to wear out, or albums borrowed from other vinyl collectors.

 

[Taketheflame]

I was a super collector of pre-recorded cassettes, but recently got back into recording (using sealed thrift store Type 2 tapes) and I must say I can get them about a notch or two below vinyl quality output. I use them for albums compilations or to record valuable albums I don't wish to wear out, or albums borrowed from other vinyl collectors.

I've been collecting pre-recorded tapes like a maniac over the past year-ish. I expect to hit the "500" count by the end of the year. I'm currently sitting at just over 450-ish.

I need to get my recording decks in top-working order to start doing what you're doing. I've got a handful of records that command close to $100/sometimes more if you were to come across a copy on Discogs or a local record store. I also have some 7" records that I'd rather just make some mixtapes of, as I'd rather not be flipping records every 5 minutes, lol.

 

[vwestlife]

For the first time, I got a pure chrome blank tape -- a BASF CR-E II (Chrome Extra). All of my other Type II high bias cassettes actually contain cobalt-doped ferric tape, because that's what the Japanese (TDK, Fuji, Maxell, etc.) found works better than pure chrome. But the European tape manufacturers (BASF and AGFA) stubbornly continued to use pure chrome tape.

Chrome tape is supposed to smell like crayons, at least when it's new and freshly unwrapped, but this one doesn't. I guess the smell has dissipated with age. But it does have BASF's "Security Mechanism", which is supposed to help prevent the tape from getting jammed up:

 

[MaxxVolume]

For the first time, I got a pure chrome blank tape -- a BASF CR-E II (Chrome Extra). All of my other Type II high bias cassettes actually contain cobalt-doped ferric tape, because that's what the Japanese (TDK, Fuji, Maxell, etc.) found works better than pure chrome. But the European tape manufacturers (BASF and AGFA) stubbornly continued to use pure chrome tape.

Chrome tape is supposed to smell like crayons, at least when it's new and freshly unwrapped, but this one doesn't. I guess the smell has dissipated with age. But it does have BASF's "Security Mechanism", which is supposed to help prevent the tape from getting jammed up:

Impressive....pretty sophisticated approach for "the lowly cassette", as some would refer to it. Never used much BASF other than the 7 inch R2R tapes, always liked their hard plastic "library cases" with the flip-down door. Thanks for the educational video !

 

[Reelist]

I'd love to see it too - but from what I've read over on Tapeheads, good quality cassette heads may be the biggest challenge to bring back into production (as opposed to transport parts and such), and thus, one of the biggest obstacles in a nice deck being made right now.
...
Lots of engineering knowledge has been lost or is at risk of being lost after cassettes tanked in the mainstream market

Kind of like the moon landings. Except in our case the cassette deck was actually real.

Akai must have designs and schematics hidden somewhere in a warehouse. Heck, they say 1/3 of millennials favor communism, more than 2/3 want socialism. Maybe the New Amerikan government will make the millennials manufacture new cassette deck heads. Or what about lighting a fire at the feet of Tascam? Maybe Greg at United Home Video can come up with a 1/8" tape deck for a bargain price of $300,000.

In the meantime, I looked in my closet for another solution and I pulled out this... Maybe Schiit can poop out a new cassette deck with SVHS-type spinning heads. That would be so incredibly cool.

 

[Johnny B]

Yes-tapes are a serial format, like vinyl. Vinyl is faster for "changing tracks", unless it's on the flip side. Tapes require the most patience\time to get to the next track. As a result, out of laziness, many will just let tape run. This is not a bad thing. Sequencing of tracks can have a significant impact on one's appreciation of an artist's work. Compare listening to Dark Side of the Moon, with listening to a "Pink Floyd's Greatest Hits" (if there were such a thing).

I have A Collection of Great Dance Songs on cassette. That should count.

My perception is the attraction for younger folks comes from the "underground" vibe. Tapes are sold by local\regional bands, with the "exclusive" cachet that comes from limited quantities produced. Younger buyers are needed to sustain the revival, if that's an accurate description.

And some of us old guys. I bought a couple of interesting tapes from a cassette-only label when I was in NYC for the Stereolab shows just a few weeks ago. And a cassette-only EP from a Philadelphia noise/punk band at the merch table when they played here a few weeks before that.

 

[twiiii]

No such thing.

 

[Bone Yard]

Cassettes never left me, partly because my old work trucks still have working decks and it was always cool to hit a thrift or garage sale and get a stack of tapes for next to nothing. I consider myself more of a cool gear collector that loves music and a nice cassette deck that I could fit in with it's matching components was my style.

I saw the death of cassettes around 2000 when high-end decks had zero buyers at the used shops, except me, when I saw a nice one, usually priced around five bucks I was still finding space for them. The one market that did keep it chugging along was the boombox and Walkman Guys, this market kept growing at a nice solid rate and it's still getting larger. I feel like these guys kept the spirit alive through the years, it's hard not to appreciate the engineering in a player barely larger than the cassette or the attention grabbing monster boombox. The nice thing about these players is they made thousands of variations, short runs, high end versions, employee only, etc.

Musicians now a days worry that their digital product will not last, at least not like a tangible record or tape. Recording special issue tapes is very popular and also a great way for a fan to actually own the music, my local vintage gear shop was begging for Tascam Portastudios, he could sell as many as he could get, the musicians want an analog recording chain.

Here's a nice one although rare, this is Japanese Market Only, I posted in the Marantz Section a few months ago, the Superscope, by Marantz, CRS-5000 is the only three headed boombox ever made. This is a beast from 1978, very heavy and it cost around $800.00 back then. Marantz (Superscope) had a few stereo and mono three-headed field recorders back then as well, all of these have been sought after by the portable crowd for years, it's hard to imagine someone throwing it out.

 

[RockinRandy]

When I started this thread I never thought it would have gotten so many replies. There must be a growing interest in old analog cassette tapes.

I’m delving into the cassette resurgence/fad a little. It will be very hard to actually place a cassette deck on my rack along side or atop my other components, but I’ll play around with some other options; Maybe a shelf or something.

I found this technics deck for $10 at my local thrift store.
View attachment 1437734 View attachment 1437732

I just purchased this on eBay for $13.00 plus shipping. I bought this exact Radio Shack cassette player back in 1995 new and loved the way it sounded. What I liked most about it was it’s CSES/FLEX(Pioneers version) audio enhancement option that digitally enhanced the audio of old worn tapes.

The hard to find Pioneer CTW-604RS has FLEX and Dolby S noise reduction and can be found for around $100 used.
The way you recognize a Pioneer or Optimus CSES/ FLEX tapedeck is the 3rd button down left of the VU meter MUST indicate that feature; NOT rewind/auto play.

CSES/FLEX really does make my 30 year old cassette tapes sound remarkably better.
View attachment 1437735 View attachment 1437736

 

[RockinRandy]

Just bought a Pioneer 604 w/flex and autobias. It has Dolby S and it's the first time I've heard flex and Dolby S together and I gotta say WOW #cdquality and perhaps better on the low end. Thoroughly impressed! I love it.