• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Remember how we said cassettes weren't coming back?

BASF was a fringe brand in the USA in cassettes for quite a number of years. The early US made cassette shells were BASF's biggest issue, the actual tape was more than competitive, and fewer stores stocked BASF. When Wilhelm on this forum took over, and BASF was trying to get serious about increasing their duplicator tape business and gaining market share in retail tape sales, the company also focused on getting the cassette shells up to European specs and improving them in the 1979-1980 time frame, From there onward, BASF's Chrome and LH-E formulas were very popular, and sold well. And the improved shells have performed very well for me, the tape has been very reliable.
 
The prices of high bias chrome blank tapes are getting very pricey these days. So it seems cassettes are on their way back too. A new old stock tdk sa or maxell xl2s blanks are averaging minimum of 5 bucks or so. I sure wish i kept my blanks. I remember getting a box of 10 Maxells xl2s for 20 bucks.
 
Tho I still have a ton of my old "mixtapes" floating around, I haven't played a cassette in years.
Tho my wife has - I have a cassette deck hooked up to my old Yamaha CR400/JBL L26 system down in the exercise room for her ..
Many of my old tapes were first-play recordings of my then-new records (LPs, not "vinyls") back in the day, directly to Maxell UDXLII tapes ..
 
Last edited:
I received a old denon cassette player from a friend and hooked it to my system and couldn't believe my ears. I pulled all my tapes from the garage that had been there for 22+ years and they sounded great. Now I look for cassettes while I'm looking at albums to buy. There are a lot of sealed tapes out there at great prices. I have also seen a jump in tape prices on the really popular stuff like hard rock and rap.
 
Angry Possum said:
The prices of high bias chrome blank tapes are getting very pricey these days. So it seems cassettes are on their way back too. A new old stock tdk sa or maxell xl2s blanks are averaging minimum of 5 bucks or so. I sure wish i kept my blanks. I remember getting a box of 10 Maxells xl2s for 20 bucks.
Click to expand...

That they are. The demand is there for them. I use a lot of cassettes presently, especially since I got a deck I like.
 
Bahamayellow said:
I received a old denon cassette player from a friend and hooked it to my system and couldn't believe my ears. I pulled all my tapes from the garage that had been there for 22+ years and they sounded great. Now I look for cassettes while I'm looking at albums to buy. There are a lot of sealed tapes out there at great prices. I have also seen a jump in tape prices on the really popular stuff like hard rock and rap.
Click to expand...

I still have my old cassette recordings that i did from my vinyls to tape from the 80s. They sound awesome still. The Maxell XL2s still have an awesome sound. I play them on my Denon DRM 740.
 
Angry Possum said:
The prices of high bias chrome blank tapes are getting very pricey these days. So it seems cassettes are on their way back too. A new old stock tdk sa or maxell xl2s blanks are averaging minimum of 5 bucks or so. I sure wish i kept my blanks. I remember getting a box of 10 Maxells xl2s for 20 bucks.
Click to expand...

KentTeffeteller said:
That they are. The demand is there for them. I use a lot of cassettes presently, especially since I got a deck I like.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing that these are prices on ebay? I found that on Barter Town, you'd practically have to beg to get someone to buy at $2/blank, and then probably have to eat shipping on top of that. One of the reasons I finally stopped renewing my subscriber-ship.
 
dodog said:
I'm guessing that these are prices on ebay? I found that on Barter Town, you'd practically have to beg to get someone to buy at $2/blank, and then probably have to eat shipping on top of that. One of the reasons I finally stopped renewing my subscriber-ship.
Click to expand...

Ebay and Amazon. They are both around the same prices. 4 to 5 bucks each.
 
just dave said:
I was listening to some cassettes the other day.Some mix tapes I made for a party I had about 20 years ago.Still sounded great and brought back a lot of memories.
Click to expand...
And I think that is the key. Memories. Nostalgia. These are things that go hand in hand with growing older. Cassettes as a format suck. They have less than perfect frequency response. They have hiss that has to be masked with your various Dolby circuitry. It's not user friendly getting to track 9, and then track 3, etc. They do wear out, and the players have lots of moving parts to wear out.

But. Memories. Nostalgia. Groovy feelings. This is what is being sold here, and older folks with disposable income will be marketed to to take their money with any device they want.
 
You don't clean cassettes. You clean the heads pinch roller(s) and capstan on the deck. Keeping the pinch roller(s) and capstan clean results in no tapes being eaten. Keeping the heads clean and demagnetized results in better sound.
 
Last edited:
I should get brownie points!
I actually worked for Saxitone Sound -
(at their Rockville store, not the original place at 1776 Columbia Rd in DC)
Anyone into cassettes and tape in those early days has probably seen the print ads ...
 
KentTeffeteller said:
BASF was a fringe brand in the USA in cassettes for quite a number of years. The early US made cassette shells were BASF's biggest issue, the actual tape was more than competitive, and fewer stores stocked BASF. When Wilhelm on this forum took over, and BASF was trying to get serious about increasing their duplicator tape business and gaining market share in retail tape sales, the company also focused on getting the cassette shells up to European specs and improving them in the 1979-1980 time frame, From there onward, BASF's Chrome and LH-E formulas were very popular, and sold well. And the improved shells have performed very well for me, the tape has been very reliable.
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware they did audio cassette; I bought more than my share of videotape from them at my local Kroger store in the late 80's/early 90's. They always seemed lesser quality.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom