so why do we still have tape decks?? what's your reason?
- Thread starter fabchef
- Start date
TerryO
Super Member
R2R tape has the potential for the very best sound available today.
See:www.tapeproject.com
Best Regards,
TerryO
See:www.tapeproject.com
Best Regards,
TerryO
Arnold_Layne
Member
I was out of the tape game for about 10 years, then when I got into Pink Floyd, tape trading was the name of the game. So I had a cheap dual cassette deck. then eventually upgraded to a sony 3 head. When CDR's became the trading medium for live shows, I stopped with tape again for a while. Until I got hold of a Nak Cassette Deck One to transfer some old tapes someone had given me. I now own three (well the fourth is on the way) Naks, four reel to reel decks and 5 8 track decks. You'd have to pry them from my cold dead hands for me to give them up.
Steve
Steve
Hmmm, :scratch2: Sums it up very well, I think!
RobRoy
It's just stuff - but fun
I am psychologically going back in time. I used to tell my daughters that the world changes as much in five years as it used to change in 50. I've revised that. It now changes as much in five years as it used to in a century. People cannot cope with that kind of change. My work around is to sort of live in the past in many ways and "check out" of the modern world. Hence my newfound love of records and tapes. But with me it's cassette.
I have, in just a few months, amassed a collection of hundreds of "good" prerecorded tapes and almost as many home recorded ones from estate sales. Most of them I got for free but I do have $10 invested in some of them. It's a kick playing them on the Nakamichi deck I got yesterday for $5. and they sound shockingly good.
I just like the experience - and the music.
I have, in just a few months, amassed a collection of hundreds of "good" prerecorded tapes and almost as many home recorded ones from estate sales. Most of them I got for free but I do have $10 invested in some of them. It's a kick playing them on the Nakamichi deck I got yesterday for $5. and they sound shockingly good.
I just like the experience - and the music.
RobRoy
It's just stuff - but fun
$500 for one tape?! :lmao:
I used to live a couple of houses down from Paul Allen on Mercer Island. I suppose he'd go for this. He's got the dough. But seriously. Five Benjamins for a single tape? I suppose it works for a niche market.
$500?! I'm still trying to absorb it...
If I could afford albums on tape for that price, I'd buy this first, and I am dead serious:
ussexplorer
Active Member
Yea Tapes
Well I like to make sure I have enough equiptment to play what I find. I go around to thrift stores and what not. Oh look at that. A tape I don't have from a group I like. Wish I could find more Reel to Reel rock tapes in the wild. But I just picked up a box of 8 tracks the other day. Yea not great. But hey I got the player to play them.
Thanks,
Josh
P.S. Oh and that tape project listed above. Good Idea but wow. I need the poor boy series. I would love to hear some 10.5" reels recorded from a master. Well as in there place. They take the masters. Make a recording. Then record it for you. I think. I heard about project like 5 years ago. I think 7" reels could work too.
Well I like to make sure I have enough equiptment to play what I find. I go around to thrift stores and what not. Oh look at that. A tape I don't have from a group I like. Wish I could find more Reel to Reel rock tapes in the wild. But I just picked up a box of 8 tracks the other day. Yea not great. But hey I got the player to play them.
Thanks,
Josh
P.S. Oh and that tape project listed above. Good Idea but wow. I need the poor boy series. I would love to hear some 10.5" reels recorded from a master. Well as in there place. They take the masters. Make a recording. Then record it for you. I think. I heard about project like 5 years ago. I think 7" reels could work too.
Sandy G
Retired Member
Yeah, let's be honest...We're ALL just Growed-Up Little Boys, basically, & as such, most of us are FASCINATED by complex, forbidding-looking machinery...There are THINGS to push, turn, monkey with, adjust, watch, poke & prod w/a big, honkin' R2R that appeals to the wannabe Budding Junior-League Mad Scientist in almost ALL of us. Part of it is, too, I think, that "Digital" takes all the FUN out of it...An automatic transmission is a helluva lot easier to drive than a manual, but a LOT of us prefer to shift for ourselves...Digital sound reproduction is prolly "Better" than R2R or any tape format, but a lot of us still wanna "Shift for ourselves" & see actually how good we CAN get...
AnalogDigit
Realistic fan.
I keep mine because I have hundreds of tapes. Some are over 30 years old and they still play well.
I sometimes make mix tapes still. I miss the 'hands-on' in recording on a cassette deck. The cleaning of the record, putting the needle where the music is the loudest and adjusting the VU meters on the deck and to cue the silent track where the music starts and to time it right to hit record on the tape deck.
Not to mention cleaning the tape heads before I start recording, choosing the right tape, setting up the bias level just right.
I would not call reel to reel or cassette or even 8 track obsolete technology. I would call it supplemental technology.
I sometimes make mix tapes still. I miss the 'hands-on' in recording on a cassette deck. The cleaning of the record, putting the needle where the music is the loudest and adjusting the VU meters on the deck and to cue the silent track where the music starts and to time it right to hit record on the tape deck.
Not to mention cleaning the tape heads before I start recording, choosing the right tape, setting up the bias level just right.
I would not call reel to reel or cassette or even 8 track obsolete technology. I would call it supplemental technology.
Because I have the tapes... and nostalgia of course. Back when I was a real little kid in the late 80s portable CD players weren't really around yet and even if, my family wouldn't have had them. So tapes it was. My first player was one of those small table-top portables (maybe 6x10" and 2" thick with built-in speaker) that cost something like $15 new(!) in 1989. For my ears back then it played well enough, never ate tapes and got me through dozens, if not hundreds of tapes with stories and music. Recording quality was dismal though, I realized that even at the age of maybe 7 or 8. So I went onto the search for something better, ideally a portable I could hook up to my parent's Sony FH3 to copy any tapes I happened to stumble across while we were on holidays. Copying tapes using two of the cheapos and a DIN cable got terrible results! Pure noise louder than a 78 record played a 1000 times with a worn steel needle and terrible AGC pumping. I first got another small portable Grundig which was far more expensive but almost as bad (mid-90s tape equipment wasn't exactly top of the line any more, and as a 10-year-old I couldn't exactly afford expensive stuff). Eventually I got a decent home system (Denon amp, Technics RS-M235X and Aera speakers) but I'd still like a quality portable if I find an affordable one that doesn't need too much work. I've got several hundred tapes, digitizing those would take ages, even though I eventually might. I never throw away original media though, so I'd still keep the tapes and equipment.
For daily listening MP3 surpassed tapes though... I've got gigabytes of hard-to-get music, often songs I found on old reel tapes butchered beyond recognition - most of my tapes weren't recorded on quality machines from good sources but rather sound like recorded on the cheapest RTR on its last legs, 1 7/8 speed recorded from a bad radio using a microphone inside a plastic bucket, not to mention that most songs are incomplete. I have some reel tapes and cassettes purchased on flea markets with absolutely nothing above 2kHz! Quality MP3s easily beat that... I guess not too surprising I don't listen to those specific tapes too often. My own tapes are better quality, but being a computer person I'm often too lazy to get up, search for the tape and play it rather than open iTunes, enter the name of the song or album I want and click play.
For daily listening MP3 surpassed tapes though... I've got gigabytes of hard-to-get music, often songs I found on old reel tapes butchered beyond recognition - most of my tapes weren't recorded on quality machines from good sources but rather sound like recorded on the cheapest RTR on its last legs, 1 7/8 speed recorded from a bad radio using a microphone inside a plastic bucket, not to mention that most songs are incomplete. I have some reel tapes and cassettes purchased on flea markets with absolutely nothing above 2kHz! Quality MP3s easily beat that... I guess not too surprising I don't listen to those specific tapes too often. My own tapes are better quality, but being a computer person I'm often too lazy to get up, search for the tape and play it rather than open iTunes, enter the name of the song or album I want and click play.
cube-tube
Super Member
I got back into "analog" for several reasons.
Reason #1:
Because using (not necessarily listening to) digital just got extremely boring. You put in a CD, hit play, sit back and listen to the music. There's nothing else to do, nothing to look at except for counter and track number on the LCD display which is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Reason #2:
I got back into vinyl because when set up right, it just sounds more involving and realistic than digital. There's more space and movement between the speakers going on and between the performers on the recording for that matter.
You can buy damn nice TOTL vintage turntables for a steal these days if you know what you're looking for.
Vinyl can be found super cheap, again, if you know where to look and what to look for.
You can easily "tailor" and/or improve the sound of a turntable simply by changing out the platter matte, cartridge, cartridge leads, adding a record clamp and on some TT's, changing out the tonearm itself.
Reason #3:
I got back into tape decks and cassettes because between me, two of my three brothers and my father, I have a crap-load of very good quality recorded tapes at my disposal, all recorded on either a Nak 680zx, DRAGON, Harmon/Kardon CD491, Denon DR-M30HX, JVC KD-V6, KD-A8, or Tascam 122MK III.
It's a waste to let these tapes just sit there and rot away. It's bad enough they sat untouched for 15+ years!
When recorded properly on the right machine, they sound fantastic!
Not to mention with cassette decks, you have things to do with it, like cleaning the heads and such, you can watch the tapes spin and the meters move.
Reason #4:
I got into reel to reel decks (just one for now) because my father had an old Pioneer RT-707 that he bought new years ago, and he made live recordings of pipe organs in churches, at one of his friends houses (a Wurlitzer theater organ) and our very own 19 rank pipe organ that we used to have in our house. Plus there's tapes of me when I was just a few years old to about 13 years old with my older brothers and my father acting silly... Naturally.
I don't need to tell you guys about the superb sound quality of RTR decks.
RTR decks are even more fun to watch operate since there's the large reels spinning, large analog VU meters and the little tape guides that move.
And you can't deny the enjoyment of that heavy, solid "clunk" of the solenoids putting the deck in motion. A clunk you can feel just as much as hear.
Reason #5:
All of these TT's, cassette decks and RTR's take me back to the good ole' days of when most of this music was new and I was hearing for the first time, having no worries, loads of good memories of when we were kids, which then conjures up old family stories and ultimately puts a smile on my face and others I share those stories with, or other family members that are there to remember along with me.
Reason number FIVE is the most important reason for me.
Reason #1:
Because using (not necessarily listening to) digital just got extremely boring. You put in a CD, hit play, sit back and listen to the music. There's nothing else to do, nothing to look at except for counter and track number on the LCD display which is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Reason #2:
I got back into vinyl because when set up right, it just sounds more involving and realistic than digital. There's more space and movement between the speakers going on and between the performers on the recording for that matter.
You can buy damn nice TOTL vintage turntables for a steal these days if you know what you're looking for.
Vinyl can be found super cheap, again, if you know where to look and what to look for.
You can easily "tailor" and/or improve the sound of a turntable simply by changing out the platter matte, cartridge, cartridge leads, adding a record clamp and on some TT's, changing out the tonearm itself.
Reason #3:
I got back into tape decks and cassettes because between me, two of my three brothers and my father, I have a crap-load of very good quality recorded tapes at my disposal, all recorded on either a Nak 680zx, DRAGON, Harmon/Kardon CD491, Denon DR-M30HX, JVC KD-V6, KD-A8, or Tascam 122MK III.
It's a waste to let these tapes just sit there and rot away. It's bad enough they sat untouched for 15+ years!
When recorded properly on the right machine, they sound fantastic!
Not to mention with cassette decks, you have things to do with it, like cleaning the heads and such, you can watch the tapes spin and the meters move.
Reason #4:
I got into reel to reel decks (just one for now) because my father had an old Pioneer RT-707 that he bought new years ago, and he made live recordings of pipe organs in churches, at one of his friends houses (a Wurlitzer theater organ) and our very own 19 rank pipe organ that we used to have in our house. Plus there's tapes of me when I was just a few years old to about 13 years old with my older brothers and my father acting silly... Naturally.
I don't need to tell you guys about the superb sound quality of RTR decks.
RTR decks are even more fun to watch operate since there's the large reels spinning, large analog VU meters and the little tape guides that move.
And you can't deny the enjoyment of that heavy, solid "clunk" of the solenoids putting the deck in motion. A clunk you can feel just as much as hear.
Reason #5:
All of these TT's, cassette decks and RTR's take me back to the good ole' days of when most of this music was new and I was hearing for the first time, having no worries, loads of good memories of when we were kids, which then conjures up old family stories and ultimately puts a smile on my face and others I share those stories with, or other family members that are there to remember along with me.
Reason number FIVE is the most important reason for me.
merrylander
AK Member
Simple, I can't get those 7" reels into my cassette deck.
Peter Walker
Well-Known Member
Why? Because my Nakamichi 'Dragon' still works to it's original specification after decades of heavy use, I can pick up cassettes at garage sales etc for next to nothing, I have a spare transport/head mechanism put aside in case the thing ever dies and I've been able to fool quite a few audiophiles they're listening to CD or SACD with metal tapes I've made myself at concerts.
Obsolete? You've got to be joking. The only difficulty I could face is if my clever Nakamichi service man dies - then I'm in trouble because most techs these days take one look inside a Dragon and faint !
pocketchange
AK Member
I enjoy and collect (mostly) classical music. It just so happens most all of it from (rarely played) LPs .
My Tascam 42 and 44 do an excellent job with the transcription (all for the price of a tape)!
The complete process is especially enjoyable in lieu of the cost of some of these LPs, which I would have a very hard time affording.
They may not be to the spec that the "Tape Project" claims, but they are better than enough from my prospective.
My Tascam 42 and 44 do an excellent job with the transcription (all for the price of a tape)!
The complete process is especially enjoyable in lieu of the cost of some of these LPs, which I would have a very hard time affording.
They may not be to the spec that the "Tape Project" claims, but they are better than enough from my prospective.
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aabottom
Swing
aabottom’s top 10 reasons to “still have tape decks”.
10. Because I’m a born & bred tape-head.
9. Because I couldn’t put a CD player in my first car- they didn’t exist.
8. Because you can “steal” George Thorogood LPs from your college dorm-mate.
7. Because you can get great albums on cassette for a quarter at the thrift.
6. Because you can buy a decent Pioneer cassette deck for $10 off CL.
5. Because my 30 year old home cassette recordings of my LPs still sound great.
4. Because the Marantz Superscope CD-320 portable cassette recorder is just so cool.
3. Because my 4Runner has a great cassette deck, no CD player, and FM sucks.
2. Because I can play 180 minutes of music in my JCV TD-W709 dual cassette deck without getting out of my chair.
1. Because I bought these at the thrift for $7.70 (including the Napa Valley 100 cassette boxes). Yes, that’s 50 millipennys ($0.0005) per song, AND a place to store them. Let’s see i-Tunes beat that! See the story at Cassette score at the Thrift.
10. Because I’m a born & bred tape-head.
9. Because I couldn’t put a CD player in my first car- they didn’t exist.
8. Because you can “steal” George Thorogood LPs from your college dorm-mate.
7. Because you can get great albums on cassette for a quarter at the thrift.
6. Because you can buy a decent Pioneer cassette deck for $10 off CL.
5. Because my 30 year old home cassette recordings of my LPs still sound great.
4. Because the Marantz Superscope CD-320 portable cassette recorder is just so cool.
3. Because my 4Runner has a great cassette deck, no CD player, and FM sucks.
2. Because I can play 180 minutes of music in my JCV TD-W709 dual cassette deck without getting out of my chair.
1. Because I bought these at the thrift for $7.70 (including the Napa Valley 100 cassette boxes). Yes, that’s 50 millipennys ($0.0005) per song, AND a place to store them. Let’s see i-Tunes beat that! See the story at Cassette score at the Thrift.
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Peter Walker
Well-Known Member
Nice cassette racks AABottom. Where did you buy them?
aabottom
Swing
Thanks, I really like them.
See the story at Cassette score at the Thrift.
I now have three 100 cassette holders and one 50 cassette holder.
BlazeES
Active Member
Nice.
:thmbsp:
Like others, I have a library of tapes that have stood the test of time with many recordings and mixes I just won't or can't replace.
Why do I stilll record? For the pure enjoyment factor and that fact that the format transforms most digital recordings to something more listenable. There's a touch of nostalgia in there as well...
