Thinking of getting rid of the cassette deck, but then...

[Late Boomer]

After flipping back from Cassette Tape to Spotify I have to say the Cassette held it's own, the sound was warm and engaging. The Spotify source was clear and detailed but lacked warmth. Sounded sterile. The source was no doubt a CD or digital remastered version of the album... After all that, my conclusions are that the analog cassette can still sound amazing and compete with the latest technology.

No instrumental tests. The obligatory note of analog warmth and digital sterility. The same old bias towards analog distortions. Yawn.

Cassettes are OK if you already have them. No reason to get into them if you have never used them or got rid of them long time ago.

However, even though the digital source can have better numbers on paper. Analog sound even at 65db can sound more engaging and dynamically pleasing to the my ears....

Not on paper, these are real numbers. Although I do agree that 65 dB is usually good enough.

While streaming Spotify you were listening to an mp3. At the most 320kbps. Which is great, but not CD quality.

320 kbps is perceptually lossless. Lower bitrates may lose some fine details (which most people do not hear anyway), but still have no wow & flutter. Funny how people defend cassettes against digital, yet knock down lossy digital compared to CD. Well, it could be worse. At least you did not say that CD quality sucks, and that 24-bit Hi-Res is the only real deal.

I don't mean to stray off topic, but I've always wondered why someone doesn't create a music player software that would simply look like a cassette deck, or R2R, or maybe even a TT. You could select from a library of deck front ends so to speak. If I knew how to write software, I'd do it myself.

I always have hated skeuomorphism. Yet, I like something like this:

 

[BushmasterM4]

At least you did not say that CD quality sucks, and that 24-bit Hi-Res is the only real deal.

Oh I deal with 24 bit 48,000hz daily. I have a recording studio and record bands, and my own stuff. Been working in the digital realm since digital became a thing. Do CD's suck, nah, but I do prefer vinyl over CD's any day. Its the ear fatigue thing for me. I can listen to analog much longer than the digital counterpart of the same material. Hell I bought one of the first CD players back in the day and still have it. Bought it at Elder Beerman. It is a Sony, not sure the model. Was 1983 I believe. I got married in 84 and I had the player before that. So Im thinking 1983. May need to dig it out of the shed. But it was freakin huge !! But on MP3's, I can hear the difference between 320 and lossless formats. But I deal with lossy and lossless digital daily, I can even tell the difference in DAC chips. Hell, some people can not tell the difference between 128 mp3's and cd's. But those are your average listeners. And most of them grew up listening to digital only.. I was buying vinyl before kindergarten And that was in the 60's !! My Grandmother had a Victrola and all these 78's and I remember she had a Beatles 78. Not sure what song (memory), but I wish I had it !! The point is, many of us old timers lived all the different formats and there is no right or wrong. Its all in your own personal enjoyment of the music.

 

[twiiii]

I gave up on Cassettes for the home systems close to 30 years ago. I kept my Nakamichies to make tapes for the cars and trucks and to make tapes for friends. When the last Ram truck with cassette player was sold in 2019, the casettes were tossed. They were either dubs of R2R tapes I recorded professionally or dubs of LP's. A few were dubs of CD's. It was much cheaper than buying prerecorded Telarc and Mobile Fidelity cassettes. Cassette as a medium even with dolby noise reduction just could never match professional R2R machines or high quality LP's. CD's would over load cassettes consistently and they were noisy too. If you didn't use high quality tape they would self destruct after a few years. My Maxell UD cassettes were great about not failing. Can't say the same for Sony, Basf, Ampex, Scotch and many other manufacturers cassettes. TDK was good I understand.

 

[Late Boomer]

CD's would over load cassettes consistently and they were noisy too.

How come? Just set the levels below the red zone, and off you go. Back in 1990s I had a lot of cassettes recorded off CDs, no problems whatsoever. I also recorded several of them in the last year, again, no issues.

 

[Grenadeslio]

How come? Just set the levels below the red zone, and off you go. Back in 1990s I had a lot of cassettes recorded off CDs, no problems whatsoever. I also recorded several of them in the last year, again, no issues.

same here, and I think the analog copy sounds better too, but I have some nice decks

Nakamichi MR1 (pro version of the BX-300)
Teac C-3RX (consumer version of the Tascam 122B)
Carver TD-1700 (Aiwa AD F880)

 

[titanstats]

I've been contemplating for a while now how much use I really get from the cassette deck and is it even relevant anymore. So i started doing some tests using some home made tapes versus Spotify online.

The tapes were originally made on a Akai GXC-735d cassette deck back in the 1980's. The cassette tape used was a TDK OD-90 normal bias with no Dolby on and the turntable was a Akai AP-307 turntable with stock Akai cartridge. Everything was new at the time, even the record. The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire (Red Album). So everything was produced analog.

Yesterday, I performed this test playing the 38 year old cassette tape back using a JVC TD-V1010 cassette deck and powered through a JVC AX-Z1010 Integrated amplifier. And for the Spotify source I used a HP desktop Pavilion with high quality sound card using digital Optical connections to the amplifier at 48khz digital processing...

After flipping back from Cassette Tape to Spotify I have to say the Cassette held it's own, the sound was warm and engaging. The Spotify source was clear and detailed but lacked warmth. Sounded sterile. The source was no doubt a CD or digital remastered version of the album... After all that, my conclusions are that the analog cassette can still sound amazing and compete with the latest technology...There is no clear winner, but it's now a matter of personal taste. Do you want the physical media, the chore of placing the tape in the machine pressing series of physical buttons or do you want the convenience of playing things through wifi and your phone. But the cassette is still relevant and fantastic sounding, and I think I'll keep it a while longer....


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They aren't relevant any more, there's gear out there that does everything better. However...I do keep one in my system usually, for legacy tapes (though I could easily recreate those tapes in minutes from a much better digital source), for nostalgia, and mainly because it's kinda fun to pop in a cassette when I'm a little bored with things. I'd keep it, you'll probably just end up buying another one anyway.

Cheers.

 

[rudolfo]

The pandemic made a change more on my cassette listening since I been doing work from home. I been playing a continuous 4-120 mins and got spoiled on the 8 hour job and listening session. I notice I been firing up my streamer rarely now or just if I was only looking for a prospective album. Its a bit of struggle for me to listen in digital due to the long hours of my cassette playback everyday.
Since I have a nice outboard interface, lately I been listening to radio broadcast and been capturing lots of music discoveries worldwide. Its good listening to it on tape the next day which some of them sounds very close to a hi-fidelity FM broadcast.