Does anyone here still use cassettes?

[jefe1]

Im just curious are any members still recording and or buying cassettes? There is supposed to be a cassette revival like Vinyl but I see little evidence of it.

There are a few new cassette players being made but they are not high quality.. One cannot buy new chrome or metal tape anymore only normal or ferric oxide.
Because my car is so old it has both a cassette player and CD player. So I would occasionally record a tape from records to play.
In the old days I would record entire albums on tape not just for the car but to play at home so I wouldn't have to keep getting up and flipping records. I also liked to make mix tapes as many people did.

I always liked fooling with cassettes but is there really a practical use for them when you can play digital files?

Of course practicality and hobbies don't always go together.....

 

[4-earredwonder]

Im just curious are any members still recording and or buying cassettes? There is supposed to be a cassette revival like Vinyl but I see little evidence of it.

There are a few new cassette players being made but they are not high quality.. One cannot buy new chrome or metal tape anymore only normal or ferric oxide.
Because my car is so old it has both a cassette player and CD player. So I would occasionally record a tape from records to play.
In the old days I would record entire albums on tape not just for the car but to play at home so I wouldn't have to keep getting up and flipping records. I also liked to make mix tapes as many people did.

I always liked fooling with cassettes but is there really a practical use for them when you can play digital files?

Of course practicality and hobbies don't always go together.....

1 7/8 IPS FROM 15/30 IPS MASTERS ...... Are you kidding ME?

Signed,

El Exigente [the DEMANDING ONE]

 

[GOS]

I do not, and will not.

 

[jefe1]

Is there a rock I can crawl under?

 

[4-earredwonder]

Is there a rock I can crawl under?

No, but I know where you can rightfully be tarred ... and feathered 🕊

 

[kap'n krunch]

1 7/8 IPS FROM 15/30 IPS MASTERS ...... Are you kidding ME?

Signed,

El Exigente [the DEMANDING ONE]

Aw, come on guys, don't be so harsh, this isn't SH(i)TV---cassettes did sound great! Just ask Quad Linda!

 

[jefe1]

1 7/8 IPS FROM 15/30 IPS MASTERS ...... Are you kidding ME?

Signed,

El Exigente [the DEMANDING ONE]

Yea but I thought it was quality not inches that mattered.......

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I use cassettes still.
For experimentation.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Yea but I thought it was quality not inches that mattered.......

Speak for yourself, Jeffie

Signed,

Young, GIFTED ... and White!

 

[jsulzinger]

I have a bunch of cassettes and few machines that still play them, mainly for titles that were never released on CD.

 

[AshBuchanan]

I occasionally listen to my old cassettes for nostalgia's sake, and I exchanged mix tapes with a friend for Christmas last year. It's far more satisfying to compile a tape than to pull a playlist together! But yes, forget about sound quality

 

[4-earredwonder]

Actually, I once surmised that if the Hardware Manufacturers who had put all the Research and development into making the cassette medium sound Hi Fi, into the development of the compact disc, we wouldn't have been stuck with 16 bit/44.1!

Dolby b, Dolby C, Chromium Dioxide .......... Oh, it was ALL so confusing!

 

[jsulzinger]

My wife has all of her mix tapes from when she was a teenager in the 80's

 

[gene]

I still have a bunch of cassettes I've collected over the years, but no, not buying any new ones
I don't even buy new vinyl. Be glad then that fad is over

 

[ar surround]

No...No...NO!!!

Dropouts, hiss (or reduced highs from Dolby NR.) Did I mention dropouts? They were good for voice recording for awhile; but then came those mini-cassettes. Did I mention dropouts?

 

[Bill B]

Still cassette capable, even have a bunch of metal/chromeTDK tapes unused (some still in wrappers), but I can't remember the last time I listened or recorded on them. I used to record every LP I got onto cassette and then listen to that and put the album away so it wouldn't degrade. That was always my biggest problem with vinyl, every time you listen to it you degrade it. Not really an issue with cds. They should sound the same on the 500th listen as they did on the 1st (in theory anyway). The cassette did have one advantage over cds, you could get 90 minutes (or more) of music on one compared with 80 minutes on a standard cd (WAV), When making a mix tape that's 2 extra songs, which was cool when they came up with the auto-reverse feature.

 

[GOS]

I wasn't being harsh. I was just stating my current situation with cassettes. I don't own any, and never will. Just not something I'm at all interested in. Sold my Nakamichi deck years and years ago.....so you know. Of course they used to have their place, and I liked how they sounded too! I was all about buying the high end tapes, etc., etc.

 

[ar surround]

Still cassette capable, even have a bunch of metal/chromeTDK tapes unused (some still in wrappers), but I can't remember the last time I listened or recorded on them. I used to record every LP I got onto cassette and then listen to that and put the album away so it wouldn't degrade. That was always my biggest problem with vinyl, every time you listen to it you degrade it. Not really an issue with cds. They should sound the same on the 500th listen as they did on the 1st (in theory anyway). The cassette did have one advantage over cds, you could get 90 minutes (or more) of music on one compared with 80 minutes on a standard cd (WAV), When making a mix tape that's 2 extra songs, which was cool when they came up with the auto-reverse feature.

I did the same thing, but I put them on 7-1/2 open reels. These albums were generally MFSL half-speed mastered stuff and DBX encoded records. Open reel...half the convenience of cassettes at twice the price.

 

[Bill B]

I will add that, for me, cassettes were only used to record from other media. I never actually bought a pre-recorded, studio cassette. They are even worse than LPs for longevity. An LP will degrade with each listen but no matter how many clicks and scratches, it could always be played. A cassette can break and then you are left with nothing. I wouldn't want to have to re-buy something that I had already bought. (I learned that from the 8-tracks I bought before cassettes became the norm (on top of breaking, 8-tracks sounded pretty shitty to begin with).

AND THEN, cds came out and I re-bought almost every LP I had,,, and then remasters of those cds came out.... and then sacd... and then blurays.

Well, the logic with not buying cassettes was sound, but in the end it wouldn't mattered anyway because I was destined to re-buy them.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Im just curious are any members still recording and or buying cassettes?

No and never did.