Does anyone here still use cassettes?

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I used tapes extensively in the 1990's as teenager getting into music. They had a time and a place. Which was largely before I "got" hi-fi: I am too damaged now to ever return. I got everything I could in a hissless digital form and eventually turfed them about 15 years ago.

Though, by chance, life threw tapes at me again. I ended up helping digitise over 100 Hunters and Collectors (an Australian band) desk tapes... and they were mostly chromium dioxide tapes. I feel a little sorry for tapes now: these were pretty good. Especially since many had been sitting in cupboards for 30 years - and not a single one audibly warped or snapped.

I'm amused Nakamichi got a mention, too... that's what I was using. We broke one machine and I got a second one. I think that accidentally got thrown out because someone thought it was the broken one *facepalm*
 
The Philips Compact Cassette system was what got me interested in audio (got a Craig 2610 for Christmas 1969), I have to admit though that the compact cassette system is fragile, but it was a lot of fun throughout the 1970s and early 1980s to see all of the developments; Dolby B,C,S,HX-Pro, Type 2,3,4 blank tape, high quality Dolby B,S encoded cassettes, some of them surround sound.

I recently bought several Sony CFD-S70 boomboxes, the cassette section is OK (FR to ~10kHz), I plan to digitize my prerecorded cassettes and the use software EQ (in rare cases) and Dolby B decoding.


Kirk Bayne
 
Yes.

But only because this car:

Daytonas Boots 004.JPG


Has this for a stereo system:

Daytona CD 001.JPG


So, I do have a small collection of cassettes. Nothing major, just a couple albums I like. I'm a firm believer in an automobile should reflect it's era. The 80's were about cassettes and the tail end was about the slow adoption of CD's. The CD-player is a slight anachronism as it debuted for the 1988 model year and my car is an '87. But, I managed to cobble together everything to install it and make it work. Silliest $300 I ever spent.
 
Yes.

But only because this car:

View attachment 74193

Has this for a stereo system:

View attachment 74194

So, I do have a small collection of cassettes. Nothing major, just a couple albums I like. I'm a firm believer in an automobile should reflect it's era. The 80's were about cassettes and the tail end was about the slow adoption of CD's. The CD-player is a slight anachronism as it debuted for the 1988 model year and my car is an '87. But, I managed to cobble together everything to install it and make it work. Silliest $300 I ever spent.

So Where's the CAR BAR, Q~EIGHT??? Nice Set of Wheels, BTW!


R.53a2c0c9254d83f9ce6da06847fc9f0a
 
Welllllll Yes Snood is......just got my Sansui SC 3110 all pretty and fixed up serviced - it worth a few bux and sounds great annnnnnnnnd I have a Nakamichi 581 fixed up new like and picking it up next couple weeks.

Was just messing with maybe getting a cassette deck for my new whenever system and ended up meeting a now buddy on line locally that fixed cassette players. Mentioned I had a Broken Sansui that a friend had given me like 30 plus years ago already broken......buddy fixed it and serviced for 100 bux was like whaaaaa. Found a Nakamichi 581 at a garage sale I think I mentioned on QQ and he serviced that toooooooo.

They sound great for what they are.....If Snood fine cheap cheap cassettes now at garage sales woo hooo. :LB

Still prefer disc and LP, but it is fun to stick in a cassette and go hmmmmm dat sound pretty good :cool:
 
Extend it to my 20's as an university student and zero money, at a time when most of the music I was interested in (prog) were very expensive imports in my native country. Those formative years involved getting on tape entire discographies from generous friends who could afford that, which then I proceeded to buy in the different formats available thereafter as my university education started to pay off...
Short term I was leeching from the music industry, long term I think it was all very good business.
But the music industry never figured that out, and never will...

I used tapes extensively in the 1990's as teenager getting into music. They had a time and a place. Which was largely before I "got" hi-fi: I am too damaged now to ever return. I got everything I could in a hissless digital form and eventually turfed them about 15 years ago.

Though, by chance, life threw tapes at me again. I ended up helping digitise over 100 Hunters and Collectors (an Australian band) desk tapes... and they were mostly chromium dioxide tapes. I feel a little sorry for tapes now: these were pretty good. Especially since many had been sitting in cupboards for 30 years - and not a single one audibly warped or snapped.

I'm amused Nakamichi got a mention, too... that's what I was using. We broke one machine and I got a second one. I think that accidentally got thrown out because someone thought it was the broken one *facepalm*
 
A whole lot of independent artists are releasing stuff on cassette....it's so busy for vinyl factories that most are 6 months behind even for major labels ...so independents artists are finding that they just can't get in.
Cassettes also can be customised for individual look so the purchaser is buying a bespoke product. Bandcamp artists (and others) are doing good business selling cassettes.
( I still have a Tascam player with balanced outputs and centre time code...and some of my own cassette material from over 40 years ago can still be played !)
 
I always thought my Nakamichi deck offered true hifi - much more so than LPs, a medium I've always hated. It certainly did so without all of the severe drawbacks of LPs such as ticks and pops and was much more convenient to use. Wish I'd never sold mine.
 
1 7/8 IPS FROM 15/30 IPS MASTERS ...... Are you kidding ME?

Signed,



R.3f36d89e3455424de028ddb572c62ac6

El Exigente [the DEMANDING ONE]
My Tascam 133 AV cassette deck also runs at 3-3/4 IPS .

I also still have my Nakamichi 700 , Technics RS 276 USD and Sony TC-KA6ES , with the latter I used to make type IV cassettes with Dolby S and they played back in my car on the XRC 900RDS with Dolby C , which worked pretty well - I don’t use analogue tape much at all nowadays , save for occasionally playing back old recordings .

I also still have my 1/4track , standard speed Revox A77 and high speed 1/2 track B77 which likewise only get used for playing old recordings now .
 
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.....
Certainly CD sales are in decline as most consumers move towards downloads and streaming ; it was never a great format anyway as I used to demonstrate to visitors by playing CDs of the same albums as I had on vinyl and showing the superiority of the analogue format .

I also heard this thing about cassettes making a comeback , at least for car players , a few years ago and that they were going to outlast CD . Reportedly they were on sale in motorway service areas where they were popular with long distance travellers ; since I never frequent such places due to the inflated price of petrol they ask , I wouldn't know . About the only reason I would ever go into one would be for a toilet break .

I used to record bands and musical friends using any of my various open reel machines : Revox , Uher , Ferrograph , Sony ; then would make cassettes to hand out to said friends .

I also used to record off air , often classical music from BBC R3 , since the programme content was always advertised in advance in Radio Times : I had a THD timer unit which I could set to activate at a given time ; I still have the optional wired remote control for my Revox B77 which has a switch to activate timer record or playback ; similarly for my Technics RS 276US , I made a little box with a couple of switches , wired into the dummy plug that was fitted into the socket for the wired remote control , and again I could set it to timer record while I was out at work . Generally , if a recording was to be less than 45 mins I would go straight to cassette , otherwise I would record onto a 10-1/2" reel and dub to cassette , picking a suitable break in the music to change sides .

From this I have many hundreds of high quality cassettes recorded off air in the 1970s and 80s , mostly on Maxell UDXL or UDXLII tapes ( which I also bought in open reel and recorded at either 7-1/2 IPS or 15 IPS ) .

Later , I acquired a used Nakamichi 700 , which sort of works , but needs an overhaul , and latterly a Sony TC-KA6ES which supports type IV cassettes and has Dolby B , C and S ; at the same time I bought the first of my 'mobile ES' car systems , and still have two of the XRC-900RDS cassette head units , as well as the later CDX910RDS CD head unit . I still very occasionally play cassettes in the car with the cassette unit , but since it also has two 10 disc CD changers in the boot , I mostly burn CDs for playing in the car .

I also have a Tascam 133 AV cassette deck , with a third sync track which records pulses to control my Electrosonic Eclipse dissolve unit , which in turn controls my Kodak S-AV 2050 projectors ; 35mm colour slides linked to an AV system may be very old tech but it is still a nice medium .

I never bought many CDs , but have made a fair few by burning from iTunes , my main medium for home listening being vinyl , and has been since first getting into hi-fi in the 1970s , and yes I do have a fair few SQ recordings , although my Quad system is 2ch stereo made by the Acoustical mfg Co Huntingdon , featuring Quad 77 pre , tuner and CD , 707 power amp and ESL 63 Electrostatic loudspeakers ; most of my hi-fi is in excess of 30 years old and much better than the tat you tend to see in shops nowadays .
 
I have tons of cassettes from the 80s (the earlier ones became toast), self-recorded, including some prize John Peel sessions directly off the Beeb when I was an overseas student in the UK, and garage recordings of my own music, mixtapes, and prized traded bootlegs.

Long ago digitized. I no longer have the means to play them, but no loss. The next issue is what will I do with all those backup CDs / DVDs / external hard drives. . . .
 
Back
Top