Same here, and I borrowed albums from friends to tape as well. Had a Pioneer tape deck in my truck with the matching GM120 amp. Made a lot of tapes on my Nakamichi.
jeff
It's a simple term that was clouded up by some with commercial interest or too much free time on their hands.
Without clarifying the definition, where will the debate go? Nowhere.
Without clarifying the definition, where will the debate go? Nowhere.
So why bring it up.
jeff
Does it look like to you that Fast Eddie D clarified it?So why bring it up.
As a guy who used to do service/repair of that generation of gear, I'm not (at all) reminded of extreme quality. Pioneer receivers and cassette decks weren't made to be as absolutely inexpensively manufactured as possible (that would be the Electrophonics and Superscope stuff!), but weren't really all that far from it. Really, really, cheap switches and circuit boards ("break-off" edges, in most they didn't even bother to use a shear to cut them with!). Particularly compared to the pre-70s Marantz stuff and the like.
Today's crazy-expensive highest-end stuff is of course overbuilt to a fault, but not a fair comparison since that isn't in reach of very much of the public.
Yes it really is fascinating and shows what people can do when constrained to a spec but competing on performance. It is remarkable how much performance was wrung out of those skinny tapes. To me the most amazing was the Walkman Pro, which was better than most stationary cassette decks but fit in your pocket.
A million years ago I was working in a stereo shop and someone traded in an older Akai cassette deck. It was my dream deck, built like a tank, great heads, cool solenoid switches, autoreverse, etc. I really wanted to buy it, but since I worked in a stereo shop I couldn't afford it. I don't remember what the foolish owner traded it for. Later I bought a nice Sony top-loader trade-in very cheap, but it wasn't half the deck that Akai was.
Perhaps even more remarkable than the rise of the cassette was its demise. I think part of it was that the cassette became a low-fi read-only distribution medium; most people were buying prerecorded cassettes, not recording their own, so when CD's came along and available in blasters, people threw out tapes even faster than they threw out albums.
Try Googling Garrard SP25, I got 31,400 results, an indication there IS still an interest in those "awful" decks. I'm guessing there are a lot of cloth eared Luddites out there?
I had one of those for awhile. Made some amazingly good field recordings with it. Loved that thing.
When I bought my first cassette deck, circa 1971, I also bought a lot of pre-recorded tapes. Geez, they were awful. I didn't understand why the recordings I made sounded so good, but the tapes I bought sounded so stinkin' bad. Then I learned about high speed duplicators and mass production.
Oh gosh!
It reminds me of that thing that missed from my set of gear - a record-able walkman. When I was at school, before attending to a (pop, rock ) concert, I called a class mate, a girl that was in possession of such thing.
It was plastic and horrid - the brand was Fair Mate - but it had two mics and a red button
Hold the presses, sack the Oscars team, just google the movies and the one with the most results wins.
For balance, 31,000 results is a pathetically small amount. Technics SP-10 returns 1,2million. Lenco L-75 140,000, Garrard 301 258,000.
I can remember purchasing a Aiwa cassette player in the early 80's and I paid, probably, around $150. Last year I purchased a 32gb mp3 player from China, for less than $20.
I am now waiting delivery of an 8gb mp3 bluetooth player with a micro sd slot costing me $30Can including shipping.
The advances in technology just boggles the mind, and besides being pocket-able, they are so affordable.
I am now waiting delivery of an 8gb mp3 bluetooth player with a micro sd slot costing me $30Can including shipping.
The advances in technology just boggles the mind, and besides being pocket-able, they are so affordable.
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