Kinda fitting, since we`re witnessing a revival of compact cassette, rising from the dead to a possibly stable status of a niche format... Cheers!
Cassette sound quality sucks. Always has. This ridiculous thinking that any analog is better than any digital is... wel, ridiculous.
Try this one.
YouTube
I used to have an 8 track player and a cassette player.
Spent many an hour winding the tapes back on after the tape player spewed out the tape !
Its all mp3's for me now. Much less hassle.
Less hassle, agreed. But also less soul. Compressed, filtered to within an inch of its life to give a reasonably listenable sound from rubbish kit between the music and the human ears. Just listen to a digitally processed piece of music played from a mp3 through a decent set of speakers and then compare to the same music recorded with analogue techniques without any digital modification.
I had a cheap old 8 track in the car.
It would often not click on to next track when it hit the metal tape.
So had to do it by hand.
These days with youtube etc its easy just to listen online. Don't even have to buy it.
But I like that hassle. Interacting with those funny mechanical trinkets, the whole celebration of taking a cassette / cd / lp from the shelf, unpacking it, placing it in a deck / cd / record player is significant part of the fun. Of course I also have a digital library with a dedicated mp3/flac player, but I`d never discriminate against one to favor others, because they serve different purposes.
I decided to take my old JVC out of mothballs after I realized that in search for CDs and LPs in thrift shops and on flea markets I`ve passed probably a lot of interesting music on cassettes, usually for pennies. I can live with limited sound quality, and if I find something really good on tape, I can go hunting for a CD or flacs.
Back when the cassettes were plentiful I was always doubtful about the quality of the pre-recorded ones. Most of my tape collection (about 300) consists of tapes I did myself on TDK SA90 Chrome tapes recorded from a new or VG vinyl source. I would always take the opportunity to leave out any tracks I didn't like and also would try to balance the recorded times on both sides and cut off any long blank tape tails to make playback quicker with an autoreverse player.
I might dig them out and have another listen, just for ol' times sake.
I might dig them out and have another listen, just for ol' times sake.
Back when the cassettes were plentiful I was always doubtful about the quality of the pre-recorded ones. Most of my tape collection (about 300) consists of tapes I did myself on TDK SA90 Chrome tapes recorded from a new or VG vinyl source. [...]
I might dig them out and have another listen, just for ol' times sake.
Making mixtapes makes little sense in the world of digital media, I guess. Maybe one day I`ll make a couple for my niece, but apart from that - I don`t think so. I treat my un-mothballed deck as an additional means of discovering music, with a bonus of looking cool im my set-up
I regret getting rid of most of my self-recorded cassettes. They were crappily recorded on a well-used second hand boombox, but they contained music I never ever heard again, nameless albums recorded from radio in the 80s, still behind the iron courtain in eastern Europe... The radio speaker used to tell in advance how long the album would be, what length of tape to use, and then you pressed record and after an hour you had a copy of some western LP or CD on your tape. There were mainstream ones that everyone (in the West) knew, but also strange little gems that I vaguely remember, but, like I said, never heard anymore and don`t even know what to look for.
Sometime people forget that playing music should be about music itself. Quality of the media should not be priority.
I am using cassette deck for nostalgic reasons. I simply have hundreds of tapes I recorded long time ago, and its fun to listen to them from time to time. Qulity may not be there anymore, but the fun is.
I used to have few good decks, top of the line Onkyo and Tandberg, and when I was making recording on 3 head deck, after careful bias adjustment, I was often making copies sounding exactly as original. At least during the recording sound before and after playback head was indistinguishable. But the same tape on other deck was slightly inferior.
Cassette decks were never meant to be studio quality, and even those labeled as "HiFi" were not even coming close to reel to reel (still have Pioneer rt-707), because simply that norm reflected the facts of life...low tape speed across head, so the norm was more lenient.
Cassettes were more about convenience than quality. Still, its fascinating how much research and development went into it.
Cheers!
I am using cassette deck for nostalgic reasons. I simply have hundreds of tapes I recorded long time ago, and its fun to listen to them from time to time. Qulity may not be there anymore, but the fun is.
I used to have few good decks, top of the line Onkyo and Tandberg, and when I was making recording on 3 head deck, after careful bias adjustment, I was often making copies sounding exactly as original. At least during the recording sound before and after playback head was indistinguishable. But the same tape on other deck was slightly inferior.
Cassette decks were never meant to be studio quality, and even those labeled as "HiFi" were not even coming close to reel to reel (still have Pioneer rt-707), because simply that norm reflected the facts of life...low tape speed across head, so the norm was more lenient.
Cassettes were more about convenience than quality. Still, its fascinating how much research and development went into it.
Cheers!
Delivery Sources for cheap High Quality C90 Ferro Tapes wanted
I know only one supplier address in Germany for the Maxell UR C 90 Ferro:
Compactcassetten | Tonstudiobedarf Bluthard
Unfortunately very expensive.
Who know additional ordering addresses therefore ?
Thank you very much.
I know only one supplier address in Germany for the Maxell UR C 90 Ferro:
Compactcassetten | Tonstudiobedarf Bluthard
Unfortunately very expensive.
Who know additional ordering addresses therefore ?
Thank you very much.
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