The cassette comeback - it's fun all the way!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Cassettes are making a comeback and they're fun, fun, fun! Why not grab yourself a cassette deck and have fabulous fun like the people in this video?
CREDITS
The cassette revival - So wrong on so many levels - • The Cassette Revival -...
The Guardian - 'Such a fun way to consume music': why sales of the 'obsolete' cassette are saoring - www.theguardia...
Philips 3301 - Presumed Philips publicity material
Musicassette - VWestlife - • 🎵 Playing the VERY FIR...
Reel to reel - George Fiddler - • 1960 Stellaphone Reel ...
Sony Stowaway - Sony publicity material
Advent 201 - Retro Vault - • Advent 201 Cassette De...
Apple iPod - Apple Event 2001
Spotify - via Web Design Museum - www.webdesignm...
Gatefold sleeve - Queen 'Made in Heaven' via Wikipedia - It's a CD. Did you notice?
Apple iTunes - Apple Inc. via Sound On Sound - www.soundonsou...
Pink Floyd - Meddle - en.wikipedia.o...
Jethro Tull - Aqualung - en.wikipedia.o...)
Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts - en.wikipedia.o...
Cassette in thumbnail image - Xray40000 CC BY 2.0
You don’t need a password to play a cassette. You don’t get hounded to upgrade the version of your player. The buttons don’t suddenly change orientation out of the blue because behind the scenes, your tape player “upgraded.”
Simplicity is a wonderful thing. Do I love my Apple Music? Of course, but the “nostalgia” a lot of people crave is merely a desire to have things just do what they’re supposed to do.
And most importantly your music does not suddenly disappear because Spotify lost the rights. But again I would prefer some digital recording either on CD or computer.
I completely agree. I guess I’d add that actually owning music I’m enjoying makes it a more rewarding experience also. The number of times Tidal would remove albums from my playlists because, suddenly, ‘this track/album isn’t streamable” 😑 🫠.
@@sonic2000gr 😀😁😃 Disappearing music? Huh! I've lost too many beloved tracks, munched by a voracious deck!
@@CraigPMiller shouldn´t feed the monster, it will ask for more
@@CraigPMiller I too have lost some music on tapes, but a tape can be repaired and you get to save most of the tracks, and in the case where a tape melted and deformed in the hot interior of my car only needed to be opened and swapped into another cassette shell to get it working again! But since I always format shifted my music onto tape, the good brands of blank tape never deformed and I never had that problem...
Even when CD burning became cheap enough for home and I had a CD player in my car, I would always make a copy of it for car use and archive the original... Just as I did with all my vinyl records...
But if your tapes are getting chewed! You should have invested in a much better cassette deck, you get what you pay for! No different to today with phones and other products...
I can't believe that there are people who complain about how bad cassettes were and when questioned about the equipment used, they purchased the cheapest junk that was available back then... Yeah, no kidding it's of course going to be bad.
To my ears, using a good quality tape on a good quality tape deck is as good as CD...
And I find that to be acceptable.
For those who appreciate the cassette format, use good quality tapes and equipment. Proper maintenance of equipment is absolutely essential too.
I always liked chrome rather than ferric.
@@deadandburied7626 Who makes the best tape nowadays? Looking back at my Reel-to-Reel collection "Audiotape" has proved the best, but also I found the "Realistic" tapes from Tandy in the 1970s and back in the day they were very well priced too. For Cassettes BASF Chrome, TDK SA & D and Maxell have all proved to stand the test of time. Today ATR Magnetics look to be good (from reviews), but I have no experience with them.
@@deadandburied7626 With a good, at least midrange 3-head deck (Sony TC-K511S, Technics RS-B626, Sony TC-K711S), a good quality ferric tape can sound really good. Especially a low noise type, like TDK AD-X. Avoid true chrome tapes for recording these days, at least the ones that are older than 25 years, even if NOS. They are degrading (depending on the storage conditions, but how do you know their storage conditions for the last 30years?), and if you try to record on such a degraded chrome tape, you will get awful distortion well below 0dB, and lack of high frequencies. Type II ('Chrome class") ferro-cobalt tapes are better in that aspect, they don't age this way, but they are worse at the same time for their higher noise floor. If you have old chrome cassettes that you just want to listen to, they're fine for that, even if the tape is degraded. This type of tape degradation barely affects existing recording on the tape, it will sound almost the same as when they were recorded. Only new recordings can not be made on them.
@@mrnmrn1some of the SA’s were prone to this. You might get a five pack NOS from the early 90’s and two are good, three are bad. So I definitely agree with your comment.
@@RB-xm3ed That's interesting, because I was commenting about true chrome tapes, but TDK SA contains NO chrome. It is a *Chrome Class* tape, but contains only ferric oxides and cobalt. I have never seen a cobalt doped ferric tape going bad, unless it was stored very badly, but even then the failure mode is completely different compared to degrading true chrome tapes.
What kind of issues have you experienced with said '90s SA tapes?
I want to point out something that I think you hi fi people have not quite grasped yet concerning the cassette comeback. You are so convinced that low fidelity is objectively bad, and high fidelity is objectively good. I’m going to assume this is because you are a professional audio engineer and have spend a half of a century or thereabouts trying to record the most pristine audio that you possibly can, in an attempt to have it played on radio or television, or what have you. You’re a part of the industry, and that means you’re basically selling something. For myself and many other musicians and bedroom producers, “good” is subjective, and does not have to be synonymous with crispy, squeaky clean, hi fi digital audio. “Good” can be something that sounds fuzzy and warm, like a campfire on a cool summer night, crackles and all. It can be something that evokes a longing for simpler times, and it can be something that is deliberately counter to what the mainstream music industry considers “good”. Part of the appeal for many cassette enthusiasts including myself is precisely that it is rejected by professionals as sounding “bad”, or not professional. I think a lot of artists have simply had it with trying to impress record label executives, and the cassette is the independent musician’s way of saying “I’m just doing this for me”. It’s a reaction against the capitalist system that is no longer working for young people. You must know how unlikely it is for a young artist to land a fair record deal that launches a successful career, so what’s the point in playing that game anymore? The way I see it is: the recording industry is in full collapse, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that artists are now free to redefine “good”.
I agree. Lo-fi doesn't necessarily mean poor quality. Cassette does have a reduced frequency range compared to other formats, but I can use that to my advantage. Many modern CDs (and downloads) are poorly mastered (excessively loud/boosted) and I find my ears become fatigued after listening for a short while. Recording them to cassette seems to roll off the higher frequencies where much of the digital distortion lies, which is more pleasing to my ears. Sure, some tape hiss is introduced, but it's only really audible in quieter passages or between songs, and may be more preferable to pure but cold digital silence. As long as I use a decent cassette (I actually prefer the 'Super Ferric' Type I tapes) I get a pleasurable midrange and full deep bass. Or to put it another way, I love good music and enjoy listening to it on cassette, which I wouldn't do if it sounded like shit!
@@brianstuntman4368 it's only lo-fi if you want it to be, try having a listen to a compact cassette recorded using dbx noise reduction!
In a blind listening test, most people wouldn't be able to pick what's tape or CD....
Dolby works well but the silence between tracks and quiet parts with dbx noise reduction is on another level, it works just as good on vinyl records, there's plenty of good videos showing what dbx noise reduction sounds like on tape and vinyl records, if you haven't already seen them, I highly recommend watching.
With dbx noise reduction, there was no need to go to CDs, the only thing that the CD player offered over tape with dbx was instant track access...
Wow, you really put that well, sir. Lo-Fi is an interesting topic. My favourite Meshuggah cover happens to be a guy playing an old broken acoustic guitar and using pots and pans for drums, the way he manages to make these childish instruments still sound like the band is absolutely mindblowing to me. Simpler times indeed.
Well said!
I couldn’t agree more
I love cassettes full stop having owned 40 tape decks in 54 years being an ex audiophile beautiful things that’s just me mechanical music 😅
Oddly enough I started making mix tapes of streamed music. It is somehow more convenient (and fun) than a playlist. And because anything and everything internet-based can, and will, disappear at some point. The nature of the internet is you 'consume' something and then move on and forget about it. Sure you can download and save files on your device, but there's just something about having an object with visual and tactile cues that make it real. These mix tapes, like the ones I saved from my youth in the 80s, will still be listenable long after I'm gone, a moment in time preserved
Mix tapes of streamed music. Who'd have thought it? Clearly you're having fun to the max. DM
Yes, I too enjoy making mix tapes from my Tidal playlists.
@@AudioMasterclass Yes this is something my 13-year-old daughter does. Spotify playlist (Apple iMac Line Out) to a recently serviced Denon cassette Deck (Circa 1987). She just likes the sound of it compared to digital she says. Go Figure!!!
I do much the same thing, but with minidiscs
i just started doing the same thing, i also repair cassette decks because i find it interesting how they work.
And another thing about a cassette is they play back again from the precise place where you'd pressed the stop button 40 years ago.
I concur. DM
LOL! Best comment; absolutely right!🤣
yes which makes them ideal for speech-based material like audio books and talking newspapers for the blind. You can even take the tape out, put it in a completely different machine somewhere else, and carry on listening from where you left off. Its taken the digital world right up until the last few years to reach this level of transportability across devices and they all rely on internet connectivity. What if you haven't got that?
Cassettes did it perfectly in the 1960s!
I'm a bit irked by the ever-present "music this" and "music that"... there are other things to listen to that are not music, and don't require high fidelity. The whole listening world is not all about music.
I listen to my radio a lot, and to podcasts a lot, and I haven't listened to any music for years. (Apart from the stuff piped at me in shopping malls etc...). My life is full of entertaining, informative and creative material and I never have to worry about whether the snare drums have exactly the right dynamic profundity, or whether the second fiddle is flowing enough in the spectral expanse...
You can love other formats but only cassettes will love you back, they're loyal.
Cassettes are something special, just like with vinyl, you have to think about what you’re going to listen to. When using a Walkman this means selecting the cassettes to put in you backpack for the day. A cassette is a physical thing, unlike an username or password or the data packets of a streaming service.
May cassettes never die!
Biggest plus is giving a mixtape to ones mates and potential partners 😊
Hello. I was born in 1961 so I grew up with cassettetapes. I recorded LP's from my older brother and did radiorecordings. I loved it then and I still love it now. I still have some 150 tapes from the past.😃
I enjoy using and listening to cassettes since I was 5 years old... I'm 52 now. I still use them in my car and at home. The nostalgic feeling is through the roof for me using this medium. On par with this is using Reel-to-reel machine. Yep, I have them too. I won't give this medium up ever.
what about ,the sound quality , don´t know if you play guitar or have notion of how it sounds but most of old cds don´t sound like old recorfds ,the guitars sound perfect not mufled due to digital compression
@@RUfromthe40s Using a well maintained quality tape deck with decent quality cassettes, the sound is fantastic. Using a very good noise reduction system on top of that makes it sound even better.
@@MrPitatom i agree with you but i never used a noise reduction system i prefer the full quality of the cassette deck ,and no noise is heard
The fun part IS the music.
Streaming services ARE fun when you hear a song or get a recommendation and you can discover so much previously unknown music. Sometimes very obscure. I can like one track without buying the whole album. Having said that I am nostalgic for good cassette decks which I used back in the day. And using MD and DAT is fun for me because I could never afford them untill now, after completing repair projects. I don't get the fun of music carved into lumps of black plastic but each to their own.
22 year old here, don’t have much memory with cassette but as a musician, the Rhodes sounds so beautiful through cassette. I’ve got my hands on an authentic Rhodes mk1 for the next few months and I wanted to record solo piano on it by cassette. Something about cassette has a warmth to it that can’t be described only experienced!
I'm 51 and I can confirm that you indeed get it.
At 51, my cassette Luv has been lifelong. My earliest memories of tapes are from kindergarten. As I had a portable recorder and loads of self made mixtapes. That practice would follow into teenage years with recording Hip Hop DJs in NYC. Well into full adulthood, and producing my own music. Tapes have an undeniable quality to them. Those who experience it, typically come to luv the format. Obviously, they are FUN. My other favorites are MDs and Vinyl. I have an equally rich history in both. Keep up the great content. 👍🏾✌🏾✊🏾
Right on! Cassettes are fun, and many of us even like the lo-fi sound, warm and fuzzy, who cares about perfect sound anyway? A good song/good music is what’s important. And all the clackety-clack and pushing buttons. The ritual. I wished someone at Sony or Aiwa saw the potential and make some move to popularize it❤❤❤
Actually, cassettes can sound pretty amazing!
@@gamingguy9006 True. When played/recorded on a decent quality cassette deck of course. I don't know why so many people think of cassettes as low fi, unless they use cheap portable cassette recorders.
A cassette if recorded on a good deck that is properly biased with the tape, recorded from vinyl or any digital source can get pretty close to the original especially with dbx or dolby s. The majority would not be able to tell the difference. Watch out also for the cheap new knock-off blank cassettes boating high dynamic range such as reshow. The new old stock of any Maxell UR (not the newer UR), TDK D and Sony HF where type I’s were concerned are a difference between night and day compared to what they offer now as new.
I'm not normal then.. I can get amazing sound from cassette with a Sony tc-s1 using Dolby S.. even on cheap Maxell's URs
These days I'm increasingly grateful for anything that entertains me that doesn't involve screens and passwords and accounts. Plus I grew up in the heyday of cassette and never gave them up. As for the sound quality I've always been very satisfied with it using even half-decent equipment, which until recent years was everywhere. You absolutely don't need a Nakamichi Dragon. A basic Sony Walkman with a good tape used to sound pretty darn good. Car cassette players sounded good. Admittedly nowadays it's not so easy to get clean sound from a cassette and it's a shame. Hopefully this resurgence will spark someone to make good players again.
I thnk it's like wine. A $20 bottle is a lot better than a $10 bottle, but a $50 bottle isn't much better than the $20 one.
You hit a point of diminishing returns fairly quickly - I bet most audiophiles would fail a double-blind test of audio kit - after all, wine tasters can't distinguish pricy wines from affordable ones under those conditions.
I bought a Sony Walkman in 1998, the metal one, and it sounded better than my Goodmans CD player.
@@richardcrook2112 Damn, lucky you. I'm hunting for a direct-drive Walkman but they're like £200+ and that's "I have to save up for it" money on my income.
It was great fun loading up a shoebox of my favorite cassettes and going on a road trip in the car. Back in my day, cassettes were our form of "file sharing". And a lot of us recorded our vinyl (records) onto cassettes in order to preserve the LP.
They were the mp3s of the eighties ; even as a sound, they were quite similar.
@@carminedambrosio7 MP3s sound horrible. I can get perfectly identical sound as the source out of a Maxell XLII tape and my Nakamichi or 3-Head JVC decks.
@@AudioGuyBrian I don't doubt it. Being able to have a Nakamichi, and using good quality tapes; if I remember correctly the XLII were just before the metal tapes, in terms of quality, and in terms of price! However, many of us enthusiasts in the 80's had to make do with modest two head decks, and it was really hard to get anything good out of those units.
that's so interesting, I grew up in the 2010s and our prefered way of getting music was downloading youtube Videos of it and then converting it to mp3, still have files from back then and they go on every smartphone I own. I get my music like that to this day. these days there are even really convenient websites where you just put in the youtube URL and it lets you download an mp3 directly.
@@carminedambrosio7 There were plenty of good 2 head decks too. Like AIWA and some JVC units. As well as simple Nak's like the BX1, BX2, BX100 and BX150.
I’ve recently been contracted by a local merchandising shop (for bands) to duplicate cassettes for them because they were getting so many requests. Personally I love doing it for them and in my head I imagine the Gen Z kid that goes to the show, buys the tape and is blown away that first time that they are “holding” the music of their new favorite band. Fun indeed.
I find it's quite fun to have a few cassette decks - and not to use them.
I keep this aspect of fun in my attic. DM
Ha ha! You never need cotton swabs or new rubber belts this way! And no hiss, ever!
I think a more accurate term to use is "rewarding". It's very satisfying to make excellent recordings on properly calibrated equipment using good quality cassettes, and cassettes CAN sound really good.
Of course, cassettes aren't for everyone. Some people prioritize convenience and achieving the highest fidelity audio possible, and that's fine. Digital audio files and streaming does have its place. Whichever you prefer, just enjoy the music.
cassettes are fun for me because they tend to be the much more affordable form of physical media. Vinyls retain their value really well but cassettes you can for really cheap. a while ago I got about 60 cassettes for $10 and I really enjoy listening to music ive never heard before on this slow, combursome, but tactile form of music. What can i say, I find it very satisfying and stimulating, but I presume we all have our own unique quirks lol. And yes im only 20 hence why I haven't heard any of these songs before.
If you're discovering unknown albums for the first time, you don't even need instant track skip. Just put it on, and let the vibe wash over you til the album's done.
Fun? No. There's nothing fun about tangles, drop-outs, (relatively) crap sound, endless cotton buds and isopropyl alcohol.
I like them for nostalgia, it’s what I grew up with (born in 73)… But it’s nearly impossible to find current manufactured chrome tapes, and Metal tapes are non-existent. No one makes a tape deck with Dolby of any sort, the ones on the market are all knock-offs of each other using poor quality mechanisms. Older vintage machines need belts and possibly major repair services at this point. Capacitors don’t last forever and the factory lubricant has likely turned into glue on all them snazzy moving parts. Sadly I will pass..
The fun in cassettes for me is taking a cool-looking cassette that came with crap tape or whose tape is damaged, and replacing it with new tape. Got a bunch of ferric BASF cassettes that came with evangelical sermons recorded on them, and I've been putting the tapes from them in others for recording over with Vaporwave playlists and cool albums I like.
But another fun thing to do is actually use the crappy/damaged tape.
I have an album on tape (Smile, by Princex) that was made when the artist was in a bad living situation so it wasn't perfectly recorded (the tape has dropouts, the ending of one song repeats for some reason, and on top of that, it got chewed by one of my tape players at one point), and it's my absolute favorite album. So, to make a copy for listening that was as authentic as possible, I bought a lot of 22 Disney kids story tapes and recorded the album on a red one (same color as the original) off RUclips Music, and the crappy old tape actually captured the vibe from the original tape perfectly.
I've listened to it like 50 times since I recorded it a couple weeks ago hahaha
I love the different designs of tape cassettes companies used. I love picking up tapes and listen to the music that is recorded on it. I love hunting for tapes when i go thrift-shopping or go to fleamarkets.
Getting vinyl back in sleeve, not fun innit
I remember having recorded in TDK Metal cassettes and the sound is fantastic ! Crystal clear and in many ways better than CDs! i still have them although the sound quality has diminished a little bit.
Cassettes and minidiscs were the best when it came to copying music from nearly any source. If you can plug the player/recorder into a device, like the sound card of the PC/computer, you make a copy. It's so simple anyone can do it. All you need is patch cords. I guess it's things like cassettes that drove LP manufacturers crazy. In fact, my roommate in an airbase in S. Korea did just that. We buy one album and make a couple of cassette tapes of it. Legal????? But who is going to come and arrest us, the FBI? Hell no.
Were cassettes fun? Don't have an answer for that. It was something to fiddle with. I think everything was fun in my teens. Today, I just want to listen to music so I rip all my CDs to my PC, copy the music to a flash drive and off I go. A tiny little stick containing hundreds of songs that can be plugged into modern receivers or other devices, like the car audio system.
Nostalgia only comes in the form of the music. Whether I play songs like "The Lonely Surfer" via cassette, CD or PC, it doesn't make any difference.
For me, cassettes are nostalgia. I’m in my early 50s. Greetings from 🇦🇹/🇸🇰!
I know a bit about the music scene from the former Yugoslavia but nothing about the music scene from the former Czechoslovakia. What were you guys listening to when you were young and cool?
Since i have a high end cassette deck and can record my favourites from digital to good quality tape, yes i think cassettes are fun. Just pop in a cassette and listen to the music without any screens to distract me.
"Without any screens" - I concur. DM
Ecatly the same for me. Dońt get spoiled by the screen and wait for the next song to come …
@@AudioMasterclass I talked with a Pro Tools instructor at NAB who uses the big control consoles. He said by the end of the second day his students don't realize he's switched off the screens, because they are LISTENING rather than looking at the grid!
I like the sound cassettes make in their cases as I pick my way through a bunch of them. They also make a nice rattle if you give them a good shake. :D !
y e s
Thank bloody god im not the only one. Shame a lot of them was released useing cardboard selves around here so no maracas for those few, but they where often bundle releases and demos ect.
Do you know what's fun? The moment you realize that the cassette player ate your tape. Or when the tape gets loose and you have to rewind it back with a pencil. Can't get that experience from Spotify!
From what I understand about cassette enthusiasts, they actually like rewinding the tape with a pen or pencil. It helps them feel alive and in tune with the universe. DM
@@AudioMasterclass 🤨😳 You got to be kidding, right? I have had many players from Sony to Nackamichi, but never heard a more stupid thing like this. I've never took this kind of devices for serious, because of the fragile tape, the low speed, the Azimuth differences between decks, Dolby b and c who did fine on one deck but not played well on other ones. Don't bring it back please. 🙏
@@obsprisma I'm not a fan of cassette and I've said that in detail many times elsewhere. In fact, back in the past I turned down a job at a famous noise reduction company because I would have had to say good things about cassette. Having said that, other people are having fun with them, and I've nothing against people having fun. It just doesn't work for me. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Than we can shake hands sir, and let others be fine into their cassette nostalgicness. 🤣
A player eating a beloved or new music cassette inspires terror akin to being stranded in the open ocean in a sinking boat, with sharks slowly surrounding you. 🦈 I remember a friend's deck eating a new music tape of mine, exclaiming that his machine doesn't like rock music. 😢
Cassettes can be "fun" (in the nostalgic kind of way) but servicing 30+ year old tape decks with small and fiddly mechanical parts is not fun. I have many of my old tapes plus a surplus of unopened ones but I would rarely use them these days. Cassette comeback is so wrong on so many levels!
Why is playing 4.75 cm per second for cassette quality, while professional tape decks are having 19 or even 38 cm per second with a bigger tape? I am with you that cassette playing is nostalgy and past.
I still have two Aiwa ADF 990s in my closet, the top model of the Japanese company in 1984. They both have the pulley that moves the loading spool to change, but the lack of spare parts, and above all the mess I would have to make when disassembling all the mechanics, It makes me desist to put my hand to it.
I'm a cassette addict!! There's just something about peeling the wrapper off a 30 yo NOS cassette, tuning the bias and level to record one of my crackly vinyl records!! I'm 13 years old again!!
Congratulations, you're having fun! DM
@@AudioMasterclass And that's what it's all about!
David my ears love the sound of casettes and nothing will persuade me otherwise 😊
If you're getting the sound you want and the 'cassette fun' then it's win-win. DM
Turns out, the compact disc is also fun.
Turns out, physical media is quite simply fun, as tangibility with the medium is ever so slightly more engaging than clicking through a glorified file picker
Online distribution is fundamentally soulless.
And if you have a high end deck with a good quality cassette...........the performance can be surprisingly good, (adding a little analogue warmth if you are recording a digital source!).
I sold hi-fi in the 70s and early 80s. I still have thousands of LPS. And several turntables. Vinyl is awesome.
I currently have about a thousand tapes. I have a couple of good cassette decks. I used to have some good nakamichi and Denon cassette decks and recorded every album I bought onto a cassette tape so I could play the tape rather than the record and wear out the record. I even have some of those tapes. TDK SA90's. And they still give records a run for their money.
But I hang on the cassette for pure nostalgic value. Recordable CD's made them utterly obsolete.
Yes, recordable CDs. Perfect sound but were they fun? DM
@@AudioMasterclass more fun than a cassette. I didn't need to keep a pencil handy. 🤣
The ubiquitous presence of tape plug-in vsts, bit-reducing plugins, saturation boosting plug-ins, and I would also argue gear like the Empiric Labs' Distressor that is able to introduce pleasing levels of distortion into compression, demonstrate that high fidelity capture of audio is not the be-all-end-all of what constitutes a great recording of a performance/composition. Degradation and modification of audio signal is fun. I have listened multiple times to Mr. Mellor's Tascam dbx recording (a couple of posts back), and I detect a pleasing quality I recognize: modern daws can center the snare forward, spread the space of the Casio, lay-back the dreaming single-coil strat with a vintage vibe, but I believe it would take a very good emulation vst duplicated on all channels and again on master to produce how it is specifically glued together in toto. Perhaps it is the absence of effects, ducking, over-compression, but the recording sounds honest and pleasing to my ears, and I choose to believe tape four track tech is that little extra something I detect and enjoy. I also believe the making of that recording was likely "fun" in a way that sitting before a daw screen can never be. That said, I would never give up daw for tape. It is a nostalgic novelty. And tapes are maddeningly finicky.
Yes it was fun, which I remember from close to 40 years ago. If I tried to do it today it would be work. DM
" I believe it would take a very good emulation vst duplicated on all channels and again on master to produce how it is specifically glued together in toto." Harrison Mixbus DAW software offers exactly that! It can be used in any arbitrary modern production style, but by default it replicates the signal path, workflow, and subtle analog warm-up effects of a high end analog console. Also, SSL and Abbey Road offer plugins replicating both channel strips and glue-adding mix stages of meticulously modeled analog consoles.
I think you'd love listening to the tapes I listen to in my car. Old rave mixtape with loud crusty electronic music uploaded to RUclips in iffy quality that I then ripped with RUclips dl and recorded to another tape 😂.
Dont forget the funniest part of cassette : if you wanted to record 1 hour of music, you had to spend at least1 hour near your gear, and much more if you wanted to make a compilation from different LPs.
I had friends that used to make compilations to give them around them. Hours of dedication, a real proof of friendship.
And as well Radio cassette devices : at one point in my life, I was working with the radio always playing near me, and when a music I didnt know was on and if I liked it,, I would RECord it directly in the radio. Doing so I taped hundreds ot titles of all genres that I would never been able to listen to otherwise. They are bits of my teenage years I would never throw away.
Quality was low, but it was my last concern.
I had a cassette of Bach suite on guitar that I spent hours rewinding bits after bits to decypher the chords and the fingering combinations.....
Learn to read music sheets, kids, much faster!😂
Unlike click and tap to make a playlist, every mix tape or record backup made was heard in real time as you made it, just the way your buddy would get to hear it.
Yes and quality wasn’t always low. As a teenager in the 90’s I had a shelf system with dual cassette and Dolby B and it made some very good clear and loud recordings especially on a Maxell XL-II. Would load up the cd changer, program the tracks to the length of the tape and made a mix for my walkman or a friend. The key was your deck/recording equipment and maintaining it while using good tapes.
@@editingsecretsexactly! Finally someone gets it! Not to mention it was fun. Not like just slopping out a playlist. I mean if that’s someone’s thing more power to them but I don’t like streaming for the fact that songs often disappear or rerecorded versions replace the original and it’s too sterile -there’s no heart in it.
I bought myself a decent Technics 2-head deck recently and I started making mix-tapes; gave them to my friends as birthday presents. They listened on their parents' old decks. A couple were so taken with them they bought used Walkmans (Walkmen?)!
I suggest you to buy an excellent 3HEAD deck & you'll see that cassette's quality in near the perfect. With the best 3HEAD decks recognizing the sound of CD or cassette is sometimes impossible.
I had various hi end 3 head decks with Dolby B,C,S. etc. I dumped cassette for Minidisc, my Sony MDS JAS555ES had far better sound quality even with ATRAC and it was far easer to use. No faffing about aligning the tape/deck before each recording. Not to mention print through, tape degradation, etc. I still have a Sony 3 head Dolby S somewhere ? Not my idea of fun?
In the 90s when I grew up, cassettes were perfect for 1) people like me who didn't have a CD player and 2) wanted portable (discmans will skip like crazy when walking). And also 3) for recording stuff off the radio. The quality? Abysmal, even by the standards of the time. No "it was all we had so it was fine" there, it was just bad.
I still use records, CD, cassettes and Minidisc. Records and CD for quality listening, cassette for the car and minidisc for fun. I like the nostalgia of cassette but they don't sound the best even on my nakamichi. So my favourite for fun would be minidisc all the benefits of cd and quality recording all the fun and nostalgia of cassettes without the bad sound and mechanical issues.
Yes, I think they are fun... again. In the early 2000s I was only too happy to ditch them for CD-R. Finally no wow, flutter, hiss, dropouts, too dull without dolby, too crisp with it, railroading or even eaten tapes.
But music has become so convenient and abundant that it has lost its value. Spending more time to decide what to listen to than actually listening to it. And then skipping tracks halfway though because there's just so much more to listen to. Can't miss out now, can I?
Cassettes (but also vinyl, R2R, 8-tracks and 78s) are much more deliberate. You carefully choose the album, or even spend hours making that mixtape, put them on and leave them be. They have moving parts that are much more fun to look at than a progress bar. Even the sonic flaws are charming (and, let's face it, nostalgia) now that I know I CAN have perfect digital quality if I want to. Back in the day the cassette was the only quality I got so I was utterly annoyed by its flaws. But now, it just reinforces I'm listening to a cassette. It adds to the experience. And, in my opinion, adds value to the music.
So, fun, yes. But anyone who says "you need a good deck and good cassettes for it to sound good" may be correct technically, but they just wants to spend lots of money to make the cassette sound more like digital. If I want that, I'll just listen to Spotify 🙂
Japan had the most cassette sales in 2023 ! Cassettes are still selling strong in the USA also. CDs will make a huge comeback in the future.
I love making my own cassettes. All you need is a decent cassette deck w/ record level control, hook it up to your computer's 3.5mm audio output jack & record anything you like 4 FREE!!! Mixtapes are a complete enjoyment to create & share w/ friends.Recordings sound great when played back on a decent decks or a vintage walkman on powered speakers or headphones. You can even play cassettes back in your car using the aux input & male 2 male 3.5mm cord (keep your cellphone away from the walkman as it will cause interference).
Fun? Handier than vinyl, more portable and recordable back in the day, sure....it's all we had. Otherwise the world absolutely moved beyond vinyl and cassettes for VERY GOOD reasons. The recent nostalgic nonsense revival of these formats proves that some people are just bored with the exceptional modern life they have been gifted.
There are some with high grade decks like myself, fanatical about tape recording and meticulous about cleaning and demagging them. If you want to get the most out, you must be willing to put out the effort. This is a hobby that can reward your effort. Dolby? I don’t think so, but that is my take on that. As far as I can tell, it dulls the sound and degrades the experience. The key is knowing what level to use with each brand and grade of tape and do not compromise on any of these. I know some will say no Dolby, he must be deaf or daff. It’s a choice and it has worked for more than decades. I don’t kick others for their choice. They will do me the same and we both will be happy. The recording level is critical, but the reward is a cleaner result and none of the residual issues of Dolby’s use. Two Revox B215s and an NAD 6300 make fabulous tapes as do Naks. To each their own. It is fun to me. So would reel to reels be, but way above my price point. Taking care of them is key to the experience. It isn’t a hobby for the lazy or the ones who only look for convenience. Physical media gives you that, but it requires a level of involvement most are not up to. The reward is worth the effort. Only you can decide if you are up to it.
One thing to remember is in an odd way reliability. I have cassettes that go back to the 80s that all still play and some live recordings done on a Sony Walkman that sound great still. I have many DATS and cassettes that do not play.
I would expect that if a DAT doesn't play, it's the tape that has degraded and unless parts of it are still OK the recording is lost. A cassette however - If it doesn't play then it's more likely to be a mechanical problem that can be resolved. Of course, there's no guarantee that the tape itself is still OK but a mechanical problem would be my first assumption, resolved by transferring the tape into a new shell. DM
Cassette tapes are simultaneously the sweetest cat's meow, and also the biggest piece of shit. It's like taking a picture with a century old giant box camera with a cheap lens which uses 4 by 5 film. It works, most often beyond wonderfully, but sometimes only with the greatest time spent and effort made. Does anybody want to rebuild their old 1955 Chevy? - The same sort of idea -
I tell you what.... whats NOT fun is the lack of tapes to record on in 2023. I never find any in thrift stores anymore not even crappy recorded ones with little tape insisde.... And there is no new tapes to buy that i know of...My decks break alot now ( i have saved over 20 just to be sure i dont run out)
But lets be honest how long can we keep it up....?
I don't find cassette players fun because of (i) the rubber capstan wheel sticking to the tape and pulling said tape out of the cassette housing, and (ii) they have too many moving parts that become prone to jamming after a decade or so. I still think it was so cool when back in the late 1990s I realised I could sample my LPs and edit the tracks into separate files to listen to using my computer (which had a decent sound card and was connected to a decent sound system). Sure the resulting sound quality was not as good as an LP, let alone most commercial CDs, but it was way better than the sound quality from cassettes.
I agree, cassettes are fun! :-) I'm looking at my 39 year old Twisted Sister Stay Hungry cassette right now in fact! I have no idea if it will play or fall apart though... lol
It's not going to take it any more!
Cassettes are nostalgic for me. I don’t ‘need’ a cassette deck for my 2.1 channel system but, it sure looks good in the equipment stack. I much prefer analog to digital meanderings of life experiences and would rather pop in a tape and manually depress a ‘play’ button than pull up music on my computer. Zero fun in the digital domain. Great video….thank you for putting into words my experience.
Exactly. Nobody ever comes over and says "Hey, let me see your Spotify play lists or MP3 collection" But if you have tapes and LPs sitting there, they will for sure want to look through them.
"zero fun in the digital domain" SO TRUE!
I’ve begun cassette taping old John Peel Shows from RUclips and enjoying playing them back just as I used to back in the late 70s!! Fun doesn’t even begin to describe it. So very satisfyingly fun and warmly nostalgic.
Yes! Cassettes is fun. It's nostaltic and I love to hold things ind my hand. Records or tapes. It dont matter. I know. Streaming is much more convenient but I lost the soul back in the late nineties when I droped LP, CD and tapes in favor of MP3. Therefore I´m back on Cassettes again and I kept my CD so I have to find á nice player for those too.
I had a teac R-888x in the 80's. What I really wanted was a Nakamichi. My cassette days were over as soon as I had the means to burn cd's.
Cassettes we’re fun while there was nothing better, but now? No thanks 🧐🤨😃🙃😎
There were so many high quality cassette decks out there throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s besides Nakamichi. I've always maintained my decks properly and used high-quality Tapes. Therefore i never experienced Cassettes as a low fidelity format.
I remember getting a cassette recorder as a kid (about 1970) and I had a blast with it. I would record off the radio, I'd record myself making music (which my mom encouraged as long as I "kept it down"). Within a few years, I would be writing scripts and recording myself doing "interviews" where the respondent would be clips from songs (a la Dickie Goodman). I'd record off of vinyl by holding the microphone in my hand near my little turntable's built in speakers. The sound quality was about as bad as it could be, but man oh man was it a lot of fun. I love the intricacies and options of recording today, but I doubt it will ever have the same joy as that.
Cassettes were fun until 1982 when I grew up and accepted CDs.
Cassettes are fun. For me, it's the hardware. I have great fun restoring old decks AIWA, Denon and a Hitach 3D woofer boombox are my recent projects. Some of it is nostalgia but it is also the challenge of fixing a 30+ year-old piece of gear and making it sound as good as new or sometimes better!
Your kind of fun wouldn't be for everyone, but it's an admirable thing to do in its own right. DM
Yes, I like cassette tapes for all the reasons mentioned on this video and some reasons of mine. I rarely bought prerecorded cassette tapes. For this I always prefered vinyl records. I do enjoy the devices to reproduce cassette tapes (the cassette decks / the cassette players) because they're small studios and unlike CD players *you can actually do something with them,* namely to adjust close to everything on them, you can take care of them (maintenance), you can even fix them sometimes.
I have some cassette decks, some good ones too, that are in a very good shape.
I do record new tapes from time to time and I do listen to my old tapes, the ones I made, but it has more to do with the music rather than with nostalgia. I listen to mixtapes I recorded and it makes sense bcoz they keep the music I liked during the period I recorded them, tapes that I for example recorded with sound adjustments I prefered for these songs (bass, treble - - - > even adjustments with an equalizer - yes, I did that < - - - ie a small studio in your home).
I still very much like this music, because *it comes from the late 70s, the 80s and the 90s,* not the 60s or the early-mid 70s most of which I consider dead music (dead *in the sense* that unlike the former periods I mentioned, the latters you cant listen to a whole LP except for historical reasons and with very few bands as an exception), whereas I still discover music from the late 70s and mostly the 80s that amazes me. The late 70s and the 80s music endured the test of time (my opinion) and not a comment about the 90s music on this..
I still record tapes because Im a cassette generation boy stuck with some hundreds of CDs most of which I now dont want to listen to.
*Curiously enough* this never happened with the music I have on Vinyl and cassettes. Strange isnt it? I mean, I was very excited with the CD as a media, only to realize that it doesnt suit the way I want to listen to music.
*EDIT:* there's also the matter of the poor sound quality, which largely is true, but as you said a good deck minimizes this issue. But when you're a fun of music genre known as "Lo Fi", as I am, you easily overcome these issues. Large part of my music is Lo Fi artists and bands.
Conclusion: cassette tapes are in every way more fun than CDs and other digital media.
My hopes: with the vinyl revival a fact, at least some of the companies that produced blank cassettes to start producing them again. I mean, depending on the seller today you need up to 10€ for normal position tape or up to 50€ or more for a chrome and a fortune for a metal tape...
PS: I did tried to keep this comment to a reasonable size
The last part makes no sense. There are digital audio recorders that work just like a cassette recorder. You don't need a computer to record digital audio.
Now that I cannot hear above 10 KHz, I have revisited cassettes recently. I bought the best portable cassette recorders made by Sony and Marantz and tried every kind of tape and noise reduction. My late father had recorded many TDK SA C90s of a broadcaster called Barnesy (at the Beeb) and spend pleasant evenings listeninng to them. I still continue to collect, restore, use and sometimes resell tape recorders.
Cassettes are the most fun because they irritate pretentious audiophiles.
My hearing is very compromised: above 6 or 7 KHz it's pretty much imagined or 'hoped I'm hearing' music. Cassettes I made in 70s and 80s are more fun to play. I don't stress on what I can't hear.
I don't know if they're fun, but their unique ability to bring you back from the upside-down is important.
I remember enjoying both my waterproof Sony Walkman as a kid and the Sony Discman as a teenager equally.
Every time I find myself wishing that cassettes would just go away (and I often do), I have to remind myself what a great aid they were to songwriting. You could just sit in front of your (paper) notepad and cassette recorder (all the better once you got one with a built-in condenser mic), strum away and wail away, pausing occasionally to scribble down words and chords. Yes, you can do that with your phone now, but it's small and fiddly, and playback is too quiet (on the phone's speaker). Indeed, songwriting is a lot less 'fun' now.
You're so right that phones, and other digital devices for that matter, are fiddly. I liked my cassette dictation machine for writing in the past. Record, play, wind, rewind. All you need really. I speak as a person with a Casio four-function calculator ever-present on my desk.
I still own and use 2 cassette decks. An ariston and a marantz. With care, using the right tape, recordings can get very close in sound quality to the original. I can make my own playlists easily. These decks do need regular maintenance. Head cleaning demagnetizing etc but it's great when you record to tape and get great results. I can then play them in my aiwa Walkman player. This machine sounds amazing when used with good headphones.
Today it's so difficult to find an headphone with a retro style and not crappy. When I was young, any regular headphone was amazing sound quality and solid as a rock.
I agree with you, it's incredible how good decks could sound beautiful with such poor media
Cassettes are a ton of fun. My daughter even likes to play them
I can't think of anything that is further away from having anything to do with fun than a computer. The operating systems of modern computers are universally garbage. Stupendously unreliable, completely non intuitive, continually revised, presumably to give the impression that something new and innovative is being presented in order to milk money from the customers. Modern operating systems are so appalling, its hard to imagine how they can still keep getting worse, but they do. Linux, Windows, MacOS - they are all rubbish. By the way, until I retired I was working in IT, designing and writing computer software, but not at the operating system level.
I made a video on this theme - ruclips.net/video/a7nagM5xJ0A/видео.html&ab_channel=AudioMasterclass DM
I just rediscovered cassettes. It's fun, I have a good 3 head deck and it sounds great. And yes, the fact that you actually listen to a complete tape instead of skipping songs on a streaming service is a win.
The big thing with casette is actually that you can record your own.
Also they have all the downsides of physical format (need to rewind, specific "sound") which can be interesting alternative to all digital world of today. Listening of casette can be seen as special occasion.
The Cassette is dead! ☠️ Long live the Cassette! ❤
If I had "half a brain" back in the late seventies and all throughout the eighties I would have stockpiled blank Type II and Type IV compact cassettes...and gold.
All you need is... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine DM
On my nice small personal stereo, not much bigger than the cassette, you could skip tracks thanks to AMS (though you had to wait) and the buttons were nice and soft and not clunky. They were big controls, so you could operate them through your jeans. It also had dolby, which I had switched on. You could listen to the whole tape in one go too, thanks to auto reverse. These players from my late teenage years were much better than thr clunky ones I'd had in earlier years. Still, having to carry 12 cassettes in a box when you went on holiday did spoil the portability compared to taking it out just for the day. Actually the most fun part was deciding which songs by an artist were best and belonged on the tape - copied from the CD. Most of my tapes were single artist compilations. When going on holiday I could take 12 best-ofs.
I love the premise of fun. I was always trying to find the next cassette deck. I had to laugh because I remember how dreadful I was at trying to create playlists using cassettes. I never got the motor spin up time right so there was always this whooop sound. I finally bought an Akai reel to reel hoping I’d be better at it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t!
you had to go on a trip to town to buy cassettes part ofthe fun.
My first cassette deck was the Advent 201! I thought it was fun to use. Simple layout. A Wolensack transport mechanism that rewound a 90 minute cassette in about 45 seconds. Simple controls , Dolby B, Bias selector for Chrome tapes. Great sound. Fun!
In the late 80s tapes were awesome. As a guitar player in Bands and a home recording enthusiast, giving tapes to girls of my bands and music……sweeet memories.
New cassette players lack Dolby NR and the ability to play Chrome and Metal tapes... It's back to being a toy!
Sad indeed. DM
I have a high end deck from the 90's that still works as good as new, and it can record almost CD quality audio on a type 1 cassette. I even made my own mono deck just for the fun reasons, it also records really well. (I even came up with the schematics for playback and recording).
I grew up with LPs and vinyl, but my main days were during the cassette days, and later on CDs. Engaging with a cassette to hear “a song” is an event. It requires intent and effort. You have to either just resign yourself to listening to the album up to the song you want, or you have to seek through the album to find the spot you want.
Get there, hear the song in all its glory, and then have to rewind back through it to listen again, giving you that downtime between listens, again, requiring engagement and intent.
It’s a subtle thing that I wonder if future generations will even wonder about, but it was how I discovered all the formative music of my life.
All that said… don’t discount Spotify. Sharing playlists with my friends and family, to me, hearkens right back to the days when I would make a mix tape of the most life shattering caliber that everyone would have to have a copy. I miss that about cassettes, and I think Spotify has done a decent job of making that experience accessible to the modern age.
Also, Spotify does an annual breakdown of the songs, artists, and musical styles you listened to the most in a given year. I ALWAYS look forward to this now, and love sharing it with close ones. Spotify, and it’s ilk, are alright in my book.
Always fun with the biro to rewind stuck tapes and the way the sound completely changed when the cassette heads got dirty with the added bonus of speed variations as the tapes got tighter and tighter. Somewhere I’ve still got the little tape splicer gizmo for when the tape leader snapped off the tape. The good old days maybe not but I still can not bring myself to chuck my tapes away many of which are replicated in cd form 😂
Cassettes were fun (mixtapes) but not enough to go back to. Shuffle play may have killed the album listening experience. Anyone that can make listening to streaming music fun would do well.
As a teenager I had a hifi with casette auto-reverse. It made an awful lot of clunking noises when it did so and made me wonder what exactly was going on within. Did work effectively though and I was spared the inconvenience of turning tapes over.
My memory is hazy but I remember auto-stop being a thing. But did a deck without auto-stop keep on trying to turn the tape at the end? My memory is blank on that. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I did a quick search on that. Apparently all decks stop automatically at end of normal play, however auto stop is for fast forwarding and rewinding, to stop the tape getting stretched by accident. Or so the interweb says.
@@mattylamb658 Aha, if I ever knew that, I'd completely forgotten it. Thank you for the reminder. DM
@@AudioMasterclass My pleasure! 🙂
@@mattylamb658 Not all cassette decks would auto stop at the end of rew or ffw. I can't say if some home stereo component decks didn't. But what I can tell you is, I used some portable and/or walkman-type back then and some of them did not auto stop after rew/ffd. The ones that didn't I had to wait and stop it manually, doing it either before, for example, going to the bathroom or doing it when I came back so that the tape didn't get stretched in my absence. Those applicable decks weren't broken, they just simply didn't have auto stop for the rew/ffd.
Cassettes are sonically garbage and I regret the money I spent obtaining them in the 80’s and 90’s.
CD’s sound amazing when properly mastered but the packaging and proneness to damage was frustrating…not to mention the shitty jewel case broken fiddly hinges.
The MiniDisc was, IMO the very best format ever….Great, compact size (almost novelties but not like the ridiculous micro sd card)…
The sound quality, although compressed is punchy and pleasant to listen to. And re-recordable!! And FUN!! All the benefits of the cassette without the cringy, poor sound….AWESOME…..So, let’s discontinue it forever……Progress? The MD could have remained relevant as a physical media if not destroyed by the sudden onslaught of Napster and its’ consequent rivals. There is NOTHING fun about downloads…Young people can’t experience the thrill of making a crush a “mixtape,” nor receiving one… Mixtapes simply became mixdiscs with MD’s.
Now with Ai you’ll see most future songs written by algorithms and played by samplers and listened to by NPC’s on crappy Bluetooth earbuds linked to their precious phones. How romantic ☠️ and who cares? …..Dystopian Paradise
They been spendin' most of their lives, streaming in our dystopian paradise! - CoolioGP
the cassette should of never existed!!! i hate cassette so much they suck!!! i am glad the cassette is dead and it will never come back hopefully
CDs/DVDs/BluRays way better then cassette and its not even close!!!
It's always been possible to construct a working tape playback head, or a record playback cartridge out of easy to obtain materials, but who would be able to make a silicon chip and code algorithms for a digital player?
No need for a custom chip to run a realtime audio decode algorithm any more. Any consumer level processor can easily do it. When patents expire, anyone's free to implement the decoding library. Copy a file to a newer storage medium with zero generation loss. Belts, rollers, gears, pulleys are the hard parts to fix, along with tapes that stretch and break.
@@editingsecretsI get what you mean that a typical today generic processor can run what was once a custom chip, but point I making is could you make this consumer level processor and possibly write the code from scratch assuming it didn't exist.
While CDs may have existed in 1982, they were Never seen or used by consumers until the very late 80s. In 1982, the big, new high-tech consumer audio device was the cassette Walkman, which remained the Main personal liatening device well into 90s.
I think my memory is correct that when I bought my Philips CD100 for £300, when the price had come down from £800, I had to buy my CDs from the basement of a specialist shop. Then at some point in the 1980s HMV Oxford Street opened up a CD section. Virgin in Oxford Street even had a CD manufacturing plant in the front window. DM
Public library in the next town had a listening area with high end CD players and great headphones. I remember listening to Kate Bush's "Running up that hill" and Barber's "Adagio for strings" in that library, must have been around '84-85. I considered myself very luck to find an affordable used Discman in perfect condition in the late 80s, which I had in my college housing and for a few years after that.
I have not the heart to dispose of my cassette collection. I still have a Walkman professional kicking around somewhere along with its microphone! But all my decks are gone.
I had a love hate relationship with cassettes because of the efforts needed to get decent sound from them.
I have fond memories of the mixtapes I was given and made for others. Recording FM radio, especially live gigs.
Preserving live concerts does seem to be a legitimate use as much broadcast material was disposed of by broadcasters. DM
Back in the heyday of cassettes, I bought and installed the top-of-the-line Pioneer car cassette player in my company cars. Dual capstan, three motors, microprocessor controlled soft touch buttons.
I spent a lot of time on the road and had a pretty darn bitchin' sound system. I also copied over my record albums to metal and high-quality chromium dioxide tapes. I seldom bought pre-recorded cassettes because the quality just wasn't there.
Over time, my cassette library grew to a somewhat ridiculous degree and I still play these tapes once in awhile. My home cassette recorder was an almost top-of-the-line JVC unit with ANRS noise reduction.
Were they fun to play? Definitely. I made cassette inserts using my computer when computers were not commonly found in the home. It was all cutting edge stuff.
I even use an Android app that simulates playing cassette tapes. It's pure nostalgia and I love it.
I would disagree that CDs are where "fun goes to die". They are still a viable medium and much of their problem lies in poor mastering practices taken on by the music industry with their stupid brickwalling ideas.
A fifty dollar Blu-ray player blows away any $500 turntable in terms of audio specs any day. And it's capable for displaying great quality video and surround sound content to boot!
I had a party about ten years ago that people brought there fav mixed tapes from back in the day🎉. I still have about 150 tapes.
Cassettes might not be fun but you certainly are. Great video!
I don't remember music cassette tapes sounding bad. A lot of my collection from '87 onwards are on metal type iv tape, or a step below. I imagine the mediocre headphones on a midrange Walkman doesn't help my memory. I remember thinking cassettes as cute and inexpensive, especially when comparing them to compact disc and convenient. Cassettes don't take up a lot of space.
By the time I was a teenager in the mid '90s I was purchasing music on compact disc. I didn't need to stretch every dollar to buy more music, as a cd was less expensive in most places. I like the better sound quality, not fast forwarding, or rewinding and being able to skip and repeat a track instantly.
I do regret giving my tape collection away.
The advantage with cassette is that you start again next time at the point where you left off last time. Very practical mainly when listening to speeches as by trial and error you can rewind the tape and pinpoint the part that you would like to repeat. Digital audio players also allow you to do so but not as easily and precisely. There is still a place for audio cassettes. I've never given up on cassette recorders and players. I've still got two Sony WM D6C and a few others. To this day I've kept my Professional Tascam 122 MK11 mastering cassette recorder.
Cassettes, Vinyle, is all about find again the "long time", and not the quality. That's the main point. Like in video games, the retro gaming is not for the technical prowess.
Cassette decks and tapes were not dreadful, it was just those Pre-Recorded ones from places like Columbia House, etc. One could buy a good chromium dioxide tape and record LP's or CD's and mix great sounding tapes and they were also good for the car if you wanted mixes. They were also good for recording things off FM. Pre-Recorded tapes good much better somewhere around 1985 when they started using chrome tape on the record labels. Also digalog and HX were good as well. One didn't need a Nak for a good recording or playing. Some of the best recording decks were some of the ones last made. Sony had this superb AUTO CAL system and it would set the internals to the best bias and tape type. One could use a Tape I tape even get great results. Those automatic calibrated decks were great and also Dolby S (if you've never heard one) was magnificent using Chrome or Metal. There was no noise with those. I implore you to get a good deck that has auto calibration and Dolby S and see how well that sounds. Best.
I have said in several of my videos that Nakamichi and decks of a similar standard sound amazingly good considering the limitations of the format. But we're talking about probably less than 0.5% of users, maybe 0.005%. But that isn't what the cassette comeback is about. You can't even buy a deck with Dolby B these days. People just want the fun. DM
Thank you nobody ever seems to mention that! I think the reality is many didn’t have experience with Dolby S as it was so late in the game and as a result they think it’s just like any other Dolby which it is not. I too have a Sony with Dolby S.
@@RB-xm3ed Well it's evident that this guy in the video hasn't been around a deck with Dolby S and Three Heads. My mid 90's Sony has a beautiful, almost CD type sound with my the three heads and Dolby S it has. It will even do that kind of quality with a Type I although I've always used Type II for that. I always listen to what this guy says and considers it but he thinks he's so posh, ya know?
I wonder if any company will build a new quality cassette deck. Instead of purchasing an old Nak cassette deck, it would be nice to purchase a new quality deck.
There isn't much choice at present. I notice the Tascam W-1200 but the noise reduction doesn't display the Dolby logo so it could be anything, maybe just a low-pass filter, and it works on playback only. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I doubt if any company would find it profitable to build a good new cassette deck (like Ballfinger's reel to reel tape decks). I think that the limits of cassette deck quality would make it unlikely that any company would bother.
@@teashea1 I believe with modern tech, we should be able to make tape sound much better than before. For one, modern battery technology might make walkman sound nearly as good as a full size deck. Modern magnetic tape technology is also much better than before as tape is still the default format for professional data archive.
@cliz305 what does a battery have to do with tape sound quality?
@@teashea1 Of course you know this link already but here it is... www.ballfinger.de/ ...for anyone who's interested. DM