Great video, I remember back in the day there was nothing more satisfying than buying a fresh pack of cassettes and opening the wrapper... Remember the smell of them and the new shells that opened and shut a bit tightly. Unfortunately it's not really possible to get the same feeling again...
I could listen to the sound of a cassette being rattled about and inserted into a tape deck all day long! And by the way, that smell was benzene. Brand new game carts smelled like that too!
The real chrome tapes (like BASF and PDM) have a very characteristic “wax crayon” smell to them as opposed to the SA formulation. I like the design of the 80’s version of the TDK tapes. I mainly remember Emtec as a brand of CD-R’s from the early 90’s.
What's up doc? After this length of time, a video from you is like a sight for sore eyes! I've always marveled at BASF tapes, and how they never really made it to the Caribbean. I got a few (with stuff recorded on them already), but I haven't tested or recorded anything on them yet. I love that SA-X though! Nice to see a fresh video from you, and hope you stay safe. Happy holidays!!!
I went through a big box of my old cassette tapes a few years ago and discovered there were some brand new sealed tapes that I never got around to using mixed in, including some Metal Type IV.
Yes, the BASF made some really good cassettes, but with the mismatch between real chrome tape and popular Japanese cassette decks they often didn't perform as well as they could....
@@DrCassette tape deck's were calibrated for TDK SA as it was a IEC Type II reference tape. the IEC tape for type I was indeed a BASF... Anyway real Chrome tapes are more difficult to use, they requires very low recording levels (peak around 0 VU) and lacks the bass of Type I tapes. Moreover with age they loose a couple of dB of signal (and noise also) so they retain original S/N ratio but have low volume.
The TDK SA became the IEC type II reference tape some time in the mid 80s I believe. Previously, the BASF also produced the IEC type II reference tape, which they proudly advertised on their type II cassettes with a logo that said "IECII". It took the BASF until the mid 90s to finally offer a chrome substitute tape that was compliant with the new IEC reference tape. This cassette was appropriately called "Reference Maxima TPII". I have experienced the reduced audio levels on older real chrome cassettes too, they don't loose any treble like chrome substitute tends to do, but the overall level in some cases is much lower than it would have been originally.
Keep it sealed. You won't get very good performance from the super thin tape of a 180min cassette, and it is certainly more valuable when it is still sealed new old stock :)
@@DrCassette Hmm maybe that's also due to RUclipss algotythm caused by irregular uploads... I have seen most of your videos and have also been a long time subscriber, tho these videos weren't on my recommendations at all. All your older videos got recommended to me regularly after you uploaded them. RUclipss mechanism is weird sometimes. This may have happened to others, too...
You can not trust your recommendations to show everything you may want to watch. That is what the subscriptions page is for. This is an effect I am seeing with my videos: They get recommended for only two days after the upload, and during that time they get a good amount of views. But after the two days, when they don't get recommended anymore, the number of views drops to a fraction of what it was before. All because nobody bothers to check their subscriptions page anymore... This is what takes away all the fun of making RUclips videos from me at the moment. I'd like my videos to get attention for longer than only two days...
My personal favorite, was the Denon HD8-100 - sold for a very fair price by "Danmarks Hi-Fi klub", later renamed to "HiFiKlubben". They got those extra 4-5 min pr. side for LP "backup" purpose. These Denons could be recorded at very high levels, especially at higher frequencies, and AFAIK it was in fact a metal-particle tape for the IEC type II setting.
I recently bought some of the Maxell cassettes that look like your TDK SA-X, in order to resell them. However, I got lazy, and they've been sitting in my closet since last summer!
Good to see. I have a 1970s TDK KR from the early 70s which is a pure chrome from the short period TDK licensed chromium dioxide before manufacturing their SA chrome substitute. Blank cassettes are a real lesson in design as well as function. Very best wishes.
I've been trying to find some real footage of compact cassettes being manufactured. Considering the shear abundance of brands and the different varieties that there used to be, I can only presume there must have been hundreds of factories all over the world making these things. I also presume that there must be thoudsands of people still alive who worked in some of these factories but I can only find a few snippets of info about the manufacturing. More so about the chemists who created the tape formulas. That would be really interesting to know how they went about creating a new tape model or upgrading the existing formulas in their product ranges over the years. Even small details like the designs of the shrink wrap and inlay cards and the companies who supplied the factory. Someone was involved with every stage, where are they now? Do you have any links or info about this topic?
The TDK SA-X is very interesting, these are now getting much harder to find and as a result the price of these is going up fast too unfortunately but this design is now 37 years old so it's understandable they are becoming more difficult to find
Funny really, all that extra level on the TDK cassette was really just a 1dB boost. With an average cassette frequency range of 30 -15k minus 6dB in a good day that 1 dB was kind of irrelevant really. Add to that ware on the heads, azimuth tracking, and Dolby miss tracking, dirt on the heads. It's really amazing they could sound as good a few decks did. Almost forgot, many decks had no bias adjustment, so these tapes could sound over bright.
Sooo what do I have that's still sealed? A stack of 7 or 8 Maxell URs (booooring but decent), a 3 pack of Maxell SQ (even more boring), three TDK DJ2 from my 10 pack are still wrapped, a mid 2000s TDK SA90, BASF Chrome Super II (looks like just before the EMTEC era), two BASF Chrome Extra II from the mid 80s (silver wrapper with blue lined rectangles around) and two BASF Chromdioxid II from the early 80s that probably still used pure chrome tape. Still has the Security Mechanism. Ah and I almost forgot... a 5 pack of Not For Resale DCCs. What do I do with them? I don't have a DCC deck (briefly had one, from e-waste, sold it for... 5 Euros... that's all I got for it) and I can't sell them because of that sticker... (and I got two boxes of sealed VHS tapes, but all except two are just clear wrapped, so no fancy wrappers here... I'm slowly using them up to record movies. As for the cassettes, their time will come eventually when I'll have to use them. Probably.)
I wouldn't say the Maxell SQ are boring, I remember they were the last cassettes Lidl sold, and I only saw them there. They were certainly less common than the Maxell UR... Don't worry about the Not For Resale sticker on the DCCs, I don't think there is still anybody who would enforce that :)
Hello DrCassette, have you ever found a brand new old stock sealed cassette tape that's unusable? I have several pre-recorded cassettes from the 70s, 80s and some from the 90s which are degraded and cannot play properly until you wipe clean the tape. They're also able to contaminate the tape transport. So far I've been lucky using some brand new old stock HF from SONY, the simpler brownish ferric formulation made in Mexico, thus not the best HF SONY made by far but not the oldest (probably in the 20 years odd range), but at least it worked smoothly enough. I had a hard time in the beginning of my cassette comeback to understand why none of my tape decks, even the restored serviced ones had trouble playing some cassettes.
I don't open new old stock sealed cassettes because it destroys much of the value. Instead I re-record cassettes that have already been used, usually with very good results, if the tape is not worn.
From the moment erasable cd's could be produced , cassettetape design collapsed completely . Only TDK and Sony made some nice ones afterwards untill 1990.. but Maxell only made awfull cassettes to look at from about 1985 . At first we liked the transparent shell but that was soon over .. The black and heavy so called ceramic versions were the ugliest..
Great video, I remember back in the day there was nothing more satisfying than buying a fresh pack of cassettes and opening the wrapper... Remember the smell of them and the new shells that opened and shut a bit tightly. Unfortunately it's not really possible to get the same feeling again...
for some unknown reason 😊
I could listen to the sound of a cassette being rattled about and inserted into a tape deck all day long!
And by the way, that smell was benzene. Brand new game carts smelled like that too!
@@maximusmax4557 ha, I'm glad to have survived that 😅
I enjoyed watching this video very much.
The real chrome tapes (like BASF and PDM) have a very characteristic “wax crayon” smell to them as opposed to the SA formulation. I like the design of the 80’s version of the TDK tapes. I mainly remember Emtec as a brand of CD-R’s from the early 90’s.
Some of SCOTCH reel to reel tape had a mushroom smell, I seem to recall.
What's up doc? After this length of time, a video from you is like a sight for sore eyes!
I've always marveled at BASF tapes, and how they never really made it to the Caribbean. I got a few (with stuff recorded on them already), but I haven't tested or recorded anything on them yet. I love that SA-X though!
Nice to see a fresh video from you, and hope you stay safe.
Happy holidays!!!
I went through a big box of my old cassette tapes a few years ago and discovered there were some brand new sealed tapes that I never got around to using mixed in, including some Metal Type IV.
Still sealed type 4 cassettes are really quite valuable by now :)
Nice video, I love old cassettes and want to know as much as possible !
I have some sealed cassettes here, in Brazil. It's a treasure.
Basf tapes were really underrated, both the Ferro Extra and the Chrome Super are excellent tapes.
Yes, the BASF made some really good cassettes, but with the mismatch between real chrome tape and popular Japanese cassette decks they often didn't perform as well as they could....
@@DrCassette tape deck's were calibrated for TDK SA as it was a IEC Type II reference tape. the IEC tape for type I was indeed a BASF... Anyway real Chrome tapes are more difficult to use, they requires very low recording levels (peak around 0 VU) and lacks the bass of Type I tapes. Moreover with age they loose a couple of dB of signal (and noise also) so they retain original S/N ratio but have low volume.
The TDK SA became the IEC type II reference tape some time in the mid 80s I believe. Previously, the BASF also produced the IEC type II reference tape, which they proudly advertised on their type II cassettes with a logo that said "IECII". It took the BASF until the mid 90s to finally offer a chrome substitute tape that was compliant with the new IEC reference tape. This cassette was appropriately called "Reference Maxima TPII".
I have experienced the reduced audio levels on older real chrome cassettes too, they don't loose any treble like chrome substitute tends to do, but the overall level in some cases is much lower than it would have been originally.
"At BASF, we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better."
I still have a sealed TDK D 180 Cassette. I’ve come close to opening it a few times, but for now it’s still sealed.
Keep it sealed. You won't get very good performance from the super thin tape of a 180min cassette, and it is certainly more valuable when it is still sealed new old stock :)
Wow finally seeing a cassette video from DrCassette again! Sadly I'm 1 month too late...
I thought some cassette-related videos would be a nice way to end the year... unfortunately these videos were not as popular as I was hoping :(
@@DrCassette Hmm maybe that's also due to RUclipss algotythm caused by irregular uploads... I have seen most of your videos and have also been a long time subscriber, tho these videos weren't on my recommendations at all.
All your older videos got recommended to me regularly after you uploaded them.
RUclipss mechanism is weird sometimes.
This may have happened to others, too...
You can not trust your recommendations to show everything you may want to watch. That is what the subscriptions page is for. This is an effect I am seeing with my videos: They get recommended for only two days after the upload, and during that time they get a good amount of views. But after the two days, when they don't get recommended anymore, the number of views drops to a fraction of what it was before. All because nobody bothers to check their subscriptions page anymore... This is what takes away all the fun of making RUclips videos from me at the moment. I'd like my videos to get attention for longer than only two days...
My personal favorite, was the Denon HD8-100 - sold for a very fair price by "Danmarks Hi-Fi klub", later renamed to "HiFiKlubben". They got those extra 4-5 min pr. side for LP "backup" purpose.
These Denons could be recorded at very high levels, especially at higher frequencies, and AFAIK it was in fact a metal-particle tape for the IEC type II setting.
I had some Denon HD8s, they were indeed very good. I too seem to remember it was a metal tape for use in the type 2 setting...
I recently bought some of the Maxell cassettes that look like your TDK SA-X, in order to resell them. However, I got lazy, and they've been sitting in my closet since last summer!
I assume those are the mid 80s Maxell XLII or XLII-S, those are good cassettes, I like them
Good to see. I have a 1970s TDK KR from the early 70s which is a pure chrome from the short period TDK licensed chromium dioxide before manufacturing their SA chrome substitute. Blank cassettes are a real lesson in design as well as function. Very best wishes.
I used to have a few TDK KR, but I sold them all. Now I wish I would habe kept one...
I've been trying to find some real footage of compact cassettes being manufactured. Considering the shear abundance of brands and the different varieties that there used to be, I can only presume there must have been hundreds of factories all over the world making these things. I also presume that there must be thoudsands of people still alive who worked in some of these factories but I can only find a few snippets of info about the manufacturing. More so about the chemists who created the tape formulas. That would be really interesting to know how they went about creating a new tape model or upgrading the existing formulas in their product ranges over the years. Even small details like the designs of the shrink wrap and inlay cards and the companies who supplied the factory. Someone was involved with every stage, where are they now?
Do you have any links or info about this topic?
Have a drawer full of TDK Super D Chrome tapes sound played through a Nakamichi deck is superb
Interesting, I have never seen or heard of Super D Chrome. Those probably weren't available over here.
@@DrCassette Check Cassette Comeback's channel. Tony did a video on that tape.
The TDK SA-X is very interesting, these are now getting much harder to find and as a result the price of these is going up fast too unfortunately but this design is now 37 years old so it's understandable they are becoming more difficult to find
Funny really, all that extra level on the TDK cassette was really just a 1dB boost. With an average cassette frequency range of 30 -15k minus 6dB in a good day that 1 dB was kind of irrelevant really. Add to that ware on the heads, azimuth tracking, and Dolby miss tracking, dirt on the heads. It's really amazing they could sound as good a few decks did. Almost forgot, many decks had no bias adjustment, so these tapes could sound over bright.
Can you explain the differences in cassettes in their sound quality?
Seems like the marketing teams were in overdrive mode back then.
There was a lot of competition back then...
Sooo what do I have that's still sealed? A stack of 7 or 8 Maxell URs (booooring but decent), a 3 pack of Maxell SQ (even more boring), three TDK DJ2 from my 10 pack are still wrapped, a mid 2000s TDK SA90, BASF Chrome Super II (looks like just before the EMTEC era), two BASF Chrome Extra II from the mid 80s (silver wrapper with blue lined rectangles around) and two BASF Chromdioxid II from the early 80s that probably still used pure chrome tape. Still has the Security Mechanism.
Ah and I almost forgot... a 5 pack of Not For Resale DCCs. What do I do with them? I don't have a DCC deck (briefly had one, from e-waste, sold it for... 5 Euros... that's all I got for it) and I can't sell them because of that sticker...
(and I got two boxes of sealed VHS tapes, but all except two are just clear wrapped, so no fancy wrappers here... I'm slowly using them up to record movies. As for the cassettes, their time will come eventually when I'll have to use them. Probably.)
I wouldn't say the Maxell SQ are boring, I remember they were the last cassettes Lidl sold, and I only saw them there. They were certainly less common than the Maxell UR...
Don't worry about the Not For Resale sticker on the DCCs, I don't think there is still anybody who would enforce that :)
Hello DrCassette, have you ever found a brand new old stock sealed cassette tape that's unusable?
I have several pre-recorded cassettes from the 70s, 80s and some from the 90s which are degraded and cannot play properly until you wipe clean the tape. They're also able to contaminate the tape transport.
So far I've been lucky using some brand new old stock HF from SONY, the simpler brownish ferric formulation made in Mexico, thus not the best HF SONY made by far but not the oldest (probably in the 20 years odd range), but at least it worked smoothly enough. I had a hard time in the beginning of my cassette comeback to understand why none of my tape decks, even the restored serviced ones had trouble playing some cassettes.
I don't open new old stock sealed cassettes because it destroys much of the value. Instead I re-record cassettes that have already been used, usually with very good results, if the tape is not worn.
@@DrCassette Kind of agree and disagree at the same time.
From the moment erasable cd's could be produced , cassettetape design collapsed completely . Only TDK and Sony made some nice ones afterwards untill 1990.. but Maxell only made awfull cassettes to look at from about 1985 . At first we liked the transparent shell but that was soon over .. The black and heavy so called ceramic versions were the ugliest..