I bought the FiiO CP13 a week ago in black and white and loved it so much I went back online and ordered a red/silver and light blue/silver one as backups. I had over 400 cassette albums stored away in closeable trays and dug them out while moving from my second home and have been loving plugging in my 3.5mm wired headphones and diggin' the sounds. The FiiO CP13 is a great little machine.
Welcome back! I think people just need to remember to not take everything so seriously. Cassettes were never the greatest format, it's about the nostalgia and the fun factor. I have a Pioneer deck from the 90's that rarely gets used anymore. But I'll tell ya that once in a blue moon it's fun to dig out a few of my old cassettes and have a listen. The memories that go along with them are priceless. Have fun with it once in a while.
@@AudiojunkabusGuy in the vid says he got them for 79¢. Hell I buy new ones and most of em are $8-15, usually cheaper than cds and WAY cheaper than vinyls
i still use it today since 2017 i recorded 90 cassettes with compilations since mid 90´s i didn´t had a deck working, sound perfect if one takes care of them, that´s the truth when hearing old songs memories come to my mind if it weren´t for the compilations i´ve made some memories would be forgoten but one associates good times with the music we were hearing at the time, there´s also the reverse when i hear a song from the band Bush , i think it´s called if inflated or inflatable not sure makes me remenber a girl i let go but while in summer vacations it used to be on the radio played several times a day while i was camping with her, my car radio cassette player started to not play cassettes in my Lancia dedra and the 10 cd box player from sony was also stoped for two years at the time
Welcome back Kevin. I'm still playing cassettes on an old Teac tape deck, which still sounds great and I love it. I consider it a poor man's reel to reel. I think a lot of people got turned off off by cassettes because of cheap portable and car audio cassette players that had lots of problems and poor sound quality .. it's a different experience when you hear a cassette on a good home audio HiFi system
it´s true,i remenber wanting to buy a Teac Z-7000 but not even enough money to buy a Z-5000, maybe one of the best decks ever made, this after buying a so good Dragon deck from nakamichi that was beautifull and looked good in my system only had a problem, it lighted up but didn´t play cassettes after two monthes and a summer ,heat kills the dragon ,it shouldn´t be as they breed fire but what a waste of money
I bought the CP13 like a month ago and I've been having a blast. I still have many cassettes, most of them vinyl and cd recording. in the case of CDs, when the CD Walkman came out, I hated the fact that anything will cause the sound to skip, and on cars was even worse. I kept using cassettes of my car until the Car Cds got better and I moved to Minidiscs. My cassettedeck is a 3 head Technics, and I have been recording Lps for comparison purponses and my recordings are like 3 times better than the same Original cassette(same album). I used to buy most of my music in the80s on vinyl so I can had an alternative at home and the cassettes were damage easily. I don't have that many Artist cassettes, well about 100 or so, but compared to CDs I own thousands. New to your channel, thanks a lot for taking your time to share with us all this great experiences.
Way back in the day I thought 8 Tracks were something, the cassettes came out and I was in wonder, then CDs came out and I was simply amazed, nowadays I simply stream from RUclips and the sound of HD, Lossless etc etc literally makes my speakers send out sweet sweet music to my ears. Forgot something - When Direct to Disc albums came out the nearly blew my mind
@ethimself5064 I Still listen to CD, Flac files and Internet radio but I do like the analogue sound of tapes too. Grew up with them in the 80s into the 90s.
@RUfromthe40s especially if you use the 80s and 90s blank cassettes like TDK, Sony etc to tape onto and use a good source and a good tape deck to record with. They sound better than a pre-recorded one.
Cassettes are fun as hell and with a mid level deck, some very high quality recordings can be made. Definitely a bit of nostalgia for me, but I enjoyed going through the process of recording a mixtape from LP. HOLY SHIT is that a labor of love.
The best part of this video, the sound of the physical cassettes being slammed into the players. The sound of my youth, I had so many XLIIs and SAs back then I can't tell you. Thanks guys.
I was very partial to the SA-X's myself. I still have two cars with cassette players a 95 Miata and a 69 Camaro so the tapes do get played. Both cars have cassette adapters in the glove compartments so I can listen to modern stuff too.
Welcome back, Kevin! The sound from that portable isn't bad, but I wonder how long it will last. I was out doing yard work today, enjoying great audio on my WM-D6C! Just kidding, I would never take that precious machine to do that. Audio from that nearly equals my KA3ES.
Glad to see you back. I had a lot of cassettes as a teenager growing up. First deck in my car in 1991 was a cassette deck of course, so all of my best cassettes spent their time in black Mustang. So you know where I'm going with this. They all got baked, big time. When I play some of them back, they just don't sound good. What I enjoy the most is going back and playing my homemade cassettes from the early 80's all the way until 1990 when I graduated high school. Just hearing the promos for the local radio stations from back in the day, some of which long have changed formats. I have picked up a few cool 80's decks over the years, but only rarely fire them up.
My favorite cassette memory comes at a time that was about a year out from a nasty divorce that was still dragging me down. I was listening to country music radio, which was really just me subconsciously gravitating to sadness. I had always been a rocker. Some stupid song came on and as the tears started to well up, I decided right then, "f*ck this sh*t!" and immediately rooted around under the seat of my truck until I found my not seen in a year tape case, pulled Back in Black outta there, popped it in the player, and never looked back. It was life changing.
i was tired of ac/dc but still sometimes put to play the" dirty deeds ,need dirt cheap" , "powerage" that in cd my favorite song is missing or "cold hearted man"and "for those about to rock we salute you"and the live album "if you want blood ,you got it" sorry if some name is wrong ,but maybe 4 years ago i enter in a music store and saw the back in black album ,i had to buy it ,as mine went nowhere to be found
Great to see you back Kevin. For us teen’s in the late 60’s & 70’s there were no portable cds, iPods or phone music players just cassettes. And to have one at home,a Walkman or in the car it was the bomb. You could have your music anywhere you wanted.
Interesting enough, Fun times reflecting back on the Casettes. I still have a handful of the classics but only for My Nostalgia. No intention to play them. Great to see & hear you back in the game Kevin.
Fun video my friend. Loved it. I still love cassettes. Though vinyl is my favorite format, I still have over 1200 cassettes lol...and often times when I play them I'm extremely impressed by how great they can sound with a quality player like the Nakamichi deck. I've always said every format brings something to the table that other formats don't. So by that logic I just feel Vinyl, cds, cassettes, reel to reel, and streaming should ALL be a part of my musical world bc that is how much I love music :) lol.
I was fortunate to find a NOS head for my 1973 Teac A450 and also had my tech replace bad capacitors and transistors.It was one of the best decks of that era and sounds incredible to my ears.I enjoy watching your channel very much.
Having worked for Sony as a Quality Engineer, and owning 3 or 4 over the years, I can tell you those 90's top end Sony Cassette decks can hang tough with anything thrown at them and they still record and sound brilliant in a top system.
ADS L710 and L810 are to me the pinnacle of vintage speakers. They sound amazing and very non fatiguing. On the cassette side, I got the We Are Rewind player which sounds ok but the fun factor outweighs the performance. I’m 53 so cassettes were my go to for portable music as a kid.
@@stevezeidman7224 i had the L710 ,it were conected to a SX-1050 receiver from Pioneer ,loud as hell at least in my first litle house ,the last thing i bought from ADS was a set of headphones maybe in 2009, i wasn´t a kid anymore but the 80´s was when i most recorded cassettes and still have them ,bad or not they are there and after my first divorce when i got back on my feet again i made a lot of expensive buyings , if i knew that a divorce would cost me so much i had kept her and make a living hell out of her life, not violence as i never hit a girl there are other ways of showing your unhappyness, like buying her modern synthetic fibers clothes and jewelery in her birthday from the indians that used to sell on the floor of a high movement street, in reality i bought a telephone to my bedroom but whenever the landline telephone ringed i could hear the call from my modern indian phone in my bedroom, i learned a lot about my kids life but at one point even they had a phone like mine in their bedrooms, indians from India .
Great to see you again Kevin. I hope the airways are clear and healed. I love that you were sniffing KISS cards. Not how I would test the surgery, but to each his own!
I am still big with using cassettes. I ordered my Fiio CP 13 in February 2024 and recently received mine in mid May, and it seems to work very well and construction seems sold. I started with cassettes back over 50byears ago when most friends were using 8 Track. I said cassettes were the future and that was true, and now have returned. 😊
I'm using this fiio cp-13 less than 1 month and already have issue with play autostop - it has stopped working at all. It start curling tapes. So, tape transport mechanism is really poor. So, be careful, better to buy some used Walkman or panasonic in good condition
Kevin, a simple solution to your rack re- arranging issue : leave a slot or 2 open at the bottom of each row. When you add a new one you only have to move a part of that row (until you buy several more for that row). When I maxed out a row then I would re- arrange the whole thing (leaving 2 spaces). Glad to see you back !
Kevin, it's nice to see you back in good health. I am glad you have now gotten the Cassette drift. Audio cassettes are not about the sound quality, although there are some later (1990's) good-quality tapes (Type 2 [chrome], ferro-chrome, and metallic). Unfortunately, those good-quality tapes go for a premium price on eBay. Nostalgia also cannot explain it because the younger generation getting into it has never experienced listening to audio cassette tapes before. I think curiosity, peer pressure, and the physicality of the media, as was shared by one of your followers in the UK, (there are a lot of things about Gen Z that we, the Gen X, cannot explain). With regard to peer pressure, their favorite artists, like Taylor Swift, e.t.c., are using it to sell their music. Cassettes have also been featured in some movies. With regard to another physical form of media, I have seen some RUclips videos and pictures online of people taking pride in collecting albums on CD, vinyl, and cassette tape. There are lots of speculation as to why cassettes are on the surge... but for my case, I collected them for nostalgia, cheap, curiosity, and just incase the resurgence in sales can get me a extra buck we I let go of what I do not like lol... Yeah, getting the tape decks fixed is a nightmare... Have a blessed week...
Love it. It is all about the fun and not about a single format, single system, or single set of speakers, etc. Different music formats are kind of like experiencing the same food at a different restaurant or recipe. As it has been once said, "variety is the spice of life."
I have enjoyed cassettes for the last 50 years and I now have a refurbished JVC DD-7. I get a kick out of people who visit when I have a tape playing and they're shocked when I tell them that they are listening to a cassette. You get out whatever you put into it, no matter the purpose or audience.
A well recorded cassette in good condition on a great deck can sound awesome. Beat up cassettes just like beat up vinyl and scratched CDs sound poor. The quality of the original recording and manufacturing matters. It varies with all 3 media.
Kevin, the best vintage walkman-type players from the '80s approach the sound quality of the best home-audio decks. However, getting those personal cassette players restored to original specs is harder than with home-audio decks. Cassettes have a seductive appeal: no record-cleaning ritual before each play, smaller than compact discs, fun to handle. Sound quality ranges between mediocre and jaw-droppingly superlative. It's fun to see you and others discovering cassettes as a secondary audio playback format. You need to watch "Cassette: A Mixtape Documentary" featuring the pioneer of the cassette format, the late Lou Ottens.
I still have over 100 cassettes that I recorded years ago and have not listened to them in years. I picked up a Marantz PMD 510 Pro deck for 10.00 at a Church garage sale. It works great. I have tons of great music and it has been great rediscovering all this music I recorded years ago.
Great video, one of my favorites. I grew up in 80s and had a Walkman 3. It sounded great for the times. While I have decks, (including CT-F 9191 in video and Onkyo TX-2800 3 head deck). While I still have my tapes recorded in 80s and enjoy them on today. They bring me back to the "those were the days", I played tapes and my 13 year old son said "why would you want to go through all the trouble when spotify sounds so much better through the Iphone. I get the nostalgic value emphasized in your video entirely. When I get excited about running to the Sam Goody and/or Tower records, buying LPS and 45s and making mix tapes, he says, I guess I understand but indicates wish I could experience what you did.
Kevin, this indeed was a lot of FUN. When I bought my 1987 BMW 635csi (back in early 2000's) it had an Alpine tape deck. Bought a case and loaded it up w 20 + cassettes, many of which I owned as a kid. Flash forward to couple years later, someone broke into it but left a crowbar (guess they got interrupted). Responding officer asked what was missing... Just the case with all my cassettes ! Just never know where you'll find someone into vintage audio. Owned that Sony ES line up once, great deck.
Great to see you back, Kevin. Now and then I will still take out the Toshiba KT-4066 portable cassette player I bought in 1986 or the Aiwa HS-J470 I bought in 1990 (with record!), or even one of the hundred or so 80s boomboxes around here, just to play a cassette for nostalgia. Like you stated, they don't sound the best, but it was from a fun era (teenage / high school years) of life.
Lol! Kiss cards have that smell, just like my old Batman TV show cards(!) because they did have thoae flat, sheets if bubble gum in them. Good memories.
Fun video, Kevin. As an ADS guy, I loved those Brauns. I’m a 70 year old guy that look back at cassette as fun and at the time freeing me from the tyranny of LPs 😂. You could push the levels on TDK/SA tape turn on the DBX in front of it and it sounded pretty darn good.
Good to see you back! In a similar vein was talking about minidiscs with a pal the other day. The first time we met in 1997 we ended up getting ridiculously stoned to Tricky - Maxinquaye. As far as Google is concerned this release doesn't exist (it does). That's a format that definitely isn't coming back.
Love your channel! Came across one of your videos a few weeks ago and have been binge watching all I can…love it! What began my nostalgic dive back into cassette tapes is coming across an old Panasonic boombox like I had when I was a teenager. Since then I have purchased a couple of 80’s tape decks and have been playing tapes every day on my vintage stereos. It is purely nostalgia and fun. I do love the sound of a cassette. I didn’t have a turntable, only my boombox . So I played nothing but tapes. Loved the video!
Definitely high-fi if done right. Some people store their tapes improperly, don't clean the tape path, use crappy blank tapes, and then complain how bad the format sounds. Prerecorded tape quality can significantly vary. However, a good blank cassette like the Sony TC-K 870 ES can be an amazing cassette deck experience. Cassette Decks overall started getting better and better starting in the late 70s and early 80s and reached their sound quality peak in the mid 90s.
Eric and Rob did a much better job last week. HaHa, just kidding! Welcome back Kevin! I look forward to your videos every Sunday. Everyone at Skylabs does a great job.
Good to see you back, Kev! I absolutely love cassettes, spent many years buying them up as a cheaper alternative to vinyl, including unopened from Poland and Asia, as they were sold longer there. A lot of popular older music has skyrocketed as theyve become hip again. However, new cassettes arent super pricey and a lot of indie bands are releasing new tapes. Ive bought All Them Witches, Ruth Rich, Say She She, and a ton of Graveface Records artists new on cassette for $8-$10. Love them!
Hey Kevin. The past couple of videos have been on the fuzzy side and had me cleaning my glasses, not real bad though. Glad your back after surgery and the guys did a good job. Old guy what used to be St. Pete but now Florence SC
Recording my own mix tapes for cruisin' was really a thing! I am happy that I grew up during that time and experienced it. I still have a few TDK SA90's on the shelf with titles like "Cosmic Explosions" haha. Good times. Cheers!
Not sure if anyone has ever felt an audio orgasm, but wow. I purchased an old set of Bose TriPort Headphones on Amazon, popped in my Moody Blues (Other Side of Life Cassette) and jacked into my FIIO CP13. OMFG. I never experienced such an amazing distribution of sound from my all-time favorite band on a cassette player. This wouldn’t have been possible without the FIIO and Bose headset. Strike me for whatever you want, but even my high-end phones don’t produce this amazing sound. To much base, etc. … Sometimes old school is still the best.
Cassettes played an important part in audio history. If you think of them as miniaturized reel-to-reel tape decks, then some of the comments I am making become more clear. Studio machines ran at either 15 or 30 inches per second (ips) so they essentially had high bandwidth. If one owned a reel-to-reel machine, it likely had three speeds, 7.5 ips, 3.75 ips, and 1 7/8 ips. As the tape speed decreased, so did the fidelity of the recording and playback, and his became a bigger problem. Although the cassette started out more for dictation and other spoken word uses, there was interest in making it a viable choice for music. However, the tape speed was a problem, as was the issue of cramming stereo channels onto a much smaller tape head, which also brought up the issue of tape alignment across the tape head, particularly since different brands of cassettes varied in the quality of construction and how good the design of the pressure pad was that kept the tape against the head. Luckily, technology improved on the mechanisms, Dolby Labs worked out the Dolby B (and later, Dolby C) standard for reducing tape his, the industry developed chrome tape, all great innovations in the industry. For all of that, cassettes were best used as a niche product for small portable players (I still remember when the Walkman came out) and for car stereos, where the highest fidelity and lowest noise weren't really an issue. Cassettes were inherently a better technology than the 8 track tape, more reliable, plus you could buy a record to enjoy at home and make your own tape for your car, so the ongoing development of the cassette hastened the demise of the 8 track format. My guess is that the new portable you took out of the box was competitive in part because there wasn't any head wear on the new portable, whereas the deck probably has at least some, given its age. As far as whether someone younger would use the portable over a tiny streaming device, the difference in sound quality would not likely to be noticeable when mowing a lawn, even with an electric mower and noise cancellation headphones. It would likely come down to the availability of desirable music.
For those against tapes. Here are the reasons why I have tape decks: - I can listen to my old tapes that I still have from the early 80s (some of which I have not duplicated with Vinyl, CD, and can't stream or I would have to pay to stream). - I still find cassettes at thrift stores, estate sales, etc. They cost from nothing to $1. That gives me the opportunity to try and own something that I have never heard of or wouldn't want to pay much to own (for the same reason I buy scratchy $1 vinyl records). If it turns out that I like that music then I can still buy a better copy or stream it. I might not have ever tried it out otherwise. I love discovering new to me music. - It's pretty easy to make a mix tape music from any of the other sources I have (vinyl, CD, other tapes). Sure, you could probably do that through your computer but it's a heck of a lot easier just to press record on your stereo system without getting a computer out. - There are a lot of fun oddball things still found on tape on the used market (books on tape, old radio shows, etc.). I got my son into reading by listening to the first several series of Harry Potter on tape that I found at Goodwill. We listened to it on a road trip.
Great to see you. 👀 The previous video was interesting and the guys should return once in while for more technical questions and info. You all do a great job. 👍
I just received my FiiO this week and I love it. You are right on the mark concerning the “quality” of the sound but who cares. It is major fun! I am going to dig out my old recording deck and start making mix tapes - something I haven’t done since college.
Glad to see Kevin is back in good shape and with a brand new nose! I hope your recovery wasn't too bad Kevin. Eric did a great job holding the fort while you were off. I have quite a bunch of cassette tapes (over 100) and quite a lot of decks too (maybe 11 and 2 walkmans, some needs work) Yes sound quality is not the greatest but it has one major thing: some albums you can't find on vinyl or they cost an arm and a leg and there you have the cassette for like less than a buck (I bought many of mine at $0.15 or $0.50 at the thrift store, some I bought back when they came out). Not all of them are available on CD or streaming... I don't have to mow the lawn but one thing for sure, people will take their phone, a pair of bluetooth noise cancelling headphones instead of a walkman with a wired heaphones (even if it's IEM) as it will be much more convenient But lounging on a patio, with a book and/or a drink, that would work (it would be much better than a mono bluetooth speaker IMO)
Wow Kevin what a great video you got me digging out my cassette cases I found them in the basement boxed up omg I have at least 135 of them about half of them are ones I recorded. So again I pulled out my 90s Sony deck barely used hooked it up to my ole reliable Sansui AU-717 and started to listen to them actually they sounded pretty darn good even the ones I recorded one being Aja on a Fuji chrome tape it really sounded great for being recorded in 1977 I put the date on the tape pretty shocked at how well they have survived this long I figured there would be massive dropouts but to my surprise there wasn't any. Anyway as always great content Kevin!!! Keep it up
I saw all the videos that you mentioned starting with Randy's. Here's the thing for me Kevin. Sound quality is not my top priority even though l appreciate it when l hear it. I lave a LOT of wicked cool vintage gear including many cool and high end cassette decks. I have my Walkman from college and a deck in my car. My point is besides the sentimentality and the looks/build quality of the stuff...mostly l love 'playing' with it! Watching the meters/lights, turning the knobs, flicking the switches ect. Real fun!!!
Kevin, are you aware of the sometimes better than CD quality cassettes that can be made with a good cassette deck recording HD streaming music sources to a good chrome tape? Simply awesome and tons of fun to have quick access to high quality current music.
When I used to clean my parents home as a teenager for some extra bucks, I used to wear my Sony WM-11 Walkman (still working perfectly after all these years) and some headphones and play the 'Apocalypse Now' soundtrack complete with most of the dialogue, sound effects, and music from the movie while I was vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, etc. In fact, by the time the Wagner 'Ride of the Valkyries' Huey helicopter sequence was playing, I was vacuuming and imagining waging war on dust mites in the carpet fibres. Haha! ;)
You mention that VSX - D1s in some of your other videos. They are definitely not a BPC. Got one in my collection and think it pretty darn cool. Glad to see you giving it a nod up.
Welcome back! As for the Sony model number...it really isn't all that complicated. All Sony tape machines were "TC" xxxxx. And the ES line of equipment all end in ES. So, really, we're just needing to keep track of the K870 part. To ding them for the rest would be like dinging Pioneer because all of their cassette machines started with CT. The FXXXx would let you know, more or less what they were going to look like. The CT-F9191 is going to be a silver faced machine from that era...just like the CT-F1250, or CT-F500...etc. Onto the FiiO. It wouldn't be for me but that's fine too. The story really hasn't been written on it in that we don't know how well it is going to hold up...when will it start eating tapes...how fast does it degrade over time...etc. It isn't starting from a very good place. Even with your conversion and making through what all RUclips does to the sound, its poor sounding performance is apparent. It doesn't have the various NRs so there wouldn't be any enjoyment from my cassette collection (of the era...I'm not making anything now but Dolby B was on about 95% of my tapes with Dolby C on the balance). I wouldn't want to hear flutter and a speed/pitch issue would drive me nuts because I've listened to these tunes for decades...I know what they should sound like. Back in the day, when radio stations would speed up the music to get more commercial time, it would drive me nuts. The pickins' are so slim on tape transports/heads it is bound to be compromised and your demo sort of proved it. If the threshold for its viability is that it makes sound...then that is a pretty low threshold. If it makes people happy then I'm all for it. It just isn't for me.
First and foremost, it is great to see you up and around. The situation at hand is, what truly IS the FiiO ? Let's be honest, it is in reality a current production version of a Sony Walkman. If you could still find a Sony in REALLY GOOD shape, I bet you might very well measure the same amount of wow and flutter in it, as you did with the FiiO. As with our Sony Walkmans, all we really cared about was the portability factor of being able to take our "cool tunes" with us on the bus/plane/train. NEITHER of these portables were intended to be "quality audio". They were, as you said, fun. On the component side of things, the cassette format lent itself to be taken MUCH further than its predecessor the eight-track. High-end cassette decks progressed to "dual capstans", just like reel-to-reels did. And pre-recorded cassettes even went "high-end". Mobile Fidelity (way before "MOFI-Gate"), even sold cassettes recorded just like their records, from the original master analog tapes. Somewhere in my piles of "stuff", I actually have a MoFi copy of Steely Dan. Like your Sony, I do still have my really nice JVC cassette deck. Back to the FiiO, for a hundred bucks, I'll probably snag one of these, just for the hell of it. Glad you're healed up.... Rip
I am with you basically on everything you said in this video. I got out of cassettes completely in the late 90s other than a few from my favorite bands. I recently found a very good condition Denon DRS 810 (loads like a CD) and it blew me away! Very low wah/flutter and great treble response, which is something alot of lower end decks fail to represent.
Just my 2 cents worth. I have about 100 prerecorded tapes still left, some got "eaten" by other cassette players (car, portables). I have a dual well deck that I record music from records, mostly compilations that I play when doing work around the house and for "background" when we have guests over. About 3 hours of music that I don't have to worry with (flipping a record over or putting another one on or CD). Usually with guest over they'll hear something they like and the usual "turn that up" or "start that from the beginning". Very enjoyable to not have to not worry with deciding what next to play or be interrupted. Makes life easy for me. And yes, I'm an old dinosaur that doesn't like "streaming" music from digital sources.
I had kept 1 cassette from the day. It was one I recorded. Then when I got another used car 5 years ago, It had a cassette and CD player. The tape sounded great. About a year ago I bought 20 cassettes for $20.00. They had carrying cases. I love them in the car. Sound better than my CDs.
I got more info from that than any other podcast. Not having spent a lot of time with tapes that isn't even something I would have considered. CDs were on the horizon already when I very first started taking in music. So I only had a couple years with tapes.
That Sony deck looks really nice. Anything with an "ES" suffix usually meant higher build quality over non-ES units. It's a 3-head deck with Dolby HX-Pro, so it ought to make great-sounding mix tapes! I don't see where it has automatic bias, though -- the one feature that usually made an audible difference. While I usually preferred Sony products to Pioneer, the Pioneer CT-9R 3-head deck (1981) with automatic bias was just outstanding. I always ran the auto-bias setup ["Auto BLE"] before starting to record a new tape. You hit a button & the deck would start the tape in "record," send signals onto the tape, pick them back up as recorded, make real-time adjustments, then rewind the tape back to its starting position, all in a matter of about 8 seconds. It was probably the best-sounding deck I ever owned. P.S. I went to look at other user reactions -- I'm not sure I would recommend searching out a used CT-9R. Seems they are tempermental to keep working and are difficult to repair. That's too bad. The next year's model [CT-90R] also had the Auto BLE setup, but in a more conventional-looking physical layout. Not sure if it shared the same bugaboos. But just about any decent, more conventionally-built 70s deck would be fine, if all you want to do is play tapes you already have.
NS-10 They were used in studio as a reference for "ordinary" speakers, the idea being that if it sound right with those, it will sound great with any speakers.
Still wish mini discs would come back. They are a great format that was just a few years ahead of its time. I have a couple of full-size player/recorders along with several portable units, and they all still work great. I have a number of mix-discs (if that's what you call them), and I just use an audio jack to play them in my car.
Okay...I have seen the video made by the Cheap Audio Man on this and if anyone else saw that, you will see he got a lot of hate comments on it and I think the main reason why was his title in which he touted that cassettes are making a comeback for Hi-Fi. The problem is that putting the words cassettes and hi-fi together in the same sentence will cause some outcries. Sadly, I am not going to sugarcoat things and, yes, I am one that is against cassettes, despite the nostalgia factor. I AM in the above 45 category and was around when cassettes were the dominate recording medium. Back then they did have their advantages, mainly of being a highly portable, recordable medium that was relatively inexpensive. The alternative would be open reel decks, of which were not portable, and definitely not inexpensive, but they did sound a helluva lot better. Making mixed tapes for friends was a big thing, and so was recording songs off the radio. But the downsides of cassettes was something I had struggled with back in the day and I will never forget those struggles. It was VERY hard to get hi-fi sound out of cassettes. The slow speed meant lots of hiss, which could be counteracted by the various noise reduction systems that were out, but they weren't infallible either. In fact many didn't work well going across machines. The better noise reduction systems worked best recording and playing back on the same deck, only. Only Dolby B seemed to be OK with going between machines. But hiss was only one problem. Unless you bought a good deck, you had wow and flutter to deal with. So, if you had a good deck, the problems didn't stop there. Many times it was the cassette itself and how it was constructed that led to revealing it's limitations. Then regardless of quality, you had issues with the tape aging, such as the high frequencies dropping in and out, or you get total audio dropouts. Storage was always an issue because if you got the tapes anywhere near a magnet, there goes your high end as it would partially erase the tape. So setting up your tape deck next to speakers was always a bad idea. I can go on and on of the struggles I had and even with having a special tape deck with dual capstan drives and metal cassettes, I never could get a tape to sound anywhere near like a CD. Then the Sony Mini-disk was released and that was "The Savior". Finally there was a recordable, and portable format that didn't have anywhere near the problems cassettes had. Gone was the hiss, wow and flutter, and noise reduction systems. Discs could finally be moved from one unit to another and SOUND THE SAME! While it wasn't CD quality and some might argue that the compression schemes may not be considered hi-fi, it was still a vastly superior format. Sadly, the Mini-Disc really didn't fully catch on, or perhaps it was a little to late when MP3 players were released and changed things for reordable / portable audio again. So, yeah, I guess wanting to revisit one's childhood and play around with some cassettes might be something someone is interested in, I really don't think there will be enough interest like there is with vinyl for a full on comeback. If anything, I would rather see the Mini-Disc come back. Or I would rather revisit reel to reels, but I know that is very expensive. I do admit that I have held on to a few portable reel to reel units and I rather use those for a nostalgic trip than cassettes. Finally, during the sound tests, the Fiio unit is clearly lacking, sound wise. The Sony sounded OK, but when the Fiio unit was played, it was like someone tossed a towel over my speakers. Then there was the HIGHLY audible wow and flutter. Granted, I understand that these units are among the few portable cassette unit's being produced today, but for $100? I think that is a bit much, even for nostalgia reasons. I think that unit should sell for around $40 and no more. For $100, I think I would rather buy a portable reel to reel player and it would sound better too. Also for around $100, I think one would be better off with getting one of the portable recording Sony Walkmans they put out. Yes, they probably have to be serviced, have the belts replaced and the heads cleaned, but I think they would outperform the Fiio unit and having the recording ability probably would add to the nostalgic factor. But I digress, this is just my opinion on using cassettes in this day and age. For recordable portable medium, I am fine with an MP3 player. Cassettes were too much of a struggle to get decent sound out of and I am good with the format going the way of the Dodo bird.
I always made mix tapes off my friends records or the radio. Could never afford the music industries products.That is why I loved walkmans and other portable players. I was the DJ and the sound quality was decent for me, still to this day.
Have several vintage cassette decks, some in near perfect condition, and some in need of attention. Best are Nakamichi R202, Pioneer CT-F1250, CT-F9191, CT-F900. Also really like a small Sony drawer type deck but don't recall model number. Hopefully cassettes will revive or at least be with us for some time to come!
I have a dual Marantz Cassette Deck and single MCS Cassette Deck. 50 something Cassettes. I rarely play them. I buy them more for decoration like you said.
The Fiio's speed and w/f will improve as the motor and mechanism get some hours. The Sony is a fantastic deck. Just make sure you use it regularly. I have a Sony TC K333esj with Dolby S and love it.
Yeah I'm familiar with bran I have a amplifier and a CD player someone threw away they both work sound good thanks for the video I'm screwed I'm addicted to cassettes I think I got about 4,000 I've been collecting cassette tapes since 1966 and I'm oldSome of those old high and decks sounded great have a great day I'll keep watching
I do have the Braun 1002 speakers. They do sound very good for the size and age. Only question I have, does the crossover need new caps, since mine don't seem to play to high on detail, but sound rather laid back? Many people say that the ADS speaker are usually pretty detailed.
Cassettes a such a vibe. I enjoy recording hi-res tracks from Qobuz to my Yamaha K-850 and run that through a pioneer RG1 to my pioneer sx-838 and out to klipsch kg4s. Some of the tracks I purchased never got a physical release so its nice to make my own!
The Sound Quality of New Cassettes are not Good compared to the Older pre recorded tapes. Mainly due to the Quality of the actual tape, due to regulation of manufacturing. Also most New Cassettes aren't recorded with Dolby. The older Tapes recorded with Dolby and Played in a Quality machine like your Sony that decodes properly Sound Awesome. The new portable is a pretty cool unit, but for me the only Cassettes I listen to are at home. Just because on my Pioneer CT-A9X all dialed in, the older 80s and 90s Tapes can sound dang near CD Quality, not CD quality but amazing! Great Video, Glad you're feeling better!
i know a lot of people still using that deck ,never heard of having problems in makin`it work, i had the litle CT-F2121 that still looks and works as new today but my grandfather that year in the christmas gave me a CT-F1000 is still today a excelent deck if well mantained as my first receiver also from pioneer late 60´s model and phillips speakers that look so bad but incredible how good they sound today as my second reel to reel deck a akai X-165D from 1970 catalog crossfield something still plays and records today, for my surprise better than most of the cassette decks using only ferric tapes and a PL-51 turntable that looks and works as new
It is tempting for me to go with the Fiio simply to listen to some live tapes I bought in a collection a couple years ago. But I'll just hook up one of my cheap decks in the garage for that. I have a quality Fiio portable dap and that thing has awesome audio, so I am familiar with their build. I am like you, never had any use for cassettes lately (last 40 years) with the advent of digital. I still use my Technics RS-BR465 which I was given new for xmas in 87 I think, but it is only used for archiving for customers and usually a demo tape like you had mentioned with your early band....lots of these floating out there.
It would be cool if Fiio implements a switch to toggle between line out and headphone in their next player. Sony did this with their portable Minidisc players, allowing them to deliver perfect audio levels for their respective use case.
I found my old box of cassettes in the attic a couple of months ago and ended up buying a Denon dcd400 deck from a pawn shop for 50 bucks and after a bit of clean and lube it works great so I can listen to my old mixed tapes and album copies that I made on my long since dead and gone Nakamichi 481 which cost me about $800 Canadian dollars back in the early 80's. They sound pretty good on my garage system .
You've got a really good Sony deck there. Tapes can sound very good on a good chrome or metal tape recorded from a good source (Vinyl or TR24). They will sound a lot better then these pre-recorded tapes. Cassette tapes are still fun today.
I bought the FiiO CP13 a week ago in black and white and loved it so much I went back online and ordered a red/silver and light blue/silver one as backups. I had over 400 cassette albums stored away in closeable trays and dug them out while moving from my second home and have been loving plugging in my 3.5mm wired headphones and diggin' the sounds. The FiiO CP13 is a great little machine.
Welcome back! I think people just need to remember to not take everything so seriously. Cassettes were never the greatest format, it's about the nostalgia and the fun factor. I have a Pioneer deck from the 90's that rarely gets used anymore. But I'll tell ya that once in a blue moon it's fun to dig out a few of my old cassettes and have a listen. The memories that go along with them are priceless. Have fun with it once in a while.
Braun speakers, are actually identical with Canton. One of the top German speaker brands.
nothing fun about useless cassette tapes that you paid good money for
@@AudiojunkabusGuy in the vid says he got them for 79¢. Hell I buy new ones and most of em are $8-15, usually cheaper than cds and WAY cheaper than vinyls
i still use it today since 2017 i recorded 90 cassettes with compilations since mid 90´s i didn´t had a deck working, sound perfect if one takes care of them, that´s the truth when hearing old songs memories come to my mind if it weren´t for the compilations i´ve made some memories would be forgoten but one associates good times with the music we were hearing at the time, there´s also the reverse when i hear a song from the band Bush , i think it´s called if inflated or inflatable not sure makes me remenber a girl i let go but while in summer vacations it used to be on the radio played several times a day while i was camping with her, my car radio cassette player started to not play cassettes in my Lancia dedra and the 10 cd box player from sony was also stoped for two years at the time
It's better than streaming
Welcome back Kevin.
I'm still playing cassettes on an old Teac tape deck, which still sounds great and I love it. I consider it a poor man's reel to reel.
I think a lot of people got turned off off by cassettes because of cheap portable and car audio cassette players that had lots of problems and poor sound quality .. it's a different experience when you hear a cassette on a good home audio HiFi system
As always- I agree. Thanks Karen!
it´s true,i remenber wanting to buy a Teac Z-7000 but not even enough money to buy a Z-5000, maybe one of the best decks ever made, this after buying a so good Dragon deck from nakamichi that was beautifull and looked good in my system only had a problem, it lighted up but didn´t play cassettes after two monthes and a summer ,heat kills the dragon ,it shouldn´t be as they breed fire but what a waste of money
I have 111 cassettes in my collection. I still play them. I use my Sony Sports Walkman when I do yard work.
I bought the CP13 like a month ago and I've been having a blast. I still have many cassettes, most of them vinyl and cd recording. in the case of CDs, when the CD Walkman came out, I hated the fact that anything will cause the sound to skip, and on cars was even worse. I kept using cassettes of my car until the Car Cds got better and I moved to Minidiscs.
My cassettedeck is a 3 head Technics, and I have been recording Lps for comparison purponses and my recordings are like 3 times better than the same Original cassette(same album).
I used to buy most of my music in the80s on vinyl so I can had an alternative at home and the cassettes were damage easily. I don't have that many Artist cassettes, well about 100 or so, but compared to CDs I own thousands.
New to your channel, thanks a lot for taking your time to share with us all this great experiences.
Love that music at the end and I still play cassettes. Beyond the nostalgia factor of the 80s, I actually like the sound of them too.
Way back in the day I thought 8 Tracks were something, the cassettes came out and I was in wonder, then CDs came out and I was simply amazed, nowadays I simply stream from RUclips and the sound of HD, Lossless etc etc literally makes my speakers send out sweet sweet music to my ears. Forgot something - When Direct to Disc albums came out the nearly blew my mind
@ethimself5064 I Still listen to CD, Flac files and Internet radio but I do like the analogue sound of tapes too. Grew up with them in the 80s into the 90s.
@@AlexMitchell-sj4sb Then you would love Direct to Disc albums - I forget what they are called these days.
@@AlexMitchell-sj4sb they do sound better if in good condition no matter how many times were heard
@RUfromthe40s especially if you use the 80s and 90s blank cassettes like TDK, Sony etc to tape onto and use a good source and a good tape deck to record with. They sound better than a pre-recorded one.
Cassettes are fun as hell and with a mid level deck, some very high quality recordings can be made. Definitely a bit of nostalgia for me, but I enjoyed going through the process of recording a mixtape from LP. HOLY SHIT is that a labor of love.
The best part of this video, the sound of the physical cassettes being slammed into the players. The sound of my youth, I had so many XLIIs and SAs back then I can't tell you. Thanks guys.
Very cool!
I was very partial to the SA-X's myself. I still have two cars with cassette players a 95 Miata and a 69 Camaro so the tapes do get played. Both cars have cassette adapters in the glove compartments so I can listen to modern stuff too.
@@JohnReallI was a poor student when those came out, bought SAs or XLIIs whatever was cheaper when I had money.
@@JohnReall69 Camaro, awesome! It's always time for a Slow Ride, Take It Easy.
Welcome back, Kevin! The sound from that portable isn't bad, but I wonder how long it will last. I was out doing yard work today, enjoying great audio on my WM-D6C! Just kidding, I would never take that precious machine to do that. Audio from that nearly equals my KA3ES.
Glad to see you back. I had a lot of cassettes as a teenager growing up. First deck in my car in 1991 was a cassette deck of course, so all of my best cassettes spent their time in black Mustang. So you know where I'm going with this. They all got baked, big time. When I play some of them back, they just don't sound good. What I enjoy the most is going back and playing my homemade cassettes from the early 80's all the way until 1990 when I graduated high school. Just hearing the promos for the local radio stations from back in the day, some of which long have changed formats. I have picked up a few cool 80's decks over the years, but only rarely fire them up.
Thank you!
Thanks for the trip back in time. I paused the video dusted off my ROTEL RD-870 deck and hooked it up. fun fun fun.
My favorite cassette memory comes at a time that was about a year out from a nasty divorce that was still dragging me down. I was listening to country music radio, which was really just me subconsciously gravitating to sadness. I had always been a rocker. Some stupid song came on and as the tears started to well up, I decided right then, "f*ck this sh*t!" and immediately rooted around under the seat of my truck until I found my not seen in a year tape case, pulled Back in Black outta there, popped it in the player, and never looked back. It was life changing.
i was tired of ac/dc but still sometimes put to play the" dirty deeds ,need dirt cheap" , "powerage" that in cd my favorite song is missing or "cold hearted man"and "for those about to rock we salute you"and the live album "if you want blood ,you got it" sorry if some name is wrong ,but maybe 4 years ago i enter in a music store and saw the back in black album ,i had to buy it ,as mine went nowhere to be found
What I really wish a comeback like vinyl is the greatest format ever! is the Mini Disk.
Great to see you back Kevin. For us teen’s in the late 60’s & 70’s there were no portable cds, iPods or phone music players just cassettes. And to have one at home,a Walkman or in the car it was the bomb. You could have your music anywhere you wanted.
Interesting enough, Fun times reflecting back on the Casettes. I still have a handful of the classics but only for My Nostalgia. No intention to play them.
Great to see & hear you back in the game Kevin.
Guys, Thanks for the shout out. Looking forward to coming out your way.
Can't wait!
Fun video my friend. Loved it. I still love cassettes. Though vinyl is my favorite format, I still have over 1200 cassettes lol...and often times when I play them I'm extremely impressed by how great they can sound with a quality player like the Nakamichi deck. I've always said every format brings something to the table that other formats don't. So by that logic I just feel Vinyl, cds, cassettes, reel to reel, and streaming should ALL be a part of my musical world bc that is how much I love music :) lol.
Totally agree regarding the fun thing! For me it includes the whole stereo process! Too often forgotten. Thank you for posting.
I was fortunate to find a NOS head for my 1973 Teac A450 and also had my tech replace bad capacitors and transistors.It was one of the best decks of that era and sounds incredible to my ears.I enjoy watching your channel very much.
Thanks for sharing
Love this video, I'm in my 50s and still listen to cassettes 🤘 thanks guys
Glad you enjoyed it!
Welcome back, Kevin.
Having worked for Sony as a Quality Engineer, and owning 3 or 4 over the years, I can tell you those 90's top end Sony Cassette decks can hang tough with anything thrown at them and they still record and sound brilliant in a top system.
ADS L710 and L810 are to me the pinnacle of vintage speakers. They sound amazing and very non fatiguing. On the cassette side, I got the We Are Rewind player which sounds ok but the fun factor outweighs the performance. I’m 53 so cassettes were my go to for portable music as a kid.
I have L710s and L780s. ADS are still fantastic.
@@stevezeidman7224 i had the L710 ,it were conected to a SX-1050 receiver from Pioneer ,loud as hell at least in my first litle house ,the last thing i bought from ADS was a set of headphones maybe in 2009, i wasn´t a kid anymore but the 80´s was when i most recorded cassettes and still have them ,bad or not they are there and after my first divorce when i got back on my feet again i made a lot of expensive buyings , if i knew that a divorce would cost me so much i had kept her and make a living hell out of her life, not violence as i never hit a girl there are other ways of showing your unhappyness, like buying her modern synthetic fibers clothes and jewelery in her birthday from the indians that used to sell on the floor of a high movement street, in reality i bought a telephone to my bedroom but whenever the landline telephone ringed i could hear the call from my modern indian phone in my bedroom, i learned a lot about my kids life but at one point even they had a phone like mine in their bedrooms, indians from India .
Cassettes are mini time capsules. I can't believe that the ones I recorded radio programs on from the early 70's still play.
Great to see you again Kevin. I hope the airways are clear and healed. I love that you were sniffing KISS cards. Not how I would test the surgery, but to each his own!
I am still big with using cassettes.
I ordered my Fiio CP 13 in February
2024 and recently received mine
in mid May, and it seems to work
very well and construction seems
sold.
I started with cassettes back over
50byears ago when most friends
were using 8 Track.
I said cassettes were the future and
that was true, and now have returned. 😊
I'm using this fiio cp-13 less than 1 month and already have issue with play autostop - it has stopped working at all. It start curling tapes. So, tape transport mechanism is really poor. So, be careful, better to buy some used Walkman or panasonic in good condition
Kevin, a simple solution to your rack re- arranging issue : leave a slot or 2 open at the bottom of each row. When you add a new one you only have to move a part of that row (until you buy several more for that row).
When I maxed out a row then I would re- arrange the whole thing (leaving 2 spaces).
Glad to see you back !
Sold all my tapes in a yard sale years ago. Kinda of regretting it now. Great video, glad you're back.
Kevin, it's nice to see you back in good health. I am glad you have now gotten the Cassette drift. Audio cassettes are not about the sound quality, although there are some later (1990's) good-quality tapes (Type 2 [chrome], ferro-chrome, and metallic). Unfortunately, those good-quality tapes go for a premium price on eBay. Nostalgia also cannot explain it because the younger generation getting into it has never experienced listening to audio cassette tapes before. I think curiosity, peer pressure, and the physicality of the media, as was shared by one of your followers in the UK, (there are a lot of things about Gen Z that we, the Gen X, cannot explain). With regard to peer pressure, their favorite artists, like Taylor Swift, e.t.c., are using it to sell their music. Cassettes have also been featured in some movies. With regard to another physical form of media, I have seen some RUclips videos and pictures online of people taking pride in collecting albums on CD, vinyl, and cassette tape. There are lots of speculation as to why cassettes are on the surge... but for my case, I collected them for nostalgia, cheap, curiosity, and just incase the resurgence in sales can get me a extra buck we I let go of what I do not like lol... Yeah, getting the tape decks fixed is a nightmare... Have a blessed week...
How do you pass up something for 79 cents? lol....that is me.
Love it. It is all about the fun and not about a single format, single system, or single set of speakers, etc. Different music formats are kind of like experiencing the same food at a different restaurant or recipe. As it has been once said, "variety is the spice of life."
I have enjoyed cassettes for the last 50 years and I now have a refurbished JVC DD-7. I get a kick out of people who visit when I have a tape playing and they're shocked when I tell them that they are listening to a cassette. You get out whatever you put into it, no matter the purpose or audience.
A well recorded cassette in good condition on a great deck can sound awesome. Beat up cassettes just like beat up vinyl and scratched CDs sound poor. The quality of the original recording and manufacturing matters. It varies with all 3 media.
Kevin, the best vintage walkman-type players from the '80s approach the sound quality of the best home-audio decks. However, getting those personal cassette players restored to original specs is harder than with home-audio decks. Cassettes have a seductive appeal: no record-cleaning ritual before each play, smaller than compact discs, fun to handle. Sound quality ranges between mediocre and jaw-droppingly superlative. It's fun to see you and others discovering cassettes as a secondary audio playback format. You need to watch "Cassette: A Mixtape Documentary" featuring the pioneer of the cassette format, the late Lou Ottens.
I'll watch it for sure!
Thank you for introducing me to Dust Follows. I love guitar-based music and now have Condor on my play list. Welcome back Kevin and cheers!
I have such fond memories of making mixed tapes on my Sony ES deck in the early 90s. Kevin, I'm sure you enjoyed that part of the High Fidelity movie!
I still have over 100 cassettes that I recorded years ago and have not listened to them in years. I picked up a Marantz PMD 510 Pro deck for 10.00 at a Church garage sale. It works great. I have tons of great music and it has been great rediscovering all this music I recorded years ago.
Great video, one of my favorites. I grew up in 80s and had a Walkman 3. It sounded great for the times. While I have decks, (including CT-F 9191 in video and Onkyo TX-2800 3 head deck). While I still have my tapes recorded in 80s and enjoy them on today. They bring me back to the "those were the days", I played tapes and my 13 year old son said "why would you want to go through all the trouble when spotify sounds so much better through the Iphone. I get the nostalgic value emphasized in your video entirely. When I get excited about running to the Sam Goody and/or Tower records, buying LPS and 45s and making mix tapes, he says, I guess I understand but indicates wish I could experience what you did.
Kevin, this indeed was a lot of FUN. When I bought my 1987 BMW 635csi (back in early 2000's) it had an Alpine tape deck. Bought a case and loaded it up w 20 + cassettes, many of which I owned as a kid. Flash forward to couple years later, someone broke into it but left a crowbar (guess they got interrupted). Responding officer asked what was missing... Just the case with all my cassettes ! Just never know where you'll find someone into vintage audio. Owned that Sony ES line up once, great deck.
Welcome back brother! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!🎧🙏🏻
Great to see you back, Kevin.
Now and then I will still take out the Toshiba KT-4066 portable cassette player I bought in 1986 or the Aiwa HS-J470 I bought in 1990 (with record!), or even one of the hundred or so 80s boomboxes around here, just to play a cassette for nostalgia.
Like you stated, they don't sound the best, but it was from a fun era (teenage / high school years) of life.
Lol! Kiss cards have that smell, just like my old Batman TV show cards(!) because they did have thoae flat, sheets if bubble gum in them. Good memories.
Great to see you back at work. I have multiple versions of the same CD and it’s no crime. Rock on and be well!
Thanks for the shout out guys.
Fun video, Kevin. As an ADS guy, I loved those Brauns. I’m a 70 year old guy that look back at cassette as fun and at the time freeing me from the tyranny of LPs 😂. You could push the levels on TDK/SA tape turn on the DBX in front of it and it sounded pretty darn good.
Very happy to see, and hear you, bro. Glad you're pretty much recovered. Take care....
Good to see you back! In a similar vein was talking about minidiscs with a pal the other day. The first time we met in 1997 we ended up getting ridiculously stoned to Tricky - Maxinquaye. As far as Google is concerned this release doesn't exist (it does). That's a format that definitely isn't coming back.
Love your channel! Came across one of your videos a few weeks ago and have been binge watching all I can…love it!
What began my nostalgic dive back into cassette tapes is coming across an old Panasonic boombox like I had when I was a teenager.
Since then I have purchased a couple of 80’s tape decks and have been playing tapes every day on my vintage stereos.
It is purely nostalgia and fun. I do love the sound of a cassette.
I didn’t have a turntable, only my boombox . So I played nothing but tapes.
Loved the video!
Definitely high-fi if done right. Some people store their tapes improperly, don't clean the tape path, use crappy blank tapes, and then complain how bad the format sounds. Prerecorded tape quality can significantly vary. However, a good blank cassette like the Sony TC-K 870 ES can be an amazing cassette deck experience. Cassette Decks overall started getting better and better starting in the late 70s and early 80s and reached their sound quality peak in the mid 90s.
Love the fact you didn't pick ADS but Braun. Move of a 'connoisseur'. Best of luck.
Eric and Rob did a much better job last week. HaHa, just kidding! Welcome back Kevin! I look forward to your videos every Sunday. Everyone at Skylabs does a great job.
Good to see you back, Kev! I absolutely love cassettes, spent many years buying them up as a cheaper alternative to vinyl, including unopened from Poland and Asia, as they were sold longer there. A lot of popular older music has skyrocketed as theyve become hip again. However, new cassettes arent super pricey and a lot of indie bands are releasing new tapes. Ive bought All Them Witches, Ruth Rich, Say She She, and a ton of Graveface Records artists new on cassette for $8-$10. Love them!
Hey Kevin. The past couple of videos have been on the fuzzy side and had me cleaning my glasses, not real bad though. Glad your back after surgery and the guys did a good job.
Old guy what used to be St. Pete but now Florence SC
Recording my own mix tapes for cruisin' was really a thing! I am happy that I grew up during that time and experienced it. I still have a few TDK SA90's on the shelf with titles like "Cosmic Explosions" haha. Good times. Cheers!
Not sure if anyone has ever felt an audio orgasm, but wow. I purchased an old set of Bose TriPort Headphones on Amazon, popped in my Moody Blues (Other Side of Life Cassette) and jacked into my FIIO CP13. OMFG. I never experienced such an amazing distribution of sound from my all-time favorite band on a cassette player. This wouldn’t have been possible without the FIIO and Bose headset. Strike me for whatever you want, but even my high-end phones don’t produce this amazing sound. To much base, etc. … Sometimes old school is still the best.
Cassettes played an important part in audio history. If you think of them as miniaturized reel-to-reel tape decks, then some of the comments I am making become more clear. Studio machines ran at either 15 or 30 inches per second (ips) so they essentially had high bandwidth. If one owned a reel-to-reel machine, it likely had three speeds, 7.5 ips, 3.75 ips, and 1 7/8 ips. As the tape speed decreased, so did the fidelity of the recording and playback, and his became a bigger problem.
Although the cassette started out more for dictation and other spoken word uses, there was interest in making it a viable choice for music. However, the tape speed was a problem, as was the issue of cramming stereo channels onto a much smaller tape head, which also brought up the issue of tape alignment across the tape head, particularly since different brands of cassettes varied in the quality of construction and how good the design of the pressure pad was that kept the tape against the head.
Luckily, technology improved on the mechanisms, Dolby Labs worked out the Dolby B (and later, Dolby C) standard for reducing tape his, the industry developed chrome tape, all great innovations in the industry.
For all of that, cassettes were best used as a niche product for small portable players (I still remember when the Walkman came out) and for car stereos, where the highest fidelity and lowest noise weren't really an issue. Cassettes were inherently a better technology than the 8 track tape, more reliable, plus you could buy a record to enjoy at home and make your own tape for your car, so the ongoing development of the cassette hastened the demise of the 8 track format.
My guess is that the new portable you took out of the box was competitive in part because there wasn't any head wear on the new portable, whereas the deck probably has at least some, given its age. As far as whether someone younger would use the portable over a tiny streaming device, the difference in sound quality would not likely to be noticeable when mowing a lawn, even with an electric mower and noise cancellation headphones. It would likely come down to the availability of desirable music.
For those against tapes. Here are the reasons why I have tape decks:
- I can listen to my old tapes that I still have from the early 80s (some of which I have not duplicated with Vinyl, CD, and can't stream or I would have to pay to stream).
- I still find cassettes at thrift stores, estate sales, etc. They cost from nothing to $1. That gives me the opportunity to try and own something that I have never heard of or wouldn't want to pay much to own (for the same reason I buy scratchy $1 vinyl records). If it turns out that I like that music then I can still buy a better copy or stream it. I might not have ever tried it out otherwise. I love discovering new to me music.
- It's pretty easy to make a mix tape music from any of the other sources I have (vinyl, CD, other tapes). Sure, you could probably do that through your computer but it's a heck of a lot easier just to press record on your stereo system without getting a computer out.
- There are a lot of fun oddball things still found on tape on the used market (books on tape, old radio shows, etc.). I got my son into reading by listening to the first several series of Harry Potter on tape that I found at Goodwill. We listened to it on a road trip.
Great to see you. 👀
The previous video was interesting and the guys should return once in while for more technical questions and info.
You all do a great job. 👍
I just received my FiiO this week and I love it. You are right on the mark concerning the “quality” of the sound but who cares. It is major fun! I am going to dig out my old recording deck and start making mix tapes - something I haven’t done since college.
Thanks for sharing!
Glad to have you back Kevin. Fun video!
Glad to see Kevin is back in good shape and with a brand new nose!
I hope your recovery wasn't too bad Kevin.
Eric did a great job holding the fort while you were off.
I have quite a bunch of cassette tapes (over 100) and quite a lot of decks too (maybe 11 and 2 walkmans, some needs work)
Yes sound quality is not the greatest but it has one major thing: some albums you can't find on vinyl or they cost an arm and a leg and there you have the cassette for like less than a buck (I bought many of mine at $0.15 or $0.50 at the thrift store, some I bought back when they came out). Not all of them are available on CD or streaming...
I don't have to mow the lawn but one thing for sure, people will take their phone, a pair of bluetooth noise cancelling headphones instead of a walkman with a wired heaphones (even if it's IEM) as it will be much more convenient
But lounging on a patio, with a book and/or a drink, that would work (it would be much better than a mono bluetooth speaker IMO)
Thank you for watching and the feedback!
Wow Kevin what a great video you got me digging out my cassette cases I found them in the basement boxed up omg I have at least 135 of them about half of them are ones I recorded. So again I pulled out my 90s Sony deck barely used hooked it up to my ole reliable Sansui AU-717 and started to listen to them actually they sounded pretty darn good even the ones I recorded one being Aja on a Fuji chrome tape it really sounded great for being recorded in 1977 I put the date on the tape pretty shocked at how well they have survived this long I figured there would be massive dropouts but to my surprise there wasn't any.
Anyway as always great content Kevin!!! Keep it up
Thank you! Hope you have a great day of listening!
I saw all the videos that you mentioned starting with Randy's. Here's the thing for me Kevin. Sound quality is not my top priority even though l appreciate it when l hear it. I lave a LOT of wicked cool vintage gear including many cool and high end cassette decks. I have my Walkman from college and a deck in my car. My point is besides the sentimentality and the looks/build quality of the stuff...mostly l love 'playing' with it! Watching the meters/lights, turning the knobs, flicking the switches ect. Real fun!!!
Welcome Back Kevin! Cassettes are fun and I have several decks and walkmans . I wonder if a Sony Walkman vs this new portable makes a big difference
Kevin, are you aware of the sometimes better than CD quality cassettes that can be made with a good cassette deck recording HD streaming music sources to a good chrome tape? Simply awesome and tons of fun to have quick access to high quality current music.
I'm sorry...but there really is no such thing as "better than cd" with ANY form of cassette. Just sayin.
@Jeff. Have you recorded streaming music from a Bluesound Node on a rebuilt to factory spec Nakamichi Dragon? Just saying.
When I used to clean my parents home as a teenager for some extra bucks, I used to wear my Sony WM-11 Walkman (still working perfectly after all these years) and some headphones and play the 'Apocalypse Now' soundtrack complete with most of the dialogue, sound effects, and music from the movie while I was vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, etc.
In fact, by the time the Wagner 'Ride of the Valkyries' Huey helicopter sequence was playing, I was vacuuming and imagining waging war on dust mites in the carpet fibres. Haha! ;)
You mention that VSX - D1s in some of your other videos. They are definitely not a BPC. Got one in my collection and think it pretty darn cool. Glad to see you giving it a nod up.
Welcome back!
As for the Sony model number...it really isn't all that complicated. All Sony tape machines were "TC" xxxxx. And the ES line of equipment all end in ES. So, really, we're just needing to keep track of the K870 part. To ding them for the rest would be like dinging Pioneer because all of their cassette machines started with CT. The FXXXx would let you know, more or less what they were going to look like. The CT-F9191 is going to be a silver faced machine from that era...just like the CT-F1250, or CT-F500...etc.
Onto the FiiO. It wouldn't be for me but that's fine too. The story really hasn't been written on it in that we don't know how well it is going to hold up...when will it start eating tapes...how fast does it degrade over time...etc. It isn't starting from a very good place. Even with your conversion and making through what all RUclips does to the sound, its poor sounding performance is apparent. It doesn't have the various NRs so there wouldn't be any enjoyment from my cassette collection (of the era...I'm not making anything now but Dolby B was on about 95% of my tapes with Dolby C on the balance).
I wouldn't want to hear flutter and a speed/pitch issue would drive me nuts because I've listened to these tunes for decades...I know what they should sound like. Back in the day, when radio stations would speed up the music to get more commercial time, it would drive me nuts. The pickins' are so slim on tape transports/heads it is bound to be compromised and your demo sort of proved it. If the threshold for its viability is that it makes sound...then that is a pretty low threshold.
If it makes people happy then I'm all for it. It just isn't for me.
Glad you are back up on your feet for another fun one! Knowing a little about ADS, those Braun speakers are probably top notch.
I have Braun L610 and even those are incredible, for closed baffle they go really deep and sound and measure like a dream
First and foremost, it is great to see you up and around. The situation at hand is, what truly IS the FiiO ? Let's be honest, it is in reality a current production version of a Sony Walkman. If you could still find a Sony in REALLY GOOD shape, I bet you might very well measure the same amount of wow and flutter in it, as you did with the FiiO. As with our Sony Walkmans, all we really cared about was the portability factor of being able to take our "cool tunes" with us on the bus/plane/train. NEITHER of these portables were intended to be "quality audio". They were, as you said, fun. On the component side of things, the cassette format lent itself to be taken MUCH further than its predecessor the eight-track. High-end cassette decks progressed to "dual capstans", just like reel-to-reels did. And pre-recorded cassettes even went "high-end". Mobile Fidelity (way before "MOFI-Gate"), even sold cassettes recorded just like their records, from the original master analog tapes. Somewhere in my piles of "stuff", I actually have a MoFi copy of Steely Dan. Like your Sony, I do still have my really nice JVC cassette deck. Back to the FiiO, for a hundred bucks, I'll probably snag one of these, just for the hell of it. Glad you're healed up.... Rip
Thank, Rip!
I am with you basically on everything you said in this video. I got out of cassettes completely in the late 90s other than a few from my favorite bands. I recently found a very good condition Denon DRS 810 (loads like a CD) and it blew me away! Very low wah/flutter and great treble response, which is something alot of lower end decks fail to represent.
Just my 2 cents worth. I have about 100 prerecorded tapes still left, some got "eaten" by other cassette players (car, portables). I have a dual well deck that I record music from records, mostly compilations that I play when doing work around the house and for "background" when we have guests over. About 3 hours of music that I don't have to worry with (flipping a record over or putting another one on or CD). Usually with guest over they'll hear something they like and the usual "turn that up" or "start that from the beginning". Very enjoyable to not have to not worry with deciding what next to play or be interrupted. Makes life easy for me. And yes, I'm an old dinosaur that doesn't like "streaming" music from digital sources.
I had kept 1 cassette from the day. It was one I recorded. Then when I got another used car 5 years ago, It had a cassette and CD player. The tape sounded great. About a year ago I bought 20 cassettes for $20.00. They had carrying cases. I love them in the car. Sound better than my CDs.
I got more info from that than any other podcast. Not having spent a lot of time with tapes that isn't even something I would have considered. CDs were on the horizon already when I very first started taking in music. So I only had a couple years with tapes.
That Sony deck looks really nice. Anything with an "ES" suffix usually meant higher build quality over non-ES units. It's a 3-head deck with Dolby HX-Pro, so it ought to make great-sounding mix tapes! I don't see where it has automatic bias, though -- the one feature that usually made an audible difference. While I usually preferred Sony products to Pioneer, the Pioneer CT-9R 3-head deck (1981) with automatic bias was just outstanding. I always ran the auto-bias setup ["Auto BLE"] before starting to record a new tape. You hit a button & the deck would start the tape in "record," send signals onto the tape, pick them back up as recorded, make real-time adjustments, then rewind the tape back to its starting position, all in a matter of about 8 seconds. It was probably the best-sounding deck I ever owned.
P.S. I went to look at other user reactions -- I'm not sure I would recommend searching out a used CT-9R. Seems they are tempermental to keep working and are difficult to repair. That's too bad. The next year's model [CT-90R] also had the Auto BLE setup, but in a more conventional-looking physical layout. Not sure if it shared the same bugaboos.
But just about any decent, more conventionally-built 70s deck would be fine, if all you want to do is play tapes you already have.
Mix tapes were the best! I did the same with CD's, but not as much. I still have all my tapes, and most were home-made from LPs and CDs.
NS-10
They were used in studio as a reference for "ordinary" speakers, the idea being that if it sound right with those, it will sound great with any speakers.
Hilarious. Great fun. Thanks!
Still wish mini discs would come back. They are a great format that was just a few years ahead of its time. I have a couple of full-size player/recorders along with several portable units, and they all still work great. I have a number of mix-discs (if that's what you call them), and I just use an audio jack to play them in my car.
Okay...I have seen the video made by the Cheap Audio Man on this and if anyone else saw that, you will see he got a lot of hate comments on it and I think the main reason why was his title in which he touted that cassettes are making a comeback for Hi-Fi. The problem is that putting the words cassettes and hi-fi together in the same sentence will cause some outcries. Sadly, I am not going to sugarcoat things and, yes, I am one that is against cassettes, despite the nostalgia factor. I AM in the above 45 category and was around when cassettes were the dominate recording medium. Back then they did have their advantages, mainly of being a highly portable, recordable medium that was relatively inexpensive. The alternative would be open reel decks, of which were not portable, and definitely not inexpensive, but they did sound a helluva lot better. Making mixed tapes for friends was a big thing, and so was recording songs off the radio. But the downsides of cassettes was something I had struggled with back in the day and I will never forget those struggles. It was VERY hard to get hi-fi sound out of cassettes. The slow speed meant lots of hiss, which could be counteracted by the various noise reduction systems that were out, but they weren't infallible either. In fact many didn't work well going across machines. The better noise reduction systems worked best recording and playing back on the same deck, only. Only Dolby B seemed to be OK with going between machines. But hiss was only one problem. Unless you bought a good deck, you had wow and flutter to deal with. So, if you had a good deck, the problems didn't stop there. Many times it was the cassette itself and how it was constructed that led to revealing it's limitations. Then regardless of quality, you had issues with the tape aging, such as the high frequencies dropping in and out, or you get total audio dropouts. Storage was always an issue because if you got the tapes anywhere near a magnet, there goes your high end as it would partially erase the tape. So setting up your tape deck next to speakers was always a bad idea.
I can go on and on of the struggles I had and even with having a special tape deck with dual capstan drives and metal cassettes, I never could get a tape to sound anywhere near like a CD. Then the Sony Mini-disk was released and that was "The Savior". Finally there was a recordable, and portable format that didn't have anywhere near the problems cassettes had. Gone was the hiss, wow and flutter, and noise reduction systems. Discs could finally be moved from one unit to another and SOUND THE SAME! While it wasn't CD quality and some might argue that the compression schemes may not be considered hi-fi, it was still a vastly superior format. Sadly, the Mini-Disc really didn't fully catch on, or perhaps it was a little to late when MP3 players were released and changed things for reordable / portable audio again.
So, yeah, I guess wanting to revisit one's childhood and play around with some cassettes might be something someone is interested in, I really don't think there will be enough interest like there is with vinyl for a full on comeback. If anything, I would rather see the Mini-Disc come back. Or I would rather revisit reel to reels, but I know that is very expensive. I do admit that I have held on to a few portable reel to reel units and I rather use those for a nostalgic trip than cassettes.
Finally, during the sound tests, the Fiio unit is clearly lacking, sound wise. The Sony sounded OK, but when the Fiio unit was played, it was like someone tossed a towel over my speakers. Then there was the HIGHLY audible wow and flutter. Granted, I understand that these units are among the few portable cassette unit's being produced today, but for $100? I think that is a bit much, even for nostalgia reasons. I think that unit should sell for around $40 and no more. For $100, I think I would rather buy a portable reel to reel player and it would sound better too. Also for around $100, I think one would be better off with getting one of the portable recording Sony Walkmans they put out. Yes, they probably have to be serviced, have the belts replaced and the heads cleaned, but I think they would outperform the Fiio unit and having the recording ability probably would add to the nostalgic factor.
But I digress, this is just my opinion on using cassettes in this day and age. For recordable portable medium, I am fine with an MP3 player. Cassettes were too much of a struggle to get decent sound out of and I am good with the format going the way of the Dodo bird.
Definitely gonna be a fun one
I always made mix tapes off my friends records or the radio. Could never afford the music industries products.That is why I loved walkmans and other portable players. I was the DJ and the sound quality was decent for me, still to this day.
I vividly remember the KISS trading cards! Every week we would walk to a convenient store called “The Pantry,” to buy packs!🎧
Have several vintage cassette decks, some in near perfect condition, and some in need of attention. Best are Nakamichi R202, Pioneer CT-F1250, CT-F9191, CT-F900. Also really like a small Sony drawer type deck but don't recall model number. Hopefully cassettes will revive or at least be with us for some time to come!
Welcome back!
I have a dual Marantz Cassette Deck and single MCS Cassette Deck. 50 something Cassettes. I rarely play them. I buy them more for decoration like you said.
I just bought a cassette deck at Goodwill. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Anyway, great video and thanks for introducing Dust Follows to us.
The Fiio's speed and w/f will improve as the motor and mechanism get some hours. The Sony is a fantastic deck. Just make sure you use it regularly. I have a Sony TC K333esj with Dolby S and love it.
Yeah I'm familiar with bran I have a amplifier and a CD player someone threw away they both work sound good thanks for the video I'm screwed I'm addicted to cassettes I think I got about 4,000 I've been collecting cassette tapes since 1966 and I'm oldSome of those old high and decks sounded great have a great day I'll keep watching
I do have the Braun 1002 speakers. They do sound very good for the size and age. Only question I have, does the crossover need new caps, since mine don't seem to play to high on detail, but sound rather laid back? Many people say that the ADS speaker are usually pretty detailed.
Cassettes a such a vibe. I enjoy recording hi-res tracks from Qobuz to my Yamaha K-850 and run that through a pioneer RG1 to my pioneer sx-838 and out to klipsch kg4s. Some of the tracks I purchased never got a physical release so its nice to make my own!
Very cool!
The Sound Quality of New Cassettes are not Good compared to the Older pre recorded tapes. Mainly due to the Quality of the actual tape, due to regulation of manufacturing. Also most New Cassettes aren't recorded with Dolby. The older Tapes recorded with Dolby and Played in a Quality machine like your Sony that decodes properly Sound Awesome. The new portable is a pretty cool unit, but for me the only Cassettes I listen to are at home. Just because on my Pioneer CT-A9X all dialed in, the older 80s and 90s Tapes can sound dang near CD Quality, not CD quality but amazing!
Great Video, Glad you're feeling better!
Thank you!
i know a lot of people still using that deck ,never heard of having problems in makin`it work, i had the litle CT-F2121 that still looks and works as new today but my grandfather that year in the christmas gave me a CT-F1000 is still today a excelent deck if well mantained as my first receiver also from pioneer late 60´s model and phillips speakers that look so bad but incredible how good they sound today as my second reel to reel deck a akai X-165D from 1970 catalog crossfield something still plays and records today, for my surprise better than most of the cassette decks using only ferric tapes and a PL-51 turntable that looks and works as new
It is tempting for me to go with the Fiio simply to listen to some live tapes I bought in a collection a couple years ago. But I'll just hook up one of my cheap decks in the garage for that. I have a quality Fiio portable dap and that thing has awesome audio, so I am familiar with their build. I am like you, never had any use for cassettes lately (last 40 years) with the advent of digital. I still use my Technics RS-BR465 which I was given new for xmas in 87 I think, but it is only used for archiving for customers and usually a demo tape like you had mentioned with your early band....lots of these floating out there.
Btw i take the channel seriously enough! : ) I got a subwoofer following the advice to try it out. Very happy I did.
Good to hear!
Why did the record store hire a contractor? Because too many customers kept asking for "vinyls," and they thought they needed new flooring!
It would be cool if Fiio implements a switch to toggle between line out and headphone in their next player.
Sony did this with their portable Minidisc players, allowing them to deliver perfect audio levels for their respective use case.
I found my old box of cassettes in the attic a couple of months ago and ended up buying a Denon dcd400 deck from a pawn shop for 50 bucks and after a bit of clean and lube it works great so I can listen to my old mixed tapes and album copies that I made on my long since dead and gone Nakamichi 481 which cost me about $800 Canadian dollars back in the early 80's. They sound pretty good on my garage system .
You've got a really good Sony deck there. Tapes can sound very good on a good chrome or metal tape recorded from a good source (Vinyl or TR24). They will sound a lot better then these pre-recorded tapes. Cassette tapes are still fun today.
Still play my cassette’s from time to time.
I need to it out my old Sony Sports Walkman and see if it still works. 😀🇨🇦
Those Brauns are awesome, Alot of us were totally thrown off by that ( non dome ) mid but yup its original!!! Good lookin speakers!
That Pioneer cassette that you showed is that a 3 head I'm looking for one it kind of matches mySX1080