Agfa Type 1 & Type 2 Chrome Cassettes - Germany's other big brand
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- A lot of you asked for it, so here it is, a video on some Agfa cassettes. There's a bit of cassette "surgery" in this one too.
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AGFA Ferrocolor tapes were very popular in USSR in early 1980's.
Your SR-(X)S are from 1989-90 gen, one of the latest series.
I like factory mistakes. Once I got Sony EF90 with two J-cards in case)
ChevyCaprice90 The funniest factory mistake for me was TDK D-90 with metal tape in it. I wonder how many of those are out there.
Shadow Flash Wow... you mean like a type I wrapping with a metal cassette or a type I wrapping, type I shell and labels etc but with metal tape inside?
Exactly. I still have one. I bought two sometimes back in 1984 in Moscow. 9 roubles a piece, the asme as for other entry-level ferrics sold in the USSR in early 1980s. Still performs good.
Hi Tony! First of all, take care. I have some AGFA Fe I from the mid 80’ and they preform very well. About the pressure pad: a tiny dab of contact cement on the spring is the way to fix it (just make sure you attach the correct side of the pad...). I bought a bunch of prerecorded tapes from Ebay and almost 40% had the felt pad falling off. and I fixed all of them that way. Best Regards, Moshe.
10:54 - "for pens that don't exist" - so true!
Nice to finally see something about these tapes! Also I work in the food industry so thank you for saying that at the end that's exactly what i've been telling people!!
Thanks! Finaly! That's what i've been waiting for so long. Thank you so much! As allways great video. Thak you also for giving the old Agfa cr tape a second chance, it was worth it. Get well and stay healthy, we need you.
4:58 - I got one of these Ferocolor HD cassettes. I bought two of these in Moscow, Russia in 1984, these tapes were one of so-called 9-rouble tapes, purchased by Soviet Government these times. I am still getting good results with this tape. I have tried to record on it few days ago on my Soviet-made deck, I was happy with the recording quality. Nice entry level ferric/ Well, how are you these days with this new virus and quarantine? Even though Russia doesn't suffer such a huge numbers of sick people yet, we are all on self insulation. In Moscow Region, where I live currently, 903 people totally got sick since March, 182 new cases for today. Mocsow is leading this sad statistics, about 9000 sick since March. I had suspended watching all entertainment videos to keep Great Lent until Easter (April 19 in Eastern Orthodox Church), but I would like to say some words of support for you and other people of Great Britain these hard days, hope we'll pray together and get through these troubles together. Hope you and all your subscribers are Ok. 13:27 - shell looks similar to Russian-made ECP UF tapes, and since AGFA in 90's was owned by BASF, and BASF sold some technologies and equipment to the ECP plant in Siberia, similar (probably the same) shell was used in the ECP UF, you had review on those recently.
Personally all the people I care about are ok, so let's hope this works and we can enjoy the summer. All the best to you too.
I used to get those Ferrocolor tapes from the local 24hr garage back in the 80's and record Spectrum games on them! I never really liked them for music but my equipment back then was hardly "Hifi". They were cheap and cheerful!
Finally my long time request! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! AGFA is certainly my favourite brand, they made the best cassettes in my opinion, even a little bit better than BASF. And from over here, the Stereochrome sounded excellent, apart from the wow and flutter. Luckily, my early 1980´s Agfa Chrome´s sound superb. Definately a question of storage!
A new 45 minute video from Cassette Comeback!, yes! Massive nostalgia on this one, lots of Agfa tapes around when younger, had no idea they were actually any good! Keep em coming!
I have used Agfa tapes before, and they were great for the job. I have recently seen on ebay an Audio Magnetics cassette tape still in the wrapping and on sale from the USA.
Neeeeeeerd!... love you brother! Thanks for looking into all this. Liked subscribed. Can't wait to see more.
F-DXI is an amazing tape. I recorded an Alice in Chains album to it +2 - +4 no dropouts and sounded fantastic. It's quite mind blowing that in 2020 I'm able to record to a cassette 33 years old and for it to sound soo good. Being able to buy them as if its 1987 and they are brand new is all part of the experience too.
That's part of the magic copying a file hasn't got
Tony: "Oh, incidentally, Nagaoka tape winder. Vintage. No, I don't know where you can get one."
Nearly pissed myself. So funny.
Thanks for all the cassette goodness. Enjoy watching from here in Newfoundland.
that was a rehearsed act. As if owning one of those was something special.
Great video.
These cassettes come from an era Agfa was actually already half Belgium, being full named Agfa-Gevaert after are big merge in the 1960s, when they got their headquarters near Antwerp. This was a HQ brand! As a matter of fact the rump of this big company, that still is in business today, makes all sort of medical equipment. Just to show what a rigourous development and quality control went into their cassette formulations. these folks knew what they were doing and they took great pride out of it.
Vivid memory of my dad having one of the blue LNX's with A Whiter Shade Of Pale playing on it
Excellent episode, highlight of the day at home!
Yet another intetesting vid. Hope your cold gets better soon. I love unwrapping new tapes- something theraputic about it.
I was more familiar with AGFA for their film, my mom let me use her old AGFA camera when I took a photography class in high school and I was buying AGFA film as well when that was still possible.
I find dolby drowns the sound, I personally don't use it, great video 👍
That's if your deck isn't properly calibrated. Sometimes the dolby isn't calibrated right.
Dolby is trashed if the azimuth is off in the tiniest amount.
An additional note about Dolby it increases the high frequencies during the recording and significantly lowers the treble response during playback and it does this actively. So it is crucial to have optimized azimuth alignment and a tape head that isn't worn out as either one or both destroys the effectiveness of what Dolby noise reduction does.
AGFA LNX in blue packaging was produced in the years 1989 to 1991, Ferrocolor HD with black sticker in 1982 - 85. FDXI 1987-89, SR-XS 1989-91
The 1989-91 LNX looks like this: agfabasf.com/images/content/img12118.jpg The LNX in this video was sold in that design 1983-89. And you're right with all the others.
@@kiirunavaara I watched the movie on a small screen so I could miss the details.
I never understood why BASF and AGFA back then used SM technology in their cassettes; I find that SM tends to be intrusive and may actually damage the tape after a while (much like auto head cleaners in modern VCR's).
"may actually damage the tape after a while" - you answered your own question, aka corporate greed basf was a mix of great and amazing people at the engineering and production level but from what i read really really shady executives.. imagine if that SM caught on and cassettes lasted far less, perhaps the SM wasn't effective enough at damaging cassettes over time and so they didn't bother, all speculation of course.
SR-S is indeed a single layer FeCo tape, while SR-XS is a doble layer CrO2. We (some German fellows) are investigating on who made which, and there are hints that SR-S could be Maxell tape (UD II or XL II), while SR-XS is most likely Agfa's own formulation, even though very similar to contemporary BASF Chrome Super/Maxima.
BASF and Agfa were merged into BASF Magnetics in 1991, and all tapes bearing the Agfa logotype are from before that. Concerning the hubs, it was the other way round, that BASF started making part of their hubs on Agfa's old tooling from 1991 onwards.
That poor Stereochrom tape in the video suffered from deformed hubs. You can see that they are not moving "round" when playing in your Revox; the tape pack has a distinctive bump on its outside. This is a common issue with Agfa hubs of that age. The smoother Maxell slip sheets helped the tape to move just easy enough to eliminate the audible w&f, but it was still noticeable that the tape pack had an issue when you were fast winding it. Replacing the hubs with the better ones from the Maxell tape and then winding through the tape completely would have eliminated the w&f without changing the slip sheets - that is, as long as the tape itself hasn't been deformed due to sitting tightly packed on the faulty supply hub for years, going throug temperature changes...
Thanks as always for your insight 👍
God Bless! Thanks for putting this up! I can't get AGFA in the States. They made a lot Reel To Reel also. Feel Better Mate.
It's a shame they gave up on the consumer market here. I used to see their stuff all over.
Hi Tony, great video as always! The mic sounds fine to me. Stay safe!
Good old Agfas :)
Beautiful Tapes, but most of mine have massive dropouts.
Absolutely right. We used to replicate tapes, and we filled up a lot of them with either Agfa or BASF pancakes. Again, once done with bias and levels, they were quite good, both of them. The only thing why I hated them was because on those tape replicators, adjust bias / rec sensitivity meant to re calibrate the whole array of recorders one by one...
Yeah. How many modern duplicators do you think so that now a days?
Thanks for the video.... however, I don't think that the chosen music samples showed the tapes to their best/worst! Those tracks sounded rather 'muddy' with little high frequency - typical 70's rock LP sound.
I've always found that on Japanese tape decks that AGFA and BASF sound 'dull'.... using this type of music just emphasised how dull these tapes can be. I know European tapes were biased more for the European decks:- Dual, Tandberg, etc..... and Japanese tapes were biased more for the Technics, Aiwa, Sony, Nakamichi TEAC decks - TDK especially, from what I found. I loved the TDK SA range. I didn't like the AGFA or BASF tapes; they always made me want to check the heads and clean them!!
And this was with taping more 80's music with better recording techniques and higher frequency ranges overall....
Anyway... look after yourself, take care, and look forward to more videos... :-)
That's why I used the Revox. I usually use electronic or dance music, but then people were saying "why don't you use one with real instruments" so I did. I can't win with music choices 😀
Your english makes my day
Your mic sounds better on this video. The only AGFA tapes I have are some early 70's normal bias in red shells that I bought used years ago. I cant remember seeing any of those tapes here for sale in the USA.
I had expended a lot of money in those cassettes in the 80s and 90s and the only thing I have to say is, don't use them if you don´t have a really good cassette deck with advanced features like bias and record level calibration. If you record them on a cheap cassette player or on an entry level cassette deck they will sound dull and with low output, no noise but very tiny sound. In another words, they aren´t like a Fuji or TDK that you place them on any quality recorder and they sound OK.
Hi Tony, and thanks for the greatest RUclips - channel. Covid-19 here In Finland also. All the Best To you and your loving ones.
Keep safe!
Speaking of factory defects, I once came across a Ferrocolor HD from around '86 (yea, HD in '86) with the tape on the take up reel accidentally wrapped around the top center post (you could see it suspended in the window). When I opened it, I noticed it had the same yellow waxy slip sheets. Great advice at the end. Stay safe.
Just noticed something weird - the SR-XS that you opened (as stated on the wrapper and J card) actually says SR-S on the tape itself... (Okay I now realise you noticed that later!)
As for Nagaoka tape winder, some Russian cassette lovers use ... electric drill/screw driver to wind the cassettes! I saw this lifehack on the digitopMod (Crazy Hands) RUclips channel owned by Vladimir from Krasnodar, Russia. Vladimir often goes to the Krasnodar flee market to buy cassettes for REALLY chip, and very often gets good cassettes for as low as 10 Russian roubles a piece (I guess 1 UK Pound Sterlings is about 90 roubles today). Well, of cause, used ones, but most of them are still usable. He reviews these tapes and plays them on his Technics deck to figure out is there any interesting recording on them or he would use it to record over. But when I saw he is using just big electric drill-screwdriver to wind the cassettes, I had smiled at that moment. What our Russian people can invent, if we cannot get such nice things as Nagaoka tape finder. Those who can understand Russian, please see Vladimir's channel at ruclips.net/channel/UCyPy2aZ9B54kUaHLDBJkODQvideos. Electric screwdriver as cassette winder can be seen here: ruclips.net/video/UzHPPGM1hp8/видео.html
That would be brutal!
@@CassetteComeback Not really. Watch the last referenced video. It is quite small screwdriver, and he uses low speed.
15:41 That beginning was basically that hook in Yes' Roundabout but in root position hehe
A bit off-topic, but a man here in my home state of Michigan gave a deathbed confession a couple years back, admitting he was D.B. Cooper. As far as I know this hasn't been confirmed, but his recollection of events matched up with details that weren't released to the public
Hi Tony, You may have missed this knowledge, but AGFA is the company that held the patent for inventing magnetic tape. All the producers around the world paid royalties to AGFA.
I thought BASF made the first tape and Philips made the Compact Cassette. First time I've heard this....
@@CassetteComeback Isn't the Compact Cassette an envelope for magnetic tape?
In short: Magnetic tape was invented in 1934 by BASF in Ludwigshafen, in collaboration with AEG who built the first Magnetophon (tape recorder). Both Agfa and BASF were part of the I.G. Farben group, founded in 1925. After the invention, tape production activities were merely concentrated in Wolfen, which was suitable because it was the place where Agfa had started with production of photographic materials before I.G. Farben times, and there were obvious synergies between the two technologies. After WW2, the group was split up again and there were now two Agfa companies, one in Wolfen (Eastern germany) which was later to be renamed into Orwo, the other Agfa in Leverkusen (Western Germany) as part of the Bayer chemical company, which had also been part of I.G. Farben. So the tapes we know from Agfa, BASF and Orwo can all be traced back to the same company, they have a common history. But I am not sure which of the post-WW2 companies held the patents, they might even have been "exported" to the USA after the war...
Love to see your common sense approach which is clearly lacking in most places. I’ll not rant on it. Dr. Toni’s cassette hospital is now seeing patients of worth. Get yourself in line for your cassette tape in need of a bit of help! Love this one! Throw a pint for me my mate! Take good care of yourself! Ok?
Keep up the good work Tony.
@3:53 ... back in 1976, my Dad and I bought 10 of these through one of the HiFi magazines at the time. Still have some in stock, generally good tapes. Not studied them for drop-outs through, may do this later.
Кто так распечатывает кассеты?, тем более в нынешнее время! Олень ты! самый натуральный!!! Облом с кассетой AGFA-XS - зачёт!!!
im like "use the force...use the force! at 33:14
Did you notice the SR-XS shell is printed SR-S?
You haven't watched all the way to the end yet, have you fellah 😀
@@CassetteComeback Oops no, just spotted it whilst watching - shall continue...
Get well soon man
Well that’s just answered a question about Agfa, I’ve got some earlier Agfa chrome I’ve yet to use
I bought some LNX tapes around 1990 from Woolworths. Had real problems with them... There was no high frequency response on any of my (boombox/mid-range Philips midi system) decks, I assume because they needed a lot of negative bias. They also had very heavy dropout for the first minute of each side. They would not even make reliable copies of Spectrum titles.
Obviously I got a bad batch but I never went near AGFA again, which is a shame as they seem to be well remembered by everyone else.
Stereochrom…. now that brings back fond memories. I used to get excellent results with Agfa tapes back in the day.
i did like the track you played for the repaired tape,tasty guitar playing!
Audio sounds good to me 👍
Off topic, but would love to know which condenser mic you are using, and which mics you prefer for tracking vocals?
Record some Rammstein onto the Agfa SR-S . That's something good for that cassette, only if you like them. As an alternative I would suggest Kraftwerk.
Love Rammstein. I recorded their latest album on to a 1985 Maxell UDI. It handled it well...
@@CassetteComeback Well, I made a compilation of Rammstein's best songs on a RAKS SD-SX 90 cassette. I recorded the album on my new deck- Pioneer CT-S610 from 1992.
Recommend a good Type II Chrome cassette for Tascam Portastudio 4 track? I have a BASF Sound II, BASF LH Extra I and a FUJI FX II. Are the vintage Chrome cassettes better quality and also would a pre used cassette from early 80's have deteriorated somewhat over the years? Cheers.
Buy last of the line TDK SA
Agfa 1982 and Agfa Color series TOP!
The AGFA CRX might not be moldy. AGFA Chromes and Ferrochromes of the late 70s/early 80s can develop a glittery white residue buildup, likely loss of lubrication like on late 80s/early 90s TDK metals. At least, I don't think mold glitters!
Could be, I just couldn't be bothered cleaning such an old and cheap tape.
I work in a Designated Essential Industry (food retail, and sales are VERY GOOD, thank you) so no extra taping time for me. Shame, as I have plenty of tapes I want to try out - including an AGFA LNX-60 I got recently. But hey ho, plenty of money coming in, even if I have nowhere to spend it. Plenty of food down at my shop too. Even got in TWO cases of quinoa today! Keep occupied, Tony, and hope to see another video from you soon.
Keep helping the rest of us fellah and stay safe. I think when this is all over, I'm going to have to get the train across and we have some beers.
@@CassetteComeback I'll be fine. I'll carry on fillin' them shelves and drinkin' that whisky when I get home. And OF COURSE liking RUclips videos on my day off.
I think your Agfa super ferro was stored bad... I have one to, and it sounds good. Cant hear any dropouts.
Strangely enough my Agfa F-DX1 in c90 version has pure black tape looking very close to BASF chrome tapes. I remember double checking the package if it is IEC I not II. Yours is brownish. With higher frequencies amplified response it's similar to Sony HF-S
AGFA metal are rare and expensive, i still don't have any. But I have FeCr. By the way, AGFA's metals were in the "Carat" era with identical layout, but with black J-card.
I'll get your metal tape, once exchange rate drops below 5:1...
Agfa, I have one Agfa F-DX I S Super Ferric and it is super ferric.
I found a blue LNX 60 recently, I dont' think its been stored particuarly well, it was originally used for computer data? I have tried it with some music there are some drop outs and tonal variation on playback which is a shame.
Hey Tony, do you think you could make a video showcasing the entire lineup of the ‘86/‘87 Sony series? I’ve seen the ‘86 Metal-ES video and just thought it would be cool showing every model from those two years. Especially the UX-90 as I recently bought a boatload of them. I was just so impressed with sound of the UX-90, I just had to get more! I also was curious to hear the difference between all the type II of the ‘86/‘87 models as I know that the UX-90 is the lowest chrome model in that series. Thanks! Loving the vids!!
That would be an expensive video, but 86 I think was Sony's best lineup.
Great video, nice tapes.
What do you think about the ORWO Cassettes from the GDR? I had some of these and they where not very good, but I heard of some people who say "these are best tapes ever"
ORWO tapes were sometimes even better than AGFA, the west version. But you need either a german deck or a deck that has manual calibration features to make them sound good. On my Grundig CF 5500 from 1980 (3 head deck, left and right bias and levels are adjustable) they sound excellent when carefully calibrated.
Yeah AGFA!
I recently found a box filled with 45 yr old K-Tel cassette tapes. K-Tel was known for making Best Of compilations without paying licensing or royalties. K-Tel got sued out of business. The actual tape color was almost like a cafe machiato in color.
See: ruclips.net/video/ROyRCWYEgIg/видео.html
Dein Kanalname, muss man dazu was sagen, egal.
Auf jeden Fall habe ich gehört, dass die Lieder bei k-tel Bändern oft nicht vollständig waren, also beispielsweise Intros rausgeschnitten wurden.
Thanks for replying Tony,I was wondering if you could do a video comparing True Chromes from BASF,through the years and different examples in the range with different shells etc,it would be good to know how different they are and what tape was or if any better?
Oh, that sounds like a boring video...😀
Mic sounds good and much better balance against your intro music!
Very common back in the day. Belgian/German brand.
Great channel. On it now, babe
AGFA is Belgian-German.They always produced crappy cassettes that dusted your pick up heads. They were also not very stable. (mechanically and magnetically).
As most tape makers, Agfa produced some less good or not long term stable, but also some excellent tapes which hold up very well until today. Their real domain were their unsurpassed broadcasting open reel tapes (PER 528 et al). Show me one tape company that didn't ever make a tape with issues - ok, Maxell, but show me one more :-) Concerning the Belgian part, does anybody here know how much tape research/production activity there was still taking place in Belgium after Agfa acquired Gevaert? From what I know, all tapes of the Agfa-Gevaert era were made first in Agfa's Leverkusen plant, and later moved to the former Perutz factory in Munich (Perutz was a photo/film maker which also had been acquired by Agfa).
Agfa used to be very good back in the day I got literally hundreds of these still wouldn't like to say what they are like now as I've switched to MiniDisc
Very interesting how does the Revox compare with your aiwa and Nakamichi?
They all have their strengths and characters. The Aiwa is the most surprising in so far as it can sit with this company, yet costs about 1/6 of the price.
AGFA Fe1 red prescribe well but over time the tape begins to crumble
Long time no post :D Did you check the heads after running the Ferrocolor thru? Lotsa people in the former bloc say the Fe I (specimens sold in the USSR at least) is a shedding offender
They were fine, but I always clean after doing a video anyway. Storage is the biggest offender 😉
These might be the ones made by Saehan and Magna... the original Agfa PE 619/819 should not shed, otherwise it would have been rejected by all the duplicating companies.
just loosen all the screws on the stereochrom and the flutter will go away...I do it all the time. just a thought...
I cant agree with your experience you had with the tape you shown at 3:55, the one I have sounds excellent, and doesnt have a lot of dropouts.
Good Video.
This lock down War is going to drive a lot of us BROKE of our money , Its the hole idea of it
I was warned about this trick about 2 years ago .
amazing cassette deck, amazing Agfa cassettes, but the source of music is horrible... please excuse me.
Everyone likes different music. I can't stand classical for example.
F-dx-,1 is amazing
And rewinding at 7:11 you realized that probably if don't unpack this cassette tape, now can you having in your hand some lot of money from this... C'est la vie for distracted people!
Meh. It was sent as a gift from a viewer. Would be bad karma to then sell a gift.
It was best to open and use it. In the cassette world, such factory faults don't commend a high collector's value. Those paying high prices either want the "real" version without the slightest fault, or they don't even notice :-) For example, there is a batch of Emtec CS II which are packaged as Sound I, even with the Sound printing on the CS II shell... www.ez647.sk/cc/emteci/b/emtec_soundi9002d.jpg - and nobody wants them. I do like such curiosities, but I'd not expect them to raise in value.
3:53 that was by far the best Type 1 back in 1976. Get a new one and try again.
6:03 no, it’s only six thousand five hundred pounds, not 65k
Agfa is half Belgian half German
Tony, where can I send something to you?
Depends what you want to send 😀
@@CassetteComeback Just a small envelope with a special cassette in it.
In my neck of the woods the police are not enforcing the law! They are just finger-printing and giving a summons right there. This is for virtually all crimes including serious felonies! They are also talking about letting criminals already in jail, out of jail.
Bizarre. Almost turning in to the purge...
I thought they were fake screws and glued together 😂
I have some, bought new. Used for radio recordings. If you cannot see the hubs, you cannot see if the tape reaches the end. I didn't like them...
You can buy Axia on yahoo .jp: buyee.jp/item/search/query/axia?suggest=1
Yeah, and pay through the nose with all the fees, shipping and taxes. I'm not that bothered as underneath them all, they're Saehan or SKC. I'd rather just do a Fuji video with cassettes that were actually made by Fuji.
Tony, have you ever heard about Asaka cassettes? www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/283703729371_/VERY-RARE-5-ASAKA-Fl-1-50-Made.jpg
No. Are they new or old? 50 minutes is a strange length.
@@CassetteComeback I think they are new old stock. I have 2 of them in the 90 minutes length but I don't know if mine are defective or were stored badly because they don't sound great at all (sound is dull and there are lot of dropouts, expecially in the very beginning of each side). I got mine from eBay. The shell looks like the Socimag and many others from the mid to late 80s. On the J card they say "made in Italy" but here in Italy I never seen them back in the days. Can also be a type 0 but there's not the typical warning signs that suggests it is a type 0
@@teletronikoforever I have two or three different Asaka cassettes, and they were made by Magnex in Italy. Magnex was very skilled when it came to copying other manufacturers' designs: There is a Magnex shell that looks like Maxell, one that looks like Agfa and one that looks like the early JVC Metal cassettes with the high but narrow window. I think it's most likely that Asaka is an in-house brand in some other country, and they had their tapes made by Magnex.
Your comments concerning that criminal action all over the world is a shame . Show character and wipe these words off your video or talk to yourself .
WATCH THE VIDEO. THAT SOUNDED LIKE KIDS STOMPING IN MUD WITH MUDDY BOOTS. SOUNDED BAD
Your comments all concern things sounding bad to you. Perhaps you have a poor computer sound system or ears?
você não sabe usar o sistema dolby meu amigo... e o Revox é o deck mais inferior de todos que você tem...
Pare de falar besteira.