Cassettes are back in

The local CD store has recently made space for used prerecorded cassettes! Better that than another damn cell phone store or bodega.

 

The TA 2090 was a very, very good deck indeed. I had one.

Good, used decks are getting hard to find, but there are a few Naks other than the Dragon that are killer, as well as Pioneer Elite CT 91/93, and IMHO the king of all decks ever, the Aiwa XKS-9000. I'm sure folks will argue, but I've been through a lot of decks. I stand by my ranking of the Aiwa XKS-9000 as the best sounding deck ever.

As always, with audio components folks will have their favs.

 

All this talk got me to pull out that The Best Of Quicksilver Messenger Service tape and play it on my lowly "worst" deck I own, an AIWA AD-S950 deck. In it's day I would say it was a mid to upper level later offered Dolby S/HX PRO deck that easily kicks most more expensive decks butts big time.

Wow....this sounds great.

 

I appreciate seeing good Nakamichi decks used for tape transfers for Grateful Dead shows and similar audience or SBD recordings that were recorded to cassette. I'm grateful that people are keeping those decks in top condition for doing these transfers.

I looked in the storage closet today to remind myself of what's in there. I've got a JVC KD-65 cassette deck from 1978 in there. Stacked under a Technics SL-P116 CD player from around 1986, which was the first CD player I had (I'd likely be appalled at its sound quality now, I haven't listened to it in ages), and under an old Sony AM FM tuner. Technically, if I was motivated to set up the JVC deck and if I somehow ended up with a cassette I needed to listen to, I could actually listen to it.

 

One of my first good decks was a JVC KD 85 deck, I think I got it about 1975 or so. Was one of the best at it's time.

 

That.

 

I have a decent-but-nowhere-near-high-end-deck that's always seen regular use. I'm always making cassette comps. I like actually LISTENING to the music when making compilations.

 

So, how did the automatic noise reduction system work?

 

I have no interest in them but more power to bands who want to release them. Lees Of Memory (out of Nashville and has members of Superdrag) just released theirs on cassette and vinyl.



And you can order your heart out for independant band cassettes here:

http://burgerrecords.11spot.com/cassette.html?limit=all

 

Thanks for posting the pic of this most excellent deck.

Loved this deck, what can I say?! Funny how even beyond our love of the music, HiFi gear can bring back very fond memories. With TDK SA C90s this little machine could make a beautiful recording every time. It also got me a whole bunch of beautiful young girls phone numbers at the time. I would meet a girl, often at a record store, concert, what have you, start sharing music likes and dislikes, and offer to make them a tape of something from vinyl... cha, ching! So yes... this cassette machine even got me laid. JVC should have used that in their advertising campaign some how. I think a buddy and I each picked one from Wisconsin Discount Stereo WDS at the same time because the JVC reputation was so solid at the time and we were offered a good discount when buying two. I think my friend aslo made a lot of tapes for a lot of girls. This was back before the internet had become all the rage and mail order discount shops were the go-to suppliers. I must have seen an advert in Audio magazine at the time. Well I also picked up a Onkyo TX-6500, and a Sony PSX7 TT with a Shure V15 cart and later, some AMT1b ESS Heils. Ah, the good old days, when HiFi bargains and record shops (and girlfriends) were a plenty. The only reason I even entertained letting this machine go, years later, was a local Nakamichi dealer, the Absolute Sound in Royal Oak enticed me with a ZX-7 and I just could not resist. Still have the Nak! Great HiFi times.

 

The ANRS and Super ANRS were JVC's tweaked versions of Dolby B. I would suspect, just to not have to pay royalties. They worked very well and were actuated by a toggle, nothing really "automatic" about it. The deck, and many JVCs like it, of the time, were excellent, economical performers. Certainly my favorite, until I tried a top end Nak.

 

Yes, I think it does have a place in the audio world if only because it was a very popular format from the past and thus audio history.
No, I don't think it is a viable format at this stage.
Tube gear was once the only way to listen, solid state took over but tubes play on.
Flat, grooved, records of various speeds and sizes were once the only way most listened to recorded music.
33-1/3 still remains as a viable format while all the others are still collected and listened to.
Recorded on tape, of any style, has been around for 50+ years. Cassette was easily the most popular and useful, but not necessarily the best. Cassette tapes ended up everywhere, as well as the equipment that played them. Because cassette was everywhere you could have had a home player, car player, personal player, portable player, phone machine player, machine operation player, computer player and so on. This makes cassette part of the recorded media history, thus giving it a place in any time frame.
The rub for me comes from how the cassette ages. I have quite a large collection of them because it was the easiest format at the time so I purchased them. However, as time has passed some of the cassettes no longer play well, or play at all. They have been stored in a good environment and my few players are good units in good working order (Nakamichi, Onkyo, Pioneer)

 

ANR and ANRS Super worked very good, reasonably compatible with Dolby, but amazingly good on it's own. I still have tapes from that player from decades ago and they sound amazing.

 

I got that Neil Young American Stars and Bars tape playing, It sounds way better than the CD or vinyl I have of it.

 

If the tapes don't play..... either your deck has issues or the tapes were damaged, poor, or abused at some point or now have pressure pad failure, which is common.

I have tapes from over 40 years ago and other than pressure pad replacement they play very good. I'm talking about a few hundred tapes, many brands over the decades being used.

My 40 plus year experience has shown to me The format is SOLID, the decks if working properly are SOLID, my experience with hundreds of tapes and a few dozen decks can not be a fluke. the key, good tapes in proper working order and good decks in proper working order. Most folks like to claim they have that, , but my guess is they do not.

 

My local store tried it for awhile and they had quite a few but I recently noticed they are now gone. They had them less than a year. Luckily they are expanding vinyl like crazy. They will be out of room in another year or so at the rate they are going, and it is a large store!

 

Remember That's tapes?

http://vintagecassettes.com/triad_thats/triad_thats.htm

 

They were great when I was a kid with a Walkman recording all my Vinyl and making mixtapes. Memories is all I have and all I want.

 

Independent?

 

good for mixes unavailable elsewhere

 

Judging by the threads about cassette on these boards, cassette is alive and well.

 

I have a bunch of Elton Concerts off air on tape.

 

Yeah, I hear ya. My expression may be a bit exaggerated but quite a few of my tapes no longer play correctly. The tapes that have issues are always the factory, store purchased albums. I can not remember when an aftermarket tape went bad by itself. The bad I am speaking of is in playback. The tape looks fine. The cassette mechanicals move freely, yet the tape will not play well in any of my machines. However, many, many other tapes play perfectly in all three machines. Try poor tape in friends machine with same bad results and I start to point to the tape being faulty, not the machine. I used to be the audio service tech on the Submarine I served aboard (that gear was assigned to our division and I did not mind doing the job...so it was mine for the duration, like it or not). Because of this I fixed many a machine and maintained many more too keep the guys happy with their own music.

 

I am a very happy Dragon owner, but I have to agree with you here. I had also read in several places that the Aiwa XKS-9000 was the best deck, but when I found one for sale is was like two grand. You are going to pay a premium for the Dragon name because it has that iconic status, but there are other Nak decks just as good fro less money.

 

They sell them at my local IGA as well, but those have probably been on the pegs since the 90s.