What's with the tapes revival?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Budgetphile, Jun 21, 2017.

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  1. bamaaudio

    bamaaudio Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I don't know about nostalgia. The main demographic I've noticed buying them is around 25 and younger. The vast majority of people that age were never exposed to cassettes growing up and probably saw them for the first time at the merchandise booths at concerts and at places like Urban Outfitters. A decent number of indie bands have embraced the format for limited runs but I haven't noticed any real major mainstream acceptance of them.
     
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  2. Cyclone Ranger

    Cyclone Ranger New old stock

    Location:
    Best Coast USA
    Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy has something to do with it...
     
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  3. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    I wonder how many forum members have shelled out/are going to spend $150+ on the Paul McCartney's Flowers In The Dirt box set, a significant amount of which comes from cassette demos??
     
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  4. TarnishedEars

    TarnishedEars Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Seattle area
    I love your passion for the format. I find some of the very best cassette decks ever to be quite good sounding. But VERY few ever lived up to this standard.

    I must confess that I have never heard your Awai. But being an owner of a CR-7A, a 3014A as well as a B215S (as well as a Dragon, once upon a time), I think that I have a pretty good idea of what the format is capable of. And these machines can indeed make very good recordings. But even at its best, this format does not hold a candle to a good 15 ips R2R (although it certainly gives 7.5 ips a run for its money).

    But recording off of CDs simply makes no sense to me anymore. CDs are already portable, and they are even easier to play than a cassette. And used CDs are cheap these days.

    I can see a reasonable argument to be made for recording off of vinyl, if one wants to be a die-hard analog head from end to end. I was once in that camp myself, but eventually I found the process to be largely futile, and self defeating when I purchased my first genuinely good sounding CD player. Plus I felt obligated to re-record my LPs every time I upgraded something in my analog front-end (which really annoyed me).

    For myself, my digital setup is sounding so superb these days (a slightly modified PSAudio DS with Huron firmware) that I hardly ever even feel motivated to spin a record anymore unless I don't have a particular recoding on CD or some higher-res digital format. I say this with the recognition that the very best analog I have ever heard still sounds just a smidge better. But my digital setup sounds so good now that I no longer really care all that much about listening to analog anymore.

    I can see why somebody might want to still record some top quality cassettes from a very good source such as Tidal, if you have a subscription. But other than that, I'm having a very hard time figuring out what exactly cassettes are still useful for today.
     
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  5. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I kinda said that in the part of my post you didn't quote. If you want it, have at it. My only thing is I don't want it to start taking up real estate in the record stores I visit. I doubt that'll happen but if it does, then it becomes a problem that affects me.

    Ed
     
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  6. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    They can sound very nice, and be an analogue antidote to hearing EVERYTHING on a digital format.
    They are very convenient and fun.
    Good enough for me.
    :righton:
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
  7. Nick Dunning

    Nick Dunning Forum Resident

    There isn't to my knowledge. You can't get arrested with a cassette round here. We really don't even get many brought into the shop, they just seem to be binned.
     
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  8. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Forgive me for being cute in that one sentence...LOL! That's obviously what I was doing. I also cited my Yamaha Natural Sound player that absolutely had Dolby HX-Pro. (I can do big lettering too). Apparently you decided to miss that part of my post. That's cool. Enjoy your cassettes. I'm honestly not that concerned. They'll never take up space here.

    Ed
     
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  9. inperson

    inperson Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    I kinda like these Bands/people that put out noise/musique concrete/avant stuff. Most of their releases are on cassette only.



    With stuff like this no need for clean pure sound. Heck some tapes run out before the song ended and then they clumsily start side two with the another song already in progress.

    This can be good music to drive to. It's probably the only time I'd sit down to listen to a whole album of this music all at once. I can't even do that with Peter Brotzmann :D Yes, I burn the cassettes to cd after I get them.
     
  10. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Still a nod to the past, so in that regard, as with much today, it's nostalgia. No harm in it but I got rid of my deck a good, what, ten years ago??
     
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  11. Manimal

    Manimal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern US
    It's an Analog revival so you'll see everything Analog soon. IMHO.
    Hopefully a rip to VHS revival , because I still hold on to that 500 dollar (in 1993) VHS Player some guy convinced a kid (me) to buy. Jurassic park never sounded better. Never:)
     
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  12. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I have no doubt that a VHS revival is right around the corner. It's all driven by nostalgia and VHS fits the bill as well as cassettes do. If Beta comes back, it'll be even funnier.

    Ed
     
  13. Rubico

    Rubico Member

    Location:
    Nashville
    People do tapes for fun, not some audiophile purpose. I'm sure they are out there, but I don't think many have 1000+ tapes on a shelf they pull out and play in their living.

    Of course, I wouldn't think bro country would have many fans either hah.
     
  14. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

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  15. Leggs91203

    Leggs91203 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    Not as big a revival as LPs.

    I use LPs and cassettes, both have about the same amount of drawbacks. Both of them are hit or miss for getting a good copy, yet with both, it is not always easy to tell just by looking at them.
    For both formats, the better your deck, the better sound you can expect.

    LP and cassette have about the same sound quality, but they do sound different.
    With LP, you likely have to deal with a lot of crackling. Cassette - a lot of hiss. With LP - bass tends to be a problem. Cassette - treble is a problem, especially on dirty or mis-aligned heads.

    The advantages cassettes have over LP -
    They are inexpensive. Though most of them are in thrift stores, you can find decent stuff that isn't over priced like popular LPs tend to be. Out of 100 thrift cassettes, there might be one decent one but with LP - you could easily rummage 1,000 without finding anything that doesn't suck.
    Cassette players and the tapes themselves are not nearly as fragile.

    The bad thing with cassette is that most of the decks out there will need some service. People find them at thrift, do not bother to completely test them, then try to over-price them on auction sites. That means if you are gonna buy a used cassette deck, you would need to know how to work on them. Turntables are much easier to work on.

    Cassettes are fun but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to hoard them thinking that someday they will be worth a lot of money. I am guessing that is why some of these 25 and under crowd buy them?
     
  16. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    And I'm still waiting on this cassette documentary:

     
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  17. Manimal

    Manimal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern US
    Lp is the gateway drug. For all other Analog mediums. Use it's attributes asa selling point for others. I think it's very cool.
     
  18. tim185

    tim185 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    In my world , cassette wasnt fit to wipe the nose of an LP, not even close.
     
  19. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    At what bit-rate?

    This.

    I really loved making cassette tapes back in the 80s. I still have a functioning tape deck that sounds pretty good, and boxes of tapes. But, I never play them. No need. CD, CD-R, and later FLAC changed all of that. With all the hassle of cassette, why bother? Home isn't the only place I play music. Let the millennials have their fun. I'll stick with digital, and vinyl when I have to.

     
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  20. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Digital is a compromised format when recording to and listening to analog instruments and analog music.
     
  21. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Analog left digital in its dust and so people are still searching for that "okay" digital format.
     
  22. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    In my world, digital wasn't meant to be a music format, too many compromises of the analog source.

    UNLESS you are recording digital sources/digital instruments.

    Digital keeps having a runny nose but it's "clear"...you can see right through it, it's so shiny and clear.
     
  23. Manimal

    Manimal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern US
    It's just a digital representation of your Analog self.
     
  24. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    All else equal, a CD transfer of a tape will always sound better than a tape copy by a country mile.
     
  25. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

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