Cassette better than CD

People will blast me for this again but I am listening to Dream Theater Images and Words right now. Original cassette copy sounds way better than my CD copy. WAY BETTER. Full range and great imaging. The CD sounds boxed in.

I have nice gear including the Cassette deck which is Nakamichi RX505

I don't know how this album was originally recorded but I find it odd my cassette sounds so much bigger and better than the CD. The decline of CD sales is the labels own fault as they always seem to compress the hell out of them.

I am getting a ton more low end, much smoother highs .. and no the highs are not rolled off. Its just a sweeter, fuller natural sound vs the cheap nasty compressed CD sound.

 

Nope.

 

Billy Squier - Emotions In Motion. CD sucks.

 

Pre-recorded cassettes were garbage for the most part. I don't miss them one bit. Good riddance to the cassette. I wish I would have spent all my money on vinyl or cd vs cassettes back in the day.

 

I am not very familiar with the music you're talking about -

it could be if it was recorded in the mid 80s or so, that the original recording was analog and the cassette was produced in straight analog, and they did a poor job transferring it to CD -

But its MORE likely that the way you prefer to hear music emphasizes some of the things cassettes tend to do (exaggerate high end, roll of low frequencies) - which means you may if you tested your hearing find out you had some hearing deficiencies in certain frequencies.

 

It's a cassette - of course the highs are rolled off... nothing over 16khz and tape hiss. It'd be even funnier if it's the same master as the CD, but dumped on a really lossy format. It probably no longer plays at the correct speed either.

 

Yup, if your referring to that album,musically.

I had the cassette of " Don't Say No". That wore out quickly. Have the cd. That is still in my collection . As well as The vinyl Lp of " Tale of the Tape".

 

There's no absolutes in life, I'm sure you can find an isolated incidence or two where an inferior medium can sound better than a superior one. As a general rule though, the vast majority of the time a CD will sound considerably better than a cassette.

 

I believe its possible that I could buy the highest quality cassette made, play an album on vinyl and record a cassette version at the right volume, etc and have something that, when played on a high end cassette player, could rival a badly done commercial CD. But not a commercial cassette.

 

Well that settles it.

 

Are we talking about inherent quality of these formats or the mastering on one format being better than the mastering on another format? If the claim is that cassette is inherently better than CD, I don't agree.

 

Casettes are AAA, gotta have that

 

Was it a DigiLog cassette

 

I honestly find that pretty hard to believe... Guess it will be difficult for me to come to a conclusion since I don't have the cassette to listen to

 

Sure, and 78's are better than lps...

 

Yeah, Elcaset.

 

Yeah, vinyl is best for that one. The original CD is bad. The BGO re-master isn't too terrible though.

Extreme - II. It sounds so damn warm on cassette. The best sounding for sure. The vinyl is flat and missing a song, and the CD is cold. It's a DDD recording though, the tape probably just saturates it in a pleasant way. Usually anything is better than cassette, except 8-track.

 

Though I mostly bought vinyl, I also got quite a few pre-recorded cassettes in the 80s. There was a huge range in quality but with a nice cassette deck some sounded incredible. In the early 90's I made mixed tapes from CD's and would often prefer the sound of the cassette over the CD that it was recorded from (esp with tinny & thin sounding 80s CDs). I totally get why the OP prefers cassette to CD.

 

Cassettes were great in my car back in the 80's. I think I will pass now, though.

 

You're listening with a high end deck. You will have great sound just like you describe it. Cheap cassette players sound awful and were as far as most people looked. So forever they hate cassette.

CDs are horribly compressed and flat sounding. You've got it right! Enjoy!

 

Probably wandering of topic here but...

Tape-saturation among other things analog is key to proper rock n' roll, just listen to the first two zeppelin albums, who's next and others from that era.

Sometimes i wish we could just go back to pure AAA productions again. Analog just sounds so much more rock n' roll than modern digital productions. Digital is just too good/clean/perfect sounding. You need hiss, analog compressors and healthy dose of saturation to really get that gritty rock-sound!

And for god sake don't use Pro-tools plugins trying to get that sound

Slash gets it, just wish the albums were mastered better.

 

Errr....no.

But the OP can enjoy whatever he wants on that you correct.

 

Err - yes!
I do like both formats and have cassettes here that sound way better than some of the CD trash out there. Just roll tape.

And the OP is correct!

 

What I'd be interested in is some old R2R stuff. I heard a rip of Led Zep 2 once and it sounded... different

 

LOL