Cassette vs. CD?

Years ago I used to make cassette recordings of my CDs to use in my car. I had a good NAD deck and generally used TDK SA (chrome) tapes with Dolby C on. And I was always thought that my cassette recordings sounded very good. The loss in quality was actually pretty minimal. And I thought that Dolby C was pretty effective in reducing noise without cutting the high frequency response.

I found the major disappointment of cassette was that the sound quality would fade over time. With use the high frequency response would be gradually lost over time (using a chrome tape anyway - I think that metal tapes were more stable). And using tapes in a car would see them ruined by heat.

 

My old NAD cassette deck (Monitor Series... 6300 I think it was), remained in use until the late 90's. Once CD burners became affordable, and once the portable CDP's had all the anti-shock features. This was in NYC, so I needed music for my morning walk to work. I used the NAD to make tapes of my CDs for that purpose. Never used Dolby.

The last portable cassette player I had was a late-model Sony Walkman. As I recall, it sounded really nice. Heck, I think I paid nearly $100 for the thing. It was purple, and small. Can't remember the model number. I enjoyed listening to tapes created on the NAD, on this little Walkman.

I had a portable CDP after that, but only for a little while, as I then discoved the Creative Nomad Jukebox. Then came the iPod.

I have since considered locating a good quality NAD cassette deck like the one I had (and eventually sold) for the purposes of Vinyl "archiving" without resorting to digital "needle drops". Just for listening to the vinyl without wearing out my records, and staying completely analog. Don't know if this is silly or not. Would require a good, fully serviced deck... which might be hard to find. Also don't even know if good quality metal tapes are available anymore, or even affordable.

 

Interesting thread - it goes against the revisionist history that CDs were meant to replace LPs, but as someone who worked in a record store from 1988-91, I can categorically state that at the time CDs were seen as a cheaper to produce/more profitable alternative to cassettes.

It's interesting to note that CDs did not start selling in best-seller quantity until CD players became a standard appointment in new cars...

 

I would guess, the majority of the public does most of thier "music listening" while in the car. (Since it is too problematic watching t.v. while they drive)

 

Fortunately even though most cannot drive and watch TV, many find the can drive and be texting at the sametime.

 

That's what I call "driving under the influence of stupidity".

 

In the case of Phish's 'Junta' album, the original cassette, released by the band in 1989, is still the only place to find that album in its all-analog glory. It sounds stupendous. They had it produced on high-bias chrome tapes and it's stood the test of time marvelously.
The 1992 Elektra CD is just a disaster, in so many ways. "Contact" should not fade into "Union Federal"...and why add so many bonus tracks to an already-superb album??

For me, this is by far the only case I can think of where the cassette is actually the supreme medium.

 

I still have a few cassette tapes from my childhood of me and my brother singing, playing DJ, and songs taped off the radio that date back from the early 70's when I got my first recorder. And these were the lowest quality tapes stored poorly (in shoeboxes) for decades. But amazingly they still play. I wonder if the CD-R's I made (even the ones made by Taiyo Yuden) will still play in 38 years..

My only gripe about cassettes is it's getting harder to find High Bias tape now, most big chains dont carry them anymore.

I remember when Maxell, TDK, Sony, BASF and others had so many different tape formulations back in the 80's/90's, now they're down to one normal bias and high bias. (TDK SA or Maxell XL-II)

 

over the past few years i bought 3-4 large grocery bags-full of pre-recorded tapes
(mostly classical & jazz,some pop.)at 2-for-a-quarter i couldn't resist.probably 70%
were things i didn't have on cd or lp.quality varied vastly,from unplayable to surprisingly
good.when we go the beach i take a bag & my old boom-box & enjoy using that as
our music source.here at home my only remaining sony cassette deck (from the mid-90s)
has developed problems.i've thought of buying a new one,but are those still available
any good?

 

TDK SA 90 tapes are still available from Total Media Inc. (www.totalmedia.com) Last time I bought blanks, I got 3 cases (Maxell II Pro).
Probably will be the last blank tapes I will record.

 

The cassette does have a nice analog quality to it. Compared to a cd, it does not have the same resolution...

 

I love cassettes. Well I do save everything I can: Each album, Cassette & cd I ever owned. But I really love the fact that I still own my first car stereo cassette deck with separate power booster amp and separate front to back slider mixer. The stereo is a Pioneer Super Tuner I bought in 1978 and the rare element of the Power Booster is the simple Bass and Treble knobs. Just need a classic car again to put it in! That set-up used to be in a 67 Impala SS playing Bad Company! When I picked up a 93 Taurus SHO a while ago I loved that it had a cassette player, got to ride with my old favorite tunes again! Now I have my sights set on an 02' Subaru H6 Outback 4 door sedan, sure its a nice car, but the factory Macintosh cassette deck is what it's all about: huge amp and 11 speakers: 12 months of design and engineering in that sound system!

 

Before anyone tries to taser me through the computer... "McIntosh". BTW: Ford sound system in the 1993 SHO: Awesome!

 

HEY! Most new members don't know that we can do that!!

 

Agree with the above poster every day of the week when I am at home. Prefer my Otari MX 5050 B II to any cassette machine made. No NR needed. Dolby SR did make it to cassettes, in a special version called Dolby S optimized for the medium. SR is for professional studio machines only at better broadcast level and higher. But it was launched too late to really gain marketplace traction as cassettes were a fading medium due to the CD.

 

Now THAT's reviving an old thread!

 

Even so, tapes that are only played back on the deck that recorded them, and has not fallen out of alignment, sound excellent. And, again, the proper bias and tape formulation has a lot to do with how well the sound turns out.

 

My Nakamichi LX-3 cassette deck is spectacular. It plays "store bought" tapes excellently, and when I dub cd's or LP''s to the cassette format it just does a fantastic job. I love it's" sound" - rivals cd easily - NEVER use dolby or any of that circuitry - it's just not necessary. There is zero hiss, wow and flutter, etc. I wouldn't say cassette format is "better" than cd, it's just "different" but still high quality as all get out. Of course, some store bought tapes sound like crapola, just like lp's and some cd's can!

 

Love my Dragon and still use it a lot.

 

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That is not cost effective. Try and find one in mint condition is a problem. The tape is expensive and you will have to make your own unless you want to spend a small fortune on new pre-recorded tapes. The joke is when you have hardware with no software to support it.

 

For me, pre-recorded cassettes had their time in the sun and that was back in the mid 1980's to the early 1990's. Cheaper than both LP's and CD's and portable, plus decent sound quality too. But, in hindsight, LP's had overall better sound quality on the right equipment and CD's were both superior in SQ and were also portable.

I had probably more pre-recorded cassettes than LP's and CD's put together, at one point in my life. And recording to a high-quality cassette could certainly sound good, at least to my ears at the time.

Today the format just seems antiquated, though. Whereas LP's have their niche (good SQ / resistant to the loudness wars / large AA), the strength of the cassette just pales in comparison to a high-bitrate lossy file, or lossless. Other than a cheap way to build / rebuild a music collection via the used market, I see no advantage to buying them again.

 

I buy used pre-recorded cassettes because they're dirt cheap ( except for MFSL cassettes ) and my Dragon really makes them sound great. They're another great source of an analog format besides records for me.

 

I've found that the tapes degrade over time, that's another big issue for me - have you seen that? Not only the pressure pad coming off due to age, but drop-outs. At least with LP's, a visual scan could give you at least on idea on how used the LP really is. With cassettes it's really a crapshoot.

I actually got a cassette deck on the super-cheap last year just to mess around with the few cassettes I've kept for nostalgia reasons, but I never warmed up to them again like I did with LP's a few years ago.

 

I had, and loved, the LX-3, LX-5 and Dragon. But to say 'zero hiss' without NR is a stretch. But I will say that on a decent system back in the 80's (Tandberg, Thiel, Dragon) I could not hear a difference between the CD and its Dolby-C recording on my Nak.

 

I agree with you on the above mentioned cassette age issues. They will never replace the LP as my #1 format but they're so cheap it's a fun alternative. I own eleven of the MFSL cassettes ( Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, and Beatles mostly ) and they do rank right up there with a LP sound.