Cassette vs. CD?

Appreciate the replies. I actually just did a quick cassette test just now -- appropriate because I have one old cassette (In Tua Nua's "The Long Acre") that I also have on LP and needle dropped it just a few days ago. So I pulled out the cassette deck and recorded the first song off cassette and did a quick compare.

Actually it's not bad sounding at all -- this one actually has the pressure pad intact, so that's a plus. I have to say that it rivals my drop of the LP. But it also had the dreaded tape dropouts I was concerned about.

I think cassettes, in pristine form, probably sound quite good as you mentioned, but ultimately they are very fragile. But, if I happen upon them on the super-cheap and the pad is intact and it's something I know is hard to find on LP/CD, I'll give it a chance!

 

I would LOVE to have the MFSL cassette tapes! Or even one!

 

I vividly remember my younger brother's comments when he heard the Moody Blue's "On the Threshhold Of A Dream" MFSL cassette on my H/K cassette deck.
He said, and I quote: "No way that's a cassette tape.......no friggin way"
So they could sound very good. Old Naks, Tandbergs and H/K's especially were quite good sounding.
The key was head alignment. I sold thousands of cassette decks in my day, and cannot recall one ever properly aligned from the factory.
I still have the old H/K and it still sounds amazing.
CD's of course are more user friendly.

 

Care to elaborate ? Is this a different mastering ? Why is the casette better sounding than the CD ?

 

It sounds like a record sounds: fat, lush, warm, heavy bass, etc. In other words, no digititis. Reference quality if you ask me. Not a diff. mastering.

 

Cassettes were convenient (like low bit rate MP3 files have been). That's why they were so popular. I had thousands of them. They were okay for stoners listening to loud rock and roll. The reality is they never had any potential for better than mediocre performance.

 

Your statement is half right. Just like MP3 there are plenty of fools using the lowest bitrate to save space and Dr Beats headphones. Then there are people using properly ripped 320k files that sound pretty good.

Cassettes like any other analog format can sound great. Most people didn't have the cash for top end Nakamichi etc so yes suffered wow/flutter and problems. Pop a well duped cassette into a top deck and HiFi is yours. Play a dirty old tape you left on the floor of your car into a walkman and yes it will be rather nasty.

To many people make broad statements using only their limited knowledge. You might as well say all tube TV's sucked because your cheap black and white via rabbit ears was all snow.

Digital is getting better every day and the convenience wins hands down. But Analog done right with true analog source still sounds better to me. Even cassette. The key here is DONE RIGHT.

 

Not true. Yes, on cheaper (or even mid-level decks), they weren't very hi-fi. But recordings on a Nak Dragon (played back on the Dragon) from CD or vinyl were quite amazing actually. Of course, the Dragon would be almost $6k in 2015 bucks, so most people's cassette experience was a bit more mp3-ish soundwise. And they were convenient. Actually, I'm just remembering I had a Walkman Pro with dolby C for walking to work... was quite enjoyable.

 

I'm still hanging on to my Dragon.

 

Starting in the mid-1970s, I've recorded about 400 albums onto cassettes (TDK SA C-90 and AD C-90). I used Nakamichi decks.
I've also recorded about 100 albums onto Verbatim-brand CDs, from about 2004-2006, using a Plextor Premium burner.
Today, all but one tape still work and sound fine (on a Nak 670ZX).
Meanwhile, almost all of the CDs have failed. The underlying problem with the CDs might have been the paper labels I printed the album info on and attached to the CDs. Those without labels (four or five) still play.
Sound quality-wise, I prefer the tapes over the CDs.

 

This Marantz "CD" player gave me excellent results in days of yore.


...the Marantz CD 320 Superscope cassette recorder.

 

I had cassettes before CDs. My dad used to record CDs to the tapes for my sister and I to listen to. He figured we would damage or ruin the CDs. I never thought they sounded horrible. We had these gold colored Maxwells that looked just like this -


Were these the "good" tapes?

My dad also had some that looked like this -




I always remembered that if I erased and recorded different CDs to these multiple times, I could still hear bleedthrough from the last CD I had recorded on it. That could just have been my crappy deck though too.

 

I'd still take a cassette over a MP3 - at least I'm getting something tangible for my money.

 

I have a few cassette decks that can easily be considered among some of the best decks ever made.

Pioneer Elite CT 91 & 93, Teac V-8030S & 2020S, Aiwa XKS-9000 & AD-S950.

My Pioneer Elite CT 93 & Aiwa XKS-9000 are my best decks.

Using Dolby S with premium tape and making sure the deck is properly calibrated yields some very amazing sounding tapes. I've found on all but the most difficult type of music, say solo piano, the tapes I can make are near indistinguishable from their source.








Recently picked up 2 cases of these fairly cheap, they sound pretty good.

 

I am quite late to the forum on this, if I were to compare Cd with Master reel to reel 7 1/2"ips then for detail it would be R2R if it were cassete then they are evenly matched, even uncompressed digital is now far better than redbook.

My findings prove that the detail is in the pudding. of course there was a reason why everyone wants Tape master to Vinyl now as it sounds better then DSD etc etc.. nobody wants the original messed with, be it DBX for noise cancellation or digital mastering with same compression.

Resolution

The highest digital resolution today offers 4,608,000 bits switching per second. Not bad. Big improvement over the standard Red Book CD but it is not even close to sub-micron particle resolution of ATR Master Tape.

Random Particle Stacking

Quarter inch, two track ATR Master Tape running at 15 inches per second (ips) involves approximately 80,000,000 oriented and randomly stacked particles per track second. It’s not just the particle count but the random stacking that turns this super binary resolution into pure analog playback. This is why even a narrow track width recording still sounds so detailed despite the lower surface area.

Music is an intrinsic part of the human soul. It plays to our emotions, it talks to us, it calms us, it makes us rise to our greatest accomplishments and brings back our warmest memories. Why not record it on the best medium to achieve the best quality of sound?

source:http://atrtape.com/nothing-sounds-like-tape/

 

Cassettes always sucked; any other format wins hands-down, cds, 8T carts,vinyl, reel-to-reel tape, you name it.

 

Ummm...NO.

 

8-track?!?

 

Have you ever heard what a high end cassette deck combined with a really good cassette can sound like? It gets amazingly close to the source, it's really that good. I'm very humble before the cassette as a music format, at its best it easily can compete with both vinyl and CD IMHO.

 

Oh, would you stop with the porn!

Kidding. Bring it on! Bring it on!

The only problem I have with cassettes/decks is that these days there are very few people I trust to work on them. I can count them on one hand and I don't need all the fingers.

 

YES !!!!!!!!!!

 

Nice Maxell. Looking (gold) good.
My heavy metal.

Cheers!

 

I've used those Maxell MX-S a lot. They run really quiet. I love these.