Cassette vs. CD?

The only quality tape deck I've ever owned was the Tandberg TCD 340A - it really did have a nice, nice sound - that I mostly attributed to the quality of the electronics. It was also a good linestage if used as such.

I was big into Minidiscs when they came out - preferring it to cassette when recording my singles collection.

But when recordable CDs came along, my interest in cassette tapes and minidisc quickly began to wane. The one thing I do miss is the making of mixtapes for my friends.

 

My ZX-7 Nak made some of the finest cassette tape sounds (recordings from vinyl off my Linn Sondek Lp12) that I have ever heard on TDK SA-XG c90's.
To my ears they would smoke a prerecorded CD of the same performance of that time.
But a CD recorded from the same vinyl? I have no experience with that... Would be an interesting proposition, keeping it apples to apples and all...
IMHO it would be very gear dependent of course, perhaps even more ear dependent!

 

Seems like this is a mostly academic discussion, because if CD is inferior, then what source will you use for cassettes? Most prerecorded cassettes are not great. You can record a cassette from vinyl, but then why not just play the vinyl? I have no doubt that under ideal conditions, cassettes sound better than most of us have ever heard. But in the real world your source material is not going to be ideal in most cases. I really don't see any practical competition here for a widely-available, unfussy, decent-sounding (if not perfect) alternative, CDs. If I ruled the world, probably reel-to-reel tape and high res digital would be the standard formats. I don't think anyone would argue cassette was superior to R2R.

 

There's ALWAYS someone

 

I own two Dragons, a CR7A, a Cassette Deck One, and a 700ZXE. I can tell you these decks can make cassette tape recordings that approach open reel sound quality.I own open reel decks too. Is it superior to CD? I don't think so. It's different than CD. A CD can sound exceptional or it can sound like absolute utter crap. It depends on the mastering and the engineer's expertise with each format.

 

I mostly agree. I have a Nak CR7A and I agree about the sound 'approaching' open reel. I have a Tascam CD-RW900SL and using it simultaneously with the NAK dubbing a vinyl record both to CDR and cassette I can agree one resulting dub is not superior to the other. I find the CDR tightens up certain frequencies, notably the bass, while the cassette does a much better job IMO with voice and 'air' (acoustic strings, horns, etc., as well as with piano, especially with note decay).

Still, open reel is a very significant step up, most of the time, from even an 'audiophile' grade cassette deck I'd imagine.

 

I owned (still do) many, many pre-recorded cassette titles
This, the result of a period of time in my life during which this was the only format available to me (practical)
It is obvious (became so) that many (maybe all?) "store bought" pre-recorded cassettes are in fact duplicated initially from a vinyl source (I have a lot of titles on Warner Brothers and you can hear the stylus hit the lead in as well as an occasional transient noise (clicks and pops)
I purchased this format regularly for what was essentially "boombox" use right up and into the '90s
And yeah, beyond Musical pleasure, the sonics pretty much sucked when compared to any other COMMERCIALLY produced format 99.9% of the time

But then, during the later '90s when I finally had a real system again, I purchased first, an AIWA AD-F810 cassette deck (which has manual adjustable bias and was/is a decent sounding deck), principal reasons were to make tapes for use at work and in the car (cassette decks, tapes and tape equipped portables (and vehicles) were still everywhere) Made a lot of tapes for friends as well, for the same reasons, and it allowed me to share a lot of material which I only had on vinyl as well as play at work.

Passed that deck onto my Son (he was into buying a lot of old radio shows and Classical stuff when he was a kid; tons of cassette tapes for pocket change at the thrifts: so he needed a decent player)

I picked up an old Nakamichi MR-1 from a local who was closing down an old studio and going to Mexico to retire. When I first got the machine was checking it's functionality for any issues so made some test tapes, feeding the OUTPUTS from first a CeeDee player and then a PHONO stage directly into the tape machine. Recorded some Warren Zevon stuff for the first test run and monitored while doing so with headphones and then again with just straight up play back (another 3 head machine like the Aiwa) Just using normal bias or maybe the next step up TDK blanks

All I can say is this (my experience) I was blown away. Quality was superb. The AIWA made very good sounding tapes but the old Nak? I could live with it as a front end.

The results were virtually indistinguishable from the CeeDee at causal listen; very minor tape noise, I don't/won't use Dolby

Only problem is; you have to make your own tapes from other software, CeeDees Lps etc (and if you already have that then why bother, right?) as the pre-recorded sh it is, and was, still a toss up and at best a definite compromise (cheap case, cheap tape, cheap duplication, cheap sound)

Fast forward 15 years or so and it's all pretty much irrelevant now as they are giving away CeeDee titles now at the used record stores............nobody much cares about holding the Music in their hands..............but the point of this ramble was to simply say, don't dismiss Compact Cassettes done right (it's all machine and blank dependent) until you've heard it
I haven't made a tape since I did one for one of my Son's auditions, and that being a whole other deal, done with a microphone

But for copying Music (for convenience uses) I learned at the very end of my "cassette experience" go direct into the tape machine whenever possible (I later tried with tape loops after the tape deck was in the rack, results not as impressive, but too much of a pain in the ass to switch things around every season so I left them (used the pre-amp's loops)

You just might re-think your position

I recently restored a nice mid-sized 1980 JVC "boombox" I rescued from a recycling event for the radio; it is fantastic (at pulling stations). Went ahead and serviced the deck (transport), works flawlessly now (an early "full logic control" transport) but sound quality is half assed as one would expect, BUT, this has inspired me and I may pull the old Nak down from off the shelf, make a few tapes on that machine and see if they do any better in the "box".

My local thrift also has hundreds of titles (good albums) for .10, so it's hard to resist (most of them are albums from the first years I was out here, stuff like "Faith No More" and lots of Classical War Horses)

For beer drinking, yard work and grilling, what's not to love?

But the format DOES have legitimate sonic potential; you just have to find the right machine

You will be astonished

 

That was my beef with the format

 

I'd have to disagree with everyone else's comments.
I've found that newer pre-recorded cassettes can sound as good if not sometimes better than an equivalent CD.
I've even heard older late 60's to early 70's cassettes that sound better than vinyl.

 

What titles ?

 

Do you mean the newer or older ones?

 

Say the newer ones.

 

Well, mostly cassettes from the late 80's and newer.
The one that really stood out when I heard it was this one:
http://www.discogs.com/Led-Zeppelin-Remasters/release/4495221
I was listening to it in a car cassette player too.

 

Well i've joined the discussion 6 years after the question was asked. Even though most have gone to digital downloads and their versatility I'll go back in time and try discuss your question. Actually im one of those people who leap frogged from lps and audio cassettes to mp3(much of mine is recorded or captured streams of internet radio. Now you can rip the audio of a music video from youtube). Audio cassettes were and are very fragile. I must of have been one of the rare people who would unscrew or crack open(then after repair put in a cassette held together with screws) an audio cassette, manually cut out those crinkled parts or put a tiny piece of tape over a torn piece of analog tape in the cassette.

I use to borrow some friends lp or one from the library, and record it onto cassette tape. These sounded better than if you bought a play back cassette that was a group or orchestra's etc produced for retail cassette. When CD's started they sounded much worse than lp's. they sounded muffled. as far as they progressed i don't know.

The main thing for me is not so much quality but the content, the piece, the music. for example i'd rather have a scratched up lp of Cream, Led Zepplin, Hendrix or even a classical piece with many soft passages like lets say Debussy, than have a top quality, latest tech produced dvd or cd by for example Justin Bieber. I can always tolerate the poor recording or media quality(like scratchy records), but not poor music. I quess i am a music lover more than an audiophile

 

cassette was my first format in my teen years 90s... cds are expensive to me at that time, so now I start collect some cassettes but just for nostalgia, I remember that I like a lot have 2 sides (a breath between the whole album) beside that I don't expect any audiophile sound or something like that but maybe some sounds nice.
by the way I'm not a damn hipster that buy every single vintage sheeeit poor made stuff that appear on the market, thanks.

 

I only liked Cassettes to record my albums, to play them in the car. Other than that, I never found them “warm", nor anywhere as good as CD. Sorry!

 

That, of course, will be equipment dependent IMO. I've found dubs I've done as recently as this morning (simultaneously to Type IV metal cassette and 24/192 files, that the cassette transcribes every bit as much detail and provides much more 'warmth' and actually does the high end better. Sounds entirely more lifelike. YMMV.

 

I had cassettes and my dad got the good Maxwell XL-II blanks. I never got the impression they sounded better than a CD. That way the CD stayed in the jewel case, cassette was used in the car, CD didn't get damaged. CD-R didn't exist yet back then (early 1990s).

 

I would never argue cassette is a superior format the a CD, but I used to work at the Wherehouse back in the 80's and they used a tape deck to play music in the store for customers. I have to admit, the sound quality was really quite good. I would even say it was impressive. I was never able to get that kind of quality myself from pre-recorded cassette tapes on any system I owned. The name of the gear they used has slipped from memory but it was not typical consumer items from Circuit City. That tape deck lasted for years and years even though it played 12 or more hours a day. Later they switched to CDs and they sounded even better.

 

For me, the SQ pecking order breaks down as thus:

• digital audio, equal to or greater than 44.1/16
• open reel (low generation, 15 IPS or greater)
• lossy audio (high bitrate)
• open reel (pre-recorded, 7.5 IPS)
  
• vinyl
• cassette
• 78s
• lossy audio (low bitrate)
• wax cylinder

My preference leans towards vinyl or better (with a strong preference to vinyl), though I do enjoy the 78s I've collected.

 

Interestingly, a bought a average Sony stereo cassette deck TC-WE435 for 5 bucks last week and plugged into my system and the cassette totally matched the digital files.

My system is pretty high-end and I didn't change a think except add the deck. The digital is lossless from Roon and a Mac mini. I think for me my speakers, preamp and amps make more of difference than different formats, same source.

 

Can I please, for the sake of my sanity, implore everyone not to start a "cassettes sound better than CD because they are analog" movement. The format was invented for dictation machines. The application of cassettes for hi-fi use was one of greatest crimes against good sound ever committed.

Yes cassettes are analog. That doesn't mean they sound good. The tape is too narrow, too thin and the tape speed criminally slow. Low tape speed means hiss, poor frequency response, endless dropouts and painfully high wow and flutter.

The construction of the cassette also meant that no cassette ever played back with the correct azimuth alignment twice, causing phase errors between the two stereo channels.

Lets bury this format and make it the relic of history it deserves to be.

 

Ok, sure.

But, since my needledrops to cassette still have noticeably more depth/soundstaging and far less irritating transients than any CD-R I've ever made with more than adequate S/N ratio, I'll just nevermind that... Everything kills CD-R in my system from cassette to reel to reel to 24/192 to DSD. CD-R is the absolute bottom feeder. TEHO.

 

You've summed up my opinion EXACTLY

 

Weird; my CD-R copies of whatever it was that I transferred onto them sound EXACTLY as the source, in a consistent, bit-per-bit-manner