Huh? Now a cassette resurgence? Fascinating WSJ article

That's interesting. Back when vinyl was the most common medium, I could have sworn there were "audiophiles" buying MFSL releases, certain Japanese LPs, Nautilus, special half-speed reissues or any number of specific vinyl pressings thought to have premium sound quality. I had no idea the entire audiophile community were only ever buying reel-to reel-tapes.

 

You’re absolutely right. And there were plenty of major labels that had high-end marques on which they released superior pressings.

That’s because the entire audiophile community back in the day was not lusting primarily after reel-to-reel, or only ever buying reel-to-reel. I think @vwestlife may have made his point too broadly. Back in the day, right up to the mid-eighties, LP was the main source of everything high quality, broadcast radio was several notches down, and top quality reel-to-reel (commercial or self-made) was the domain of a small percentage of audiophiles.

Commercial cassettes were pervasive during the 70s and 80s. Plenty of audiophiles owned good or great cassette decks, and by 1982, almost 50% of U.S. and Canadian households owned a cassette player of one sort or another. Not sure what the western European cassette penetration looked like. Only a small percentage of cassette fans then and now understood that high-end cassette transports, heads, alignment systems and drive motor systems could produce excellent fidelity.

It was with cassettes (in the 70s, 80s and even into the early 90s) that we made our own mixtapes to share with friends, emotionally connect with girlfriends, bring our own favorites to a party (thereby avoiding scratched LPs, lost/stolen CDs, etc.) in a way that was eminently listenable, relatively low cost (even when using the best tape), and easy to replace or duplicate.

Now it’s even easier to do ‘mixtapes’ - sorry: playlists - with digital files and at even higher fidelity. Throw it all on a USB stick and away you go. There’s no cassette case though, and no label on which you can hand-write the artist and track titles or any personal notes. On the other hand, a well organized digital playlist can be accompanied by cover art, artist and track titles and even more if someone wants to really get deeply into it and the recipient has a suitable player/streamer and control app that displays the artwork and other details.

Great memories! Right at this moment, I wish I still had my Alpage or Revox decks.

 

This has been going on since 2013.
Home
From 2011

Cassettes Return for an Encore
Cassette tapes make a comeback

 

I sure hope you're being sarcastic. Yes, in principle, R2R could surpass vinyl - after all it was one step closer to the master - but in reality prerecorded R2R tapes were often poorly realized. It was a given back then that you could dub your LP onto R2R and have a much better result than paying extra for a shoddily done prerecorded tape.

Not that it wasn't done, mind you....just not often. Columbia R2Rs and some RCAs were done well. Most everybody else, including Ampex, did a mediocre job at best.

Cheers,
Larry B.

 

Come on folks, let's turn our sarcasm meters on.

 

The only things I liked about cassettes was making mix tapes for my friends and (pre-CD recordable days) for recording my LPs so I could listen to the music in my car. Once I went MD... and then CD-R, I never looked back at the cassette.

Back when I did PA for local venues - up to about the year 2000, bands were still sending demos / singles to us via cassette.

 

I bought a Nakamichi LX 3 for $60

 

Trying to get the best sound quality from the most common audio format is not the same thing as thinking or claiming that it is the best-quality format available.

People did the same thing with cassettes, but even with the most advanced reduction systems on Metal tape, I don't think anyone really believed its audio quality was superior to CD.

 

Guess again.

 

Same here, but that mindset is less common among people who by vinyl for trendy reasons.

 

I only buy cassettes if they're uber-cheap or only exclusive on that format (i.e., demo recordings, live recordings and sessions, official compilations, etc.).

 

Strange that there's such a resurgence in the software but no new hardware on which to play it. You want to trust you irreplacable tapes to a pawn shop used machine with who knows how badly worn out, magnetized or just gunked up heads?

Would the vinyl resurgence have amounted to anything if you could only play new records on either Crosleys or used tables?

 

On the contrary; the last two cassette decks I bought - both thrift shop specials - needed contact and switch cleaning, but otherwise had very little evidence of use. Never even seen a machine with "badly worn out heads" or "gunked up heads". If I did I wouldn't buy it - too many decent machines out there. Magnetized? Easily correctable.

Now turntables, I've seen them in all sorts of badly abused condition. Tape decks, not so much.

Cheers,
Larry B.

 

AFAIK, only Crosley, ION, and other junk brands uses Shenzhen Skywin that manufacture tape players, but of course, they're absolutely horrible in sound and build quality. There doesn't seem a big enough of a market to release a brand new, quality tape deck.

 

Kids buying these indie cassettes aren't actually playing them. They are souvenirs. They buy the cassette for $5 and then stream the album on their phone or computer.

 

There are plenty of new cassette players and decks available. The problem is, none of them are anywhere near as good as what was available in the '80s and '90s. Even this $400 Tascam CD/cassette combo deck doesn't have any Dolby NR:

Tascam CD A580 Rackmount Cassette to MP3 Combo Recorder with Unbalanced RCA | Full Compass

 

You're having fun. If you stopped having fun, then you could sell all the old stuff and invest in a legit hi-end digital front end which might beat a decent vinyl rig in certain respects.

 

I've been getting into cassette only groups lately. Mostly noise, circuit bending or dark ambient.

However one place I used to order from (his own label and record store here in Ohio) sent me many badly duped tapes several times. Either the level was super low or one channel never got recorded. I have since stopped buying from him. A shame too I like his stuff.

Here are some of the things I have bought in the past year.



Wolf Eyes - Half Animal, Half Insane

Aaron Dilloway - "The Rubber Mask"

Trepaneringsritualen - Maran

 

No, No. People who had problems with chewed-up cassettes never cleaned their pinch rollers and heads. I have been using Nakamichi cassette decks since the late 70s, kept the tape paths clean, never played junk commercially recorded tapes (only good quality blank tapes, recorded myself) and NEVER, not one time, had a tape break or get chewed up.

I remember seeing them by the side of the road, though, junk tapes played on junk car players, and all chewed-up.

But, now, after all these years, there are some tapes that we THOUGHT were good decades ago, like Ampex 20-20 and Ampex Grand Master, should be thrown away and never played again. The problem these tapes have now is sticky-shed. The cheap pre-recorded tapes never had back-coating, so they will never have that problem. And the tapes I primarily always used, Maxell and TDK, never have that problem.

 

Groucho's in Dundee now has a few racks for cassettes (secondhand) for the first time in years and there is a new secondhand book/record shop in Dundee which has a focus on cassettes to the extent of featruing them in their window (Led Zeppelin 2 last time I went past). And my Soup Dragons demo tape cassette went for £50 on Discogs.

Don't get the complaints about tape hiss, never considered it a problem with the right tape, tape deck, and recording levels, and far, far better to live with than Dolby B/C.

 

Truth. Out of hundreds of tapes I've only had a small handful chew up in the last 30 years. Either the pressure pad fell off, or the deck needed cleaning.

 

we went into a wal mart in a small south carolina town over the weekend

and in the entertainment section

was a small portable cassette player-recorder, just like the ones we all had in the 70s

and they also sold blank cassette tapes.

This is something I havent seen in a retail environment in years.

But maybe I just never noticed.

 

Green Day Boombox and Cassette Box Set

 

If the cassette revival is caused by the millennial market, it's probably a response to growing up in an all digital world. I highly doubt it's to be "cool" or "trendy" because there simply isn't anything remotely cool about cassettes. This is how their parents used to listen to music, FFS. It would be like a gen x'er listening to 8-track tapes in high school and college to "be cool." It would've only resulted in mockery and lots of confusion. The cassette resurgence is a reflection of something deeper going on, I think. The vinyl resurgence is also likely coming from this same place.

I really think people are looking for a more physical, tangible connection to their music. Music is just as emotional as it is about "sound quality." And there's a lot of emotion connected with physical formats, especially with tapes. Just ask anyone who ever slaved over a mixtape they made for their girlfriend, carefully picking out the songs, fussing over the track order, hand writing the j-card, etc. Those emotional associations can literally last for years. It's just not the same with a digital playlist.

I wish there were more millenials on this forum to share their thoughts about this.

 

Too bad that boombox is absolute garbage.