Info wanted on MFSL cassettes

How was the quality of these? I was thinking of buying some of them (like Imagine, Sticky fingers, Some Girls, etc.) but I'm not sure if they are high quality. Can anyone help me here?

 

Chris: The ones that I have are of the highest quality(IMO), and these include,

Christopher Cross
Beatles
Earl Klugh

and a few others that don't come to mind right this minute!

Hope this helps!

 

I wonder if that BASF Chrome II tape has stood up over time? I loved that stuff back in the day.
Boy, that tape sure made a stink when you opened the wrap....

 

I have bought a couple on eBay. "Let's Dance" for $4, in the fancy shell; and "Trick of the Tail" for $5 in the older BASF shell. The David Bowie is outstanding.

If you read the interview of Gregg Schnitzer on John Harp's site about the work MoFi put into making the best cassettes ever, recorded in real time, you will be impressed. And there is a note that says in a blind listening test between CD, LP and cassette that the listeners preferred the cassette!!

These are wonderful, but the big selling titles (Sticky Fingers, The Beatles) often hit $30 on eBay. You can pick up some of the less popular titles though, for a lot less. These are pretty rare now, so you may come up against a collector who wants it more than you. If you can keep the price low I think they are worthwhile. And a little bit of history.

When you hear what MFSL did with these cassettes you will know that the format had way more potential than was ever realized by the other manufacturers. Pre-recorded cassettes have a bad name - but there was little wrong with the technology; and a lot wrong with most implementations.

Regards,
Geoff

 

Thanks, guys. One other question - do you think the cassettes are better than the LP's of the same titles by MFSL? The reason I ask is that I am looking for good sources to do remasters with.

 

Well I do know that Magical Mystery Tour MFSL cassette (but I've never heard it) has all true stereo cuts unlike the MFSL LP.

 

I have three:

Revolver-The Beatles
From The Mars Hotel-Grateful Dead
Dream of the Blue Turtles-Sting

All sound excellent, especially the Beatles tape. A cassette I don't mind having!

 

But lets not mince words here: THESE ARE CASSETTES. There are better cassettes, even very good cassettes, but compared to an LP on a good table or even a good CD? As Jimmy would say, "Come on!"

 

Today I obtained something I've never seen, let alone heard of before... A MFSL Cassette Tape.

It's Duran Duran - RIO and is housed in a standard cassette case. The disc is clear with a black and silver decal detailing the song titles and listing ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING - HIGH FIDELITY CASSETTE. The catalog number for this release is MFSL C-110.

Although I have yet to A/B it against my West German CD, I can tell you the sound is MUCH better than a standard, run-of-th-mill cassette tape. More lively if that makes sense?

Anyway, has anyone else seen a MFSL cassette tape? Do you have any info?

Thanks!

 

Yes, I held onto all my Beatles ones a friend gave me during his major clean out.

They issued plenty of them. Used BASF tape stock, so they should still sound good if the pads have not come off their metal spring. The glue was not so good. My only complaint.

 

I have some still, and sold others over the years. They're nice collectibles, but tapes are not everyone's cup o' tea.

 

Some were even issued with Dolby C but was discontinued due to numerous compatability problems.

 

They were duped in real time using Nakamichi decks.

 

I got DSOTM a couple years ago for 25 cents in flea market. I don't have a good enough deck to ever experience it the way they intended...had to pull a deck out of the garage just to hear it.

 

I still have their Cream "Wheels of Fire" double cassette. Have no idea if its worth anything. At the time I was knock out at the sound quality of them. For cassette anyway...

 

Here's a list of the titles:

http://members.aol.com/boardwalk7/mofi/mofibasf.html

 

The MFSL cassette contents differ from the regular Capitol version. Some of the songs are shorter on the MFSL. The Capitol used the "Night Version" of Hungry Like The Wolf, for example.

 

The MFSL Magical Mystery Tour was the first stereo-thoughout release of that material in the US.
It uses the same masters as the German lp and the UK cassette and worldwide (in-print) cd. I've never heard it but if I bought only one MoFi cassette, that would be the one.

The MoFi vinyl (which I sold - yes, I was crazy) used the US master, same as the Japanese lp, UK lp, and US lp. 3 songs in mock-stereo.

 

Hi all,

These were very high quality! Duplicated at real time on BASF Chrome tape stock and in a propreitary tape shell which had superior tape guidance. Duped on Nakamichi studio grade cassette decks. The best cassettes available at that time. Still excellent on a nice machine.

 

Thanks for all the info, guys.

Great list, Russ, thanks... And ubsman, I "thought" Hungry sounded a bit different. Very cool! Kent, great technical info... the rest of you as well!!!

I have a pretty decent Denon cassette deck from 1979 and the sound quality of this tape really is good. I am pleasantly surprised to say the least!

 

I heard that cassette once and it sounded very good, but why they screwed up the vinyl so bad and got the cassette right is definitely a head scratcher.

And why they only did 4 Beatles titles on cassette is a mystery too.

 

There's a bunch on ebay now, but they wan't way too much for all of them. It's just cassettes folks.

P.S. There was an article a while back from a guy who used to work for MFSL, who claimed that Naks were not used, as they didn't have the juice to put a proper signal on the BASF Chrome tapes. A lot of that article seemed possibly dubious, however, so who the hell really knows. I'm just sayin' is all.

 

I wonder how the MFSL Deja Vu cassette sounds..

 

That tape does require a hotter signal to really lay down good saturation. And their decks at MFSL were set up to do just that.

I remember recording on these BASF chrome cassettes with a good JVC deck in 1984 to 87. And I did have to have the needle swinging way into the red to get a good strong playback. At the end of the day, for your efforts, you did have a tape with the lowest hiss level of any tape on the market.

 

years back, I had the Beatles Revolver MFSL Cassette...it sucked!