How Many are for Rehashing Cassettes?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Vaughan, Sep 28, 2017.

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  1. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Possible, I suppose. But my conclusion came over quite a long time using a variety of tapes, so it's a general observation.

    For me it's the high-end air and ambience in a recording. It just simple gets shaved when digitising, and you lose more with each step down in resolution. A kind of deadness is introduced into the sound, even if it's wild and rocking or whatever, anything acoustic or airy gets reproduced into a kind of simulacrum, replicant copy of something that was originally alive. Someone on another thread, another pundit, firmly maintained that there was no audible difference between 24/96 and 24/192, so I experimented and took a random 24/192 of mine and stepped it down to 24/96 and there you have it. Not only was the difference immediately audible, it followed that same slice off the air pattern I've heard for too many years to argue with anyone about anymore. I would never have guessed my hearing was still in good enough nick to hear what seems to be a subtle difference to most people, but hear it I do and it ain't subtle at all. I think I inadvertently shut down the thread expressing my rage at the know-it-all punditry for advising someone to forget 'hi-rez' because it was all an illusion and he needn't bother dubbing at 24/192 because he wouldn't hear the difference. I imagined how totally burned I'd feel if I had listened to such crap advice and digitised several hundred LPs and singles, then learned (heard, rather) what I'd been missing at higher resolution. I'd have been furious.

    Back to cassette...People can say what they will about most cassettes and players and I'd very likely agree. Shatty, hissy, high-speed copies, unreliable machines and quality control...sure. Many were. In my nearly 60 years walking this earth I think I bought all of three new, mass produced cassettes and that was some time between 1978 and 1981 and I regretted each purchase just as soon as I played it. No good.

    Dubbing vinyl records on a high quality deck with a high quality Type II or Type IV is a completely different story. People who conflate mass produced, retail cassettes with dubs like I produce don't know what they're talking about. Or, to be more specific, haven't heard what they're talking about.

    I got back into cassette when I did (2004? Can't remember exactly...) for a couple of simple reasons. I'd grown totally tired of the sound of CDR dubs for the deadness I mentioned above and I wanted a way to back things up all analog. I wanted to get back into RTR (I have a couple of RTR decks back in storage in the US), but with limited living space, living abroad (knowing I'd want to ship everything if I moved abroad again), I wondered about cassette when I was looking around my local high end audio shop and noticed they had a late model used Nak there, so I asked to listen and was pretty wowed by the lack of hiss and the fullness of the sound. I remembered Nak made some more serious decks than the one in the store (I think it was a DR-2 IIRC) so I decided to shop around until I found the deck I have now -- which will stay with me until the end. A very satisfying piece of audio equipment and you can hear how much better it is from the first sound of the needledrop itself (which I leave on both my digital and tape dubs). On the cassette even the drop itself, lock in the groove and the sound of the groove pacing its way toward the first music contains a truckload more air than does a digital dub of the same material.

    The above will be counterintuitive for the inexperienced who just like to swoop in with a jpg image of a chewed up cassette or other jump-on-the-bandwagon-online-fun, but I wouldn't let their lack of background and experience sway you from what your ears actually tell you.

    If I'd bothered with people like that I wouldn't have gotten back into records in '95 ~ '96.
     
  2. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I still have most of my cassettes as well as 8 track tapes. I don't play any of them very much, but every so often I drag them out just to get a reaction from people, mostly "you still listen to those old things"? or "Those are really old school dad"!
     
  3. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    I just came across this -- a review from January 2000 of the cassette deck I use (which was discontinued in 1992). It's from a section of the UK Hi-Fi World magazine (Olde Worlde) where they review old equipment they've liked in the past:

    HI-FI WORLD - OLDE WORLDE - NAKAMICHI CR-7E CASSETTE DECK

    Of note:

    "Sound quality is startling - better than every other cassette deck in the world bar none; it even gives high quality semi-pro open reels (like Revox's B77) a sharp slap around the face."


    ...

    "With a decent metal tape, you can casually record at +10dB, such are the Nak's stunning discrete heads, and even beer-budget ferrics sound better than anyone else's cassette deck running the most expensive metals. Pitch stability, dynamics, depth perspective, noise levels - everything - is superb. Replay of pre-recordeds is a revelation - if they're decent all-analogue copies they'll trounce even a modern high end CD player. In fact, the Nak's resolution far exceeds CDs - to fully hear what it's capable of you need live recordings or a high end vinyl source."

    I've already mentioned similar things here and on other cassette topic threads. I probably would not go so far as with the Revox comparison (despite not having ever heard one) but the rest is pretty much on the mark.

    So the point I'm making is this -- people who swoop in on these threads to say cassette can never sound like anything but garbage don't know what they're talking about. The high-end decks produced in the 1980's through to the early part of the 1990's could sound flat fantastic, as my Nakamichi CR7A still does. YMMV.
     
  4. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    ...and it does. It did for years before CD came out. You love cassettes. Great. I really don’t. No Super Nak with Dolby Z is gonna make me love them either. The media is what it is and while there were some very good tapes out there, it’s still just thin tape in an unstable shell.

    Ed
     
  5. Keith V

    Keith V Forum Resident

    Location:
    Secaucus, NJ
    I’m listening to a needle drop cassette of some Christmas music as we speak. Sounds ok to me.
     
  6. vinyl diehard

    vinyl diehard Two-Channel Forever

    God No!
     
    Nostaljack likes this.
  7. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Who said I "love" cassettes? Where does that come from?

    For the record, no one said you need to "love" them. I don't "love" them.

    I'm just making a point -- people who say cassette can never sound good were likely never exposed to high end players, metal tape and good source material.

    For my part, I simply find cassette a good all-analog recording medium, in absence of RTR, that happen to sound surprisingly great with this machine, which does a far better job of rendering presence (especially vocal and acoustic instruments) than do the 24/192 files I dub (and those are pretty good, even if I do say so myself) and are a world beyond CDR to the point that I haven't burned a CDR in who knows how long (though I still play some CD's on the machine).

    What I'm saying is people who swoop in to just say "garbage" don't know what they're talking about. They haven't been exposed to what the medium was capable of with state of the art equipment prior to CD achieving its market domination.

    As for thin (slow moving) tape, sure. Unstable shell I kind of don't get...I've had very few tapes ever screw up and fail for whatever reason. But I suppose I never bought the cheap brands, either.

    What I "love", to use your word, is having non-hard-drive dependent back-ups of my favourite records that do justice to the original SQ. This setup with a Type IV absolutely does IMO. I'm very much concerned with redundancy -- all my records are being backed up in 24 bit FLACs, CAFs, as well original 24/192 Amadeus Pro files and my favourites also get dubbed to a metal cassette.

    I know this will be counter-intuitive and perhaps even upsetting for many, but for SQ the cassette beats out the rest. On my system, the cassette is the closest in SQ to the original record. If I had my druthers, I have an RTR here, but sadly it's just not practical. The Nak is an excellent (even if inferior) substitute IMO.

    YMMV.
     
  8. Evil Strawberry

    Evil Strawberry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana,USA
    TBH Cassettes Are Great. You can carry them around anywhere you want. they don't get scratched. and with great equipment they can sound so so SO Good. The only Problem is Them getting ate. I had A few Get ate before by my Duel Deck but it was only because one of the decks was damaged. I recommend Cleaning the heads to from dust and grime.[​IMG]
     
  9. rebetis

    rebetis Forum Resident

    Location:
    quebec
    I have no problem with cassettes. I actually never stopped using the ones i had.

    I was shocked a few years ago when I walked into a store in Montreal that sold heavy metal music and he had about a rack full for sale all between 5 and $9. the music was black metal. I bought about about 20 of them and I've been listening to them non-stop since.
    SOme of these albums are available on CD or vinyl but I don't necessarily feel the need to upgrade.

    ALSO, I bought from an online seller somewhere in Europe, he had a Christmas sale going of one Euro Per tape. so I swooped up about 50 in one shot.

    keep in mind most of this music is black metal so most of them are either demos or just very low budget anyway and it works for me.
     
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  10. Deaf_in_ LA_1974

    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 Forum Resident

    Anybody that has been out to see younger (~40) bands in the last ten years other than 70s reunion gigs will have seen that cassettes have been back for a while and not in a kitschy way, a we cant afford to get a cd pressed, or wanna wait 14 months for a vinyl press way.

    BTW the average cass cost at a show is 5-6 bucks. its an easy sell compared to 28 for an LP, or 7.50 for another beer

    The only obstacle is finding working decks, the only thing on Amazon new that's not made in China is the Sony 50 dollar black boombox style. I have had several new cheaper ones (not the Sony) that were DOA right out the box, or played at really wrong speeds. The hit/miss ratio is way worse than the crosley style turntables.
    I know pawn shops have old rack units, but most of these kids don't have an amp/speaker setup.

    As we see from Mp3s, 2 inch high speaker cabinets, and croselys, sound quality just isn't very high on the list priorities.

    I don't know what yall were doing to get all those tapes to unwind, multiple rapid fast forward maybe, I was born in 74 so I had tapes and lps as a kid and teenager, I don't think I ever had one unspool, Now putting a double Lp on a tape, I had a couple freeze up, where they wouldnt play, rewind or anything.
    I own a 98 lexus with a working deck, japan made of course
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
    Dynamic Ranger likes this.
  11. rocknsoul74

    rocknsoul74 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    Cassettes were all we had at the time. Once CD-R's came, cassettes became useless, except for whatever you want to preserve and save. As far being a vibale and active medium, they've outlived their use and purpose. Cassette revival, pssshhh, please...
     
  12. Deaf_in_ LA_1974

    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 Forum Resident

    people are typing on all manual, non electric typewriters again, to each his own

    Some might say a tape(especially in a car system) can be less brittle or glassy than a cd or cdr, so in that respect, they are an audiophile format
     
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  13. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    I agree with E Rampo and others who have said that cassettes on high end players sounded OK to pretty good. They had a nice tonality to them. I think the only reason at this point for their continued use is to maintain the analog basis of an analog LP or create analog compilations from analog LPs. If one doesn't mind listening to digital recordings I don't see what use cassettes would have because they certainly are less convenient than files.
     
    Morton LaBongo likes this.
  14. Keith V

    Keith V Forum Resident

    Location:
    Secaucus, NJ
    Exactly.... I still think cassettes are the best sounding music in a car. Maybe it’s the natural compression that they provide that lends itself to mobile listening....or maybe I’m just Biased :hide:
     
    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 and beccabear67 like this.
  15. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    The cassette format was a huge part of the '80s-'90s D.I.Y. scene around these parts, even somewhat before that in the late '70s I remember some milestone local stuff coming out only on cassette. Maybe the biggest cassette debut was Green Pajamas' Summer Of Lust. I'm sure I can't be the only one who has kept their tapes properly fully rewound and in a dust-free container. What's with this laughing at formats? I don't even laugh at 8-tracks (I just don't find the format to my liking or of use because of live or long tracks having to be broken).
     
    Keith V likes this.
  16. Mike Reynolds

    Mike Reynolds Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Here. Let me help you with that...

    [​IMG]
     
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  17. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    I guess the mirth comes from those who are old enough to remember the dicey-to-awful SQ on a lot of mass produced tapes and the unspooling of both cassettes and 8-track cartridges onto living room floors and roads everywhere. It was a sight.

    Having said that, few, if any of these people have ever heard what a cassette can sound like when it has been dubbed from a beautiful sounding vinyl record played on a good table and cart, and that dub playing on a high end deck like the one I have. Different worlds.
     
  18. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    A couple of years ago, my local gave me $1.00 per, for each cassette I'd sell him. Walked out about $30 richer. Fine by me !!!
     
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  19. Deaf_in_ LA_1974

    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 Forum Resident

    It should be stated that ZEV (the OP post) is a deeply underground musician who does shows of 20-50 people.

    He plays drums on everything but drums, with no vocals or other instruments...and does not keep normal musical time like 3/4 or 4/4, so were talking about a sub-sub segment of the underground.

    He is not trying to take away your record stores, or 60 dollar represses.

    This type of animosity from one music vehicle to another is really silly. Its like bike enthusiast being mad as hell at unicyclist for trying to get an hours exercise in ten minutes( they are mad, the two wheel people, but that's another thread.)
     
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  20. BDC

    BDC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tacoma
    I have about a 150 or so cassettes left over from back in the day. I have a recently serviced 3 head Denon deck that I play them on. Prior to that my tapes sat for a long time. I Don't plan on buying new tapes.
     
    ZippyPippy likes this.
  21. Deaf_in_ LA_1974

    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 Forum Resident

    For anybody interested in Underground/punk/noise/experimental/non-beatles cassettes there is a all-cassette board (8000 post) at

    Cassette Collective Message Board

    This is mostly small run 50-500 type stuff, the stuff its logical for them to release on cassette.
     
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  22. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ..." Indie "-ish bands whose members are under 40 are offering these cassettes at the merch table at their gigs, do you mean?







    LA_1974, post: 17985633, member: 50447"]Anybody that has been out to see younger (~40) bands in the last ten years other than 70s reunion gigs will have seen that cassettes have been back for a while and not in a kitschy way, a we cant afford to get a cd pressed, or wanna wait 14 months for a vinyl press way.

    BTW the average cass cost at a show is 5-6 bucks. its an easy sell compared to 28 for an LP, or 7.50 for another beer

    The only obstacle is finding working decks, the only thing on Amazon new that's not made in China is the Sony 50 dollar black boombox style. I have had several new cheaper ones (not the Sony) that were DOA right out the box, or played at really wrong speeds. The hit/miss ratio is way worse than the crosley style turntables.
    I know pawn shops have old rack units, but most of these kids don't have an amp/speaker setup.

    As we see from Mp3s, 2 inch high speaker cabinets, and croselys, sound quality just isn't very high on the list priorities.

    I don't know what yall were doing to get all those tapes to unwind, multiple rapid fast forward maybe, I was born in 74 so I had tapes and lps as a kid and teenager, I don't think I ever had one unspool, Now putting a double Lp on a tape, I had a couple freeze up, where they wouldnt play, rewind or anything.
    I own a 98 lexus with a working deck, japan made of course[/QUOTE]
     
  23. WLL

    WLL Popery Of Mopery

    ..." The narcissism of small differences ", eh;):rolleyes:?






    _ LA_1974, post: 17986958, member: 50447"]It should be stated that ZEV (the OP post) is a deeply underground musician who does shows of 20-50 people.

    He plays drums on everything but drums, with no vocals or other instruments...and does not keep normal musical time like 3/4 or 4/4, so were talking about a sub-sub segment of the underground.

    He is not trying to take away your record stores, or 60 dollar represses.

    This type of animosity from one music vehicle to another is really silly. Its like bike enthusiast being mad as hell at unicyclist for trying to get an hours exercise in ten minutes( they are mad, the two wheel people, but that's another thread.)[/QUOTE]
     
  24. ZippyPippy

    ZippyPippy Forum Resident

    I still have items from every genre I've used, including mini discs. Don't put on the cassettes much, but do on occasion.
     
  25. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I have several of what are IMO among the VERY best cassette decks ever made.

    Tonight I have my top of the line Teac V8030S cassette deck playing tapes all night.

    I let it warm up all day today in anticipation.

    This may not be my very best sounding cassette deck, but it is a VERY good deck overall.
    And it's Dolby S is jaw droppingly clean sounding.

    It excels at playing old tapes well without damaging them. A trick many other decks can't seem to pull off.

    Some are prerecorded, a wonderful Yes Years box set that sounds slick (cobalt tape), as well as an original, new old stock cassette of Hendrix Electric Ladyland. Amazing sounding. And that is something considering I have over a dozen media versions of that astounding double LP.

    Also playing some really old band tapes of me and my friends.

    At no time tonight have I felt sonically shortchanged listening to this deck. I know, the talking tape head gurus don't rate this deck as great....their loss, my gain. I've had Dragons, and this deck sounds better...sorry Nak fans.

    I've got a few decent vinyl as well as digital rigs and this thing is making me smile, and that my friends....is what it all about. Or at least should be.

    Not my pic:
    [​IMG]
     
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