How Many are for Rehashing Cassettes?

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

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  1. spherical

    spherical Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    I use cassettes all the time, and, in fact, am looking to get a unit installed in my car. Anyone have any sources for a car unit?
     
  2. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Nothing that would not be trash. I had a Sony ES Mobile Fidelity cassette head unit years back, amazing. Sadly 90% of car units are trash.
     
  3. dannydieerr

    dannydieerr Forum Resident

    Location:
    Guildford
    [​IMG]
    I still buy cassettes occasionally when I see them cheap and generally they are cheap, can then play them in the old portable while doing the inevitable DIY...
     
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  4. Waymore Lonesome

    Waymore Lonesome Forum Resident

    I found a pre-recorded 70ms eq cassette in chrome shell recently, with no dolby sign, sounds fantastic. I don't know how many of these there are out there, I also have Bob Dylan's Under The Red Sky Promotional Only, again chrome shell, says chrome on the tape, says no dolby. I'm kind of into tapes because I had totally written them off as being poor sound, but they really weren't so bad at all, I like all the different settings and tape types but I can see how that got annoying. I even have one dolby s cassette!
     
  5. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    SA - X's always on the lookout for these TDK's.
     
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  6. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Pre recorded ?
    don't like to pay for more than 2.00 myself( taking a chance ).
    But, any half decent title goes for 5.00 to 10.00.
     
  7. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Ya, I have a 90's DRS-810 and it works beautifully. Only worth while really if you have good quality tape. I have never bought a "pre-recorded" tape.
    But for needle-drops of prized vinyl, it is nice because it keeps that analog sound, and you can get both sides if the album on one side of the tape.
     
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  8. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Maxell XLII-S are nice too.
     
  9. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Answer: The pen's a "winder". :laugh:
     
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  10. MDW

    MDW Howard The Duck's Biggest Fan

    Location:
    Arkansas
    To have a low cost alternative for an album you’re not sure about - count me back in, I miss that!

    MP3’s never did it for me :shake:
     
  11. Waymore Lonesome

    Waymore Lonesome Forum Resident

    I think tapes get a bad rep for a lot of reasons, for one thing, we all know the dogma right? Oh, pre-recorded cassettes were garbage quality, high speed dubs on attrocious normal bias (ick!) tape, well not so fast. In reality, it turns out that they were better quality for being made with high speed machines, a very different process than the high speed button on your twin tape deck.

    Secondly, normal bias is fine. Yes there's a lower signal to noise ratio (hiss), but there's also better bass than on chrome tapes, and you add better and better dolby into the mix and they can sound great.

    The big problem to me when it comes to cassettes was the compatibility and expense factor. I only learned a month or so ago that the whole time, the bias setting on tape decks was only for recording, and the eq setting for both, which means that I have a couple of old Maxell XLIIS's and TDK SA's that I probably recorded completely wrong, let alone fine tune bias and heck I still don't know what an azimuth is!

    People always used to say "chrome tape, no dolby!" when I was trying to get into tape trading at the very end of it. Now I know the reason, and it's stupid, but for those who don't know I'll put it here. Originally the chrome tapes superior treble sound required some noise reduction, so they made a setting where you could record them at 7o microsecond equalisation, then about a year later dolby b came out, which was much better, but instead of just completely shelving 70 microsecond eq alltogether, it stayed around permanently. If you record a chrome tape today on an automatic tape selector tape deck, it will record it chrome bias, 70us or chrome/high eq setting, which means if you also add dolby to it it will sound muffled.

    This is why the chrome tapes that came out after 1983 were all in normal shells, not to save costs but because they were mastered 12o eq dolby b, much better.

    Now as a hobby all this azimuth adjusting, fine tune bias adjust, separate eq and bias selectors, dolby b, c, s and dbx noise reduction, as well as the fun of finding 50c tapes that were made in different ways, is great fun, and it really is a great format I think, but I can see how to the average person, you just want to chuck a tape in and play or record and not stuff around. If we could do it all over again we'd probably be better off just settling for one brand of tape, choose between normal or chrome and have dolby s and have it just be automatic on every single deck and every pre-recorded cassette, but that would certainly take a bit of the fun out of it for people like me.
     
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  12. uzn007

    uzn007 Pack Rat

    Location:
    Raleigh, N.C.
    Dear God, no. I haven't missed cassettes since I bought a CD burner in 1999.
     
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  13. Deaf_in_ LA_1974

    Deaf_in_ LA_1974 Forum Resident

    I don't if the thread starter is still participating.
    but if you/he is interested in a Z'ev comp the 2 cd
    Z'EV - 1968-1990: One Foot In The Grave
    is a great overview which has the percussion stuff, tape noise and spoken word stuff.
    Z'ev s use of tape loops makes the format of tapes very appropriate.
    I don't know if you/he is even interested in Z'ev or is this just a discussion on tape as a release medium. Obviously the board has taken it up as a format discussion, but the original post is very much about one artist
     
  14. Huntigula

    Huntigula Idiot Savant

    Location:
    Brighton, MI
    For the first time ever in my life, I have two working cassette decks. One at home, one in the car. I wanted a car that was a stick, and the tape deck was just a bonus.

    To me, there's still something wonderful about pulling out an album, getting the levels right, cueing the tape, and letting it roll. It used to be so exciting going through someone's collection and having them tape something you wanted. When the digital revolution happened, it all became so disposable. Couple of clicks, move a few things, and you had a CD or an iPod loaded. When I make mixtapes, I put thought into what I really want to hear. I can't just click or instantly change the song, and I don't just jam up a phone or CD with compressed, maximized, or brick walled audio. Analog source to analog source. I feel like music consumers have forgotten about that mystique. It takes me back to a simpler time. Van Halen's "Fair Warning" on side A, and Aerosmith's "Draw the Line" on side B. It's also made me enjoy the ALBUM experience again after years of just whipping some tunes on to a 50 cent CD-R or loading it on my iPhone. It makes me appreciate the music AND the process more.

    Related: I'm a millennial (33). So all that hogwash about us wanting it all, wanting it yesterday and appreciating none of it, is just that...hogwash.

    Unrelated: Taping my albums and playing them in my stick shift car. In my world, it's still 1988. Just without the horrible fashion and cocaine.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2018
  15. pathosdrama

    pathosdrama Forum Resident

    Location:
    Firenze, Italy
    I loved making mixtapes, back in the day. Would I ever do that now? No, there are Spotify playlists for this.
     
  16. garrincha

    garrincha Forum Resident

    Location:
    Plymouth, UK
    I picked up a mint Nak LX-5 a couple of months ago, as I had loads of tapes kicking about from when I was a nipper and I wanted to get back into the game maaan. incredible machine! the format is a bit hit and miss with pre-recorded cassettes, but when you find a gem...it is right up there with vinyl, for me. such warmth and clarity. absolutely kicks the a$$ of redbook CD's

    this cassette - Eddi Reader - Eddi Reader - for example, sounds absolutely incredible and can be picked up for buttons

    I can understand why folk look back to the tape era with very little fondness - due to crappy machines, chewed taped, wow and flutter, hiss etc - but with the right machine, coupled with a well recorded cassette, you really are on to a winner

    love it man!
     
  17. mc7t

    mc7t Forum Resident

    And whilst we're on the subject....:)

     
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  18. doity

    doity Forum Resident

    I have used cassettes as my main media source for 40 years and can count on one hand maybe the number of tapes of mine that were ‘eaten’. Can’t say the same about CD’s that skip and LP’s that need constant cleaning to remove dust. Not only did Nakamichi produce excellent models, but manufacturers like Sony, Aiwa, Denon, Revox, JVC, etc. also produced some excellent machines. Don’t take my word....take a look at closed EBay auctions and look at the prices commanded by some of these decks. Also look at the prices paid for audiophile cassettes by MFSL, Nakamichi, Nautilus, etc.

    I think the people who like to reject out of hand the cassette format like to think of themselves as superior audiophiles that feel a need to keep up with the latest and greatest because of course “newer is better”. Fine with me, I will stick to my outdated Marantz SD930 (sticker price $1500 in 1984) that has auto-azumith control, Dolby B/C & DBX, and a frequency response of 22 kHz with Metal Bias tapes.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2018
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  19. Waymore Lonesome

    Waymore Lonesome Forum Resident

    Watched that with deep excitement, sad to hear it's crap, I so wish they'd put out new high end cassette decks on the mid level price range, from all we've learned. New tapes with dolby s, new decks with all that we learned during the learning phase of this format, how expensive can it be? I'd pay $200 for a top notch brand new deck, hell I'm probably going to end up paying that much for an ancient deck one of these days, there's always Nakamichi's popping up on ebay. I'm about to (hopefully) grab a dolby s playing deck a couple of days from now.

    I love cassette, best format ever, just barely less quality than reel to reel, on a format that had no business being that level of quality, so much effort put into it, and abandoned and disrespected so quickly.
     
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  20. Cokeman118

    Cokeman118 Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    You lost me at Stefan Weisser...

    but cassettes? No.
     
  21. Leepal

    Leepal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Swindon, UK
    Over the past 10 to 15 years I have had a couple of cars that had cassette players instead of CD players so I kind of rehashed cassettes for that reason. I've thought about bringing cassettes back to my home system to have a way of recording analog to analog, never got round to it though. Reel to reel is too expensive for me.
     
  22. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

  23. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Well said.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2018
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  24. steveharris

    steveharris Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    No way!Lets just move forward!We have it so much better now!:laugh:
     
  25. Dude111

    Dude111 An Awesome Dude

    Location:
    US
    Yes i love cassettes and 8 tracks ... Both are gorgeous!
     
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