Looking back at it Cassettes were a great way of listening to music

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Houseplants, Mar 5, 2021.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Houseplants

    Houseplants Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Here me out. I'm an 80s kid so I am the cassette generation. I feel for me personally cassette tapes laid the best possible foundation for astute music listening going forward.

    I feel the benefits of cassette tapes are as follows:

    1. They were affordable.
    2. They made duplication possible for the masses.
    3. They made music portable (bus rides, drives, etc.) Going through peoples collection on the bus was something that cassettes made possible.
    4. They could fit 5 more minutes a side.
    5. Here's a big one for me...It was painstaking to skip tracks. So to really listen to a record you had to listen to it.
    6. Analog is cool.

    Am I buying these new cassettes that bands are releasing? No, I think that trend is ridiculous. With streaming there's no reason buy cassettes IMO.
     
    Folknik, Joti Cover, Sean and 67 others like this.
  2. R79

    R79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    39629
    You could also listen to the album you just bought immediately on the drive home (even with Vinyl you had to wait until you got home, and if you were on vacation it made the wait even longer).
     
    Joti Cover, Sean, Marty T and 42 others like this.
  3. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    They suited their purpose at the time, but I can't listen to them now.
     
    Sean, Gaslight, musicnonstop and 28 others like this.
  4. Devin

    Devin Time's Up

    Don't really miss them. But I sure wish I had one of these:
    [​IMG]
     
  5. 7solqs4iago

    7solqs4iago Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    at home you could splice tape for your own interests
     
    BourbonAndVinyl likes this.
  6. Wigru

    Wigru Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium
    I only used them to make my own compilation tapes.

    These were swapped out with those that friends made
     
  7. Paul Gase

    Paul Gase Everything is cheaper than it looks.

    Location:
    California
    Making mixtapes was one of the most fun things to do back then. Making playlists or burning CD-Rs are not even close.
     
  8. CrawdaddySim1

    CrawdaddySim1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN
    I remember dubbing my classic soul CD's onto high-quality Maxell tapes in the mid-90's and playing them in my car while delivering pizzas. From what I can recall, that music never sounded better! Great bottom end.
     
  9. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    Some records sounded better when transferred to cassette.
     
    Jack_Straw, ex_mixer, Sean and 21 others like this.
  10. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    I don't miss them, as soon as it was feasible I got a Discman and never looked back
     
    modela, Sean, mando_dan and 17 others like this.
  11. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Cassettes were a product of their time. They never sounded great, but they were convenient for a number of the aforementioned reasons people have listed. They serve no purpose in 2021, other than offering people access to a vintage method of listening to music.
     
    ex_mixer, blind_melon1, Sean and 20 others like this.
  12. vinylkid58

    vinylkid58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Victoria, B.C.
    Especially when you played them in your car.;)

    jeff
     
    hoss, Micah, wrat and 4 others like this.
  13. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    I had a car that ate them though.
     
    Sean, punkmusick, Ern and 2 others like this.
  14. 4-2-7

    4-2-7 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SF Peninsula
    They where great to throw out the wind when they jammed up your car deck.:D
     
    Sean, mando_dan, utopiarun and 11 others like this.
  15. Doghouse Riley

    Doghouse Riley Forum Resident

    Location:
    North West England
    They still are, though I don't play them that often.
    What you see and hear dates from the early seventies.

     
  16. dlokazip

    dlokazip Forum Transient

    Location:
    Austin, TX, USA
    They were good for their time.

    My only regret was that I didn't just buy records and transfer them to blank tapes. The labels often skimped on the manufacturing, making half of the available cassettes sound awful. The mechanism often didn't hold up. Some of the tapes developed sticky shed syndrome. The blank tapes that TDK were making were far superior.

    I had a friend in high school that would always buy albums on vinyl. I made fun of him at the time. Now, I wish I had done what he did. I can't imagine what his Iron Maiden collection is worth now.
     
  17. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    The tendency of cassettes to chew up drove me insane. Still, I bought my first round of the Pink Floyd, Marillion and Rush catalogues on cassette back in the day.
     
  18. vinylkid58

    vinylkid58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Victoria, B.C.
    Bad car! :laugh:

    jeff
     
  19. Doghouse Riley

    Doghouse Riley Forum Resident

    Location:
    North West England
    In 1975, I bought a new radio/cassette player for my 1973 Mk lll Cortina GLS (exactly the same as the one in "Life on Mars") I liked the fact that you could fast forward between tracks as it detected the silence between them and stopped. I couldn't do that with the one that came with the car.

    I bought C90s as you could usually get a borrowed album on each side.
    C60s were a waste of money, as there was a lot of wasted tape if you put one side of an album on each side.

    I also had a Walkman. I got it out of a drawer a few years ago where it had been for twenty years, but I'd left the batteries in, they'd leaked and ruined it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2021
  20. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    I still buy cheap, second-hand cassettes. It remains a great way of discovering new music.
     
    Folknik, Joti Cover, Sean and 22 others like this.
  21. The Trinity

    The Trinity Do what thou wilt, so mote be it.

    Location:
    Canada
    I still have all my old cassettes from back in the day, and even buy the odd new one for the fun of it. They were a great portable medium and I still enjoy the nostalgia aspect of cassettes very much.
     
    Folknik, Sean, ProfBoz and 12 others like this.
  22. They still are a great way of listening to music. My truck has a cassette player, so I listen to cassettes everyday. I listen to cassettes more than any other format.
     
    Folknik, Joti Cover, aravel and 23 others like this.
  23. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    When I started reading this post I thought, 'I did this with all my Iron Maiden singles in high school...'
     
  24. JosepZ

    JosepZ Digital knight of the analog masters

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    Some CDs too. Jethro Tull's awful 25th anniversary remaster of 'Aqualung' sounded better when copied to a high quality chrome tape. Tape hiss and harmonic distortion seemed to restore some of the life taken out by lousy noise reduction and an awful remaster.
     
  25. Johnny Rock N' Roll

    Johnny Rock N' Roll Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    I still love tapes.

    In most cases, it's the most attractive looking physical format to me. I love the sound the tape makes moving around inside its case.

    I'm sure it's all tied to nostalgia, but it's still there. I buy more vinyl than tapes, but I still buy 'em. In 2021, I've purchased or have been gifted 5 or 6 cassettes so far.

    And nothing beats a 4-song demo from a punk, hardcore or metal band.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine