Avocado Memories: Photos of long-forgotten blank cassettes

That MX must be 1984/5, I think I managed to afford about two of them at the time, the design changed a couple of years later, XL IIs were my first choice for a lot of years, I think I still have one or two of that design sealed.

 

I got one or two free pairs of jeans from collecting tape coupons, can't remember which brand of tape it was off hand, I don't think it was Maxell and their little tabs, maybe TDK with something they launched in the late eighties.

 

I was sniffing BASF CR-E the other night as I looked from recordings I made in the early to mid 80's

 

Since they've come up (again) here are some more SM tapes from BASF I got last year...





...and some other old school...

 

Indeed, a very high priced tape on the current used market, and sealed is just pricey priced. I have a couple of them not sealed buy unwritten on j-cards at least.

 

I currently have the following sealed tapes up for sale, but I'm starting to think I should just keep them, or at the very least just keep the second lot...

60 Sealed Rare Vintage Blank Memorex MRX2 Oxide Cassette Tapes Case Included | eBay

42 Sealed Rare Vintage Blank Chrome and Ferric Cassette Tapes Case Included | eBay

 

I remember using the BASF's around 1980-83. My then deck was okay with real chrome tapes being made before the Japanese switch to Ferro-Colbalt so so long as you were careful with the level on low notes they were great and super quiet.

 

I'll bet that the foam head pad on those Memorex tapes has completely disintegrated and those tapes aren't even useable in their current shells.

 

Funny you should say that - I broke open a couple of mine and they played and recorded just fine.

 

It seems to be hit or miss. In my case, the glue holding the pad has worn away. In other tapes, everything's fine.

 

I have pretty much several SAX and SA that I used over the years. In overall, I found the SA to be more compatible or all around. Like what you said it depends on the player and settings. I get a serious headache on the SAX with an "okay player".

 

The ones that suffers the mostly are the tapes without the covers and most of tapes that are exposed to heat. However I'm not sure if this is the correct way of fixing it but I been doing this for that longest time. A rah-bah-dad-dab of contact cement on felt and the copper contact point let it sit for 7 minutes then stick it together..

 

My guess is that TDK attempted to compensate for those cassette decks that were calibrated to other tape formulations or for playback on less-than-perfectly calibrated/aligned decks. After all, many people traded or lent tapes to others. People didn't just play tapes on their own equipment.

 

I happen to have Memorex tapes from the 70s that still have the original foam pads intact, and play well. But others disintegrated and the tape had to be moved to different housings.

 

BASF tapes never sounded good on Japanese-made decks without user-adjustable bias oscillators. I usually avoided that brand. Most of what we got here in the U.S. in the late 70s and 80s were Japanese decks.

I pretty much stuck to TDK and Maxell.

 

Tdk and Maxell were always my first choice . Sony cassettes were cheaper, but not as good . Memorex and Basf came on a distant third .
I still remember how good a TDK/Maxell metal cassette sounded. I used to save money to buy those when there was something really special I wanted to record

 

Late 80's was the battle of the medias especially with the big 2 in the front line. Some of the TDK sound went all over the place. But overall they were still good. Realistically anyone in this forum that were buying tapes before pretty sure had an experience on buying other brand and said "What's wrong with this tape. It sounds old and hissy but its suppose to be new...?"

 

It's funny back in the HS/college days everyone seemed to have BASF tape carriers but I never saw any BASF tapes. We used Maxwell almost exclusively XLII and XLII-S occasionally TDK SA90's. Also for a while we were getting Sony SR-100 metals at a great price but 90% of my tapes were Maxells.

 

Anyway, I favored TDK AD and SA-X because I liked the accentuated highs. I was in my late teens and early 20s in the 80s.

 

I should mention the Sony's were quite rattley, they appeared to be not as well built as Maxell or even TDK.

 

I wanna get (just for a souvenir) atleast one of those early Japanese version TDK 90 normal bias. I think its a 1982 model with a white covering that me and my friend made my first recording. All I remember is when I open the package it smells like bubble gum...

 

Yeah, that seemed to be true. They looked fantastic though - much better designs in general than Maxell or TDK, at least circa '83-'84. I recall TDK really upping their design game with those metal-shelled metal tapes tho - those things were amazing.

Oddly, I think Memorex were the first to really put a lot of thought into the design of the cassette shell itself, back in the mid-to-late '70s. The tape itself was pretty meh, although I remember in the late '80s I think picking up pack of really cheap Memorex metal tapes for not much more than you'd typically pay for a decent normal-bias Maxell or TDK and thinking they sounded fantastic for the price.

By the '90s I thought Fuji was just stomping them all in terms of price/performance. Unless there was a big sale on nobody else even came close.

 

I was buying the Sony's early 90's I would say and yes they looked good and performed fine as I remember but they rattling made them seem flimsily built.

 

I don't think I bought any Sony tapes after 1986 or so. I mostly got them when I had my Sony deck, and that was stolen in '87.

I was a pretty faithful Sony videotape customer when I had my old Betamax units, but when I switched to VHS I switched to Maxell and TDK for several years, and then went to Fuji when they got rave reviews from Consumer Reports. I was not disappointed. In fact, it was the price/performance of the Fuji VHS tapes that got me to switch over to Fuji audio cassettes, where they offered equal value.

I don't want to imply that the Fuij tapes were kinda junky but cheap, either. They were every bit as good as anything Maxell or TDK were selling in the same "class", but the Fujis were like a buck or more cheaper per-videotape, maybe $0.50 per audio cassette. More than that when Fuji went on sale. I pretty much switched over for good and never looked back.

 

Great point about Fuji. This might be the best type 2 tape ever made and pretty much flew under the radar. Even today it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.