Avocado Memories: Photos of long-forgotten blank cassettes

If you wanna unload that, this would be the time because selling actors of ebay are just coming out with ridiculous prices out of themselves. The whole truth about this is there are companies today that are coming out with new high position tapes. so its just a matter of time that the price will go down. If you're collector, it might be a different story. But if youre someone that wants to record and use fine media. I would use the best or one of the best and the newest ones because I wont need to worry about how the tape was stored.

 

They greatly reduced the thickness of the tape.
This could cause them to wrap around the capstan and jam the machine.
Print through was also a problem.
For that reason some deck manufacturers recommended not using them in their recorders.
I stayed away from the 100's and 110's for the same reason.

 

The 120s were a lot more common in the early days of cassette. They were initially designed more for dictation I believe.

 

These cassettes from that era actually are not made by Memorex, but OEMed in Korea. I think SKM made them. 3M/Scotch had their CX (Silver wrapper) cassette made there also and probably the same cassette. I think it was from the beginning of Memorex starting to outsource and have a label to look like the previous Memorex made cassettes.

 

Wow another really old tape! Hitachi owns Maxell, so likely a Maxell equivalent (LN).

 

Recoton was the other brand that was pretty bad - a little better than Certron. Probably made by Swire Magnetics in Hong Kong or China by then. I wouldn't touch them for fear of gumming up the tape path in your deck. They were lousy when new - now? Not likely better.

Nice MG BTW!

 

Funny about how some brands or formulations were hard to get regionally in the US - around here these were super rare, but common elsewhere. I had 1 or 2 and a very sounding good cassette.

 

Strangely BASF FeCr Professional III was best for my Panasonic system back then, and was really hard to find. Cro2 was readily available but not as good.
So I settled for Maxell when I could not find any, my deck hated TDK.

 

They were awful by the early '80s. I bought the clear blue ones in 3-packs for my old Sears console stereo because they were cheap, but even on it they were crap. I think Memorex were actually better, and came with that funky hinged case.

 

Since I had a Sony deck I bought several of those. They were alright, but I preferred Maxell and to a lesser degree TDK.

Sony's videotapes however were my faves along with Maxell until Fuji started blowing everybody else away on price/performance around the early '90s. Up until that point I bought any good videotape I could get a deal on - Sony, Maxell, TDK on sale - but eventually pretty much standardized on Fuji because even on sale the others seldom beat them. I think the last videotape I bought was Maxell though, again on a huge markdown, maybe when Tower Records or someone was going out of business.

 

a blast in the past. I thing this was the only Memorex I used that was good. The later models were designed for budget kids in highschool

 

They were...OK for the time and the price.

One thing I'll give Memorex - their design was top-notch for the era and the price. It would be several years before Maxell and TDK caught up - I always thought their designs were stodgy in comparison, until stuff like TDK's MA-R started coming out. Circa '83/'84, Sony and Denon were producing the sharpest-looking tapes, at least at reasonable prices. Most of TDK and Maxell's lineup still looked late-'70s in comparison.

 

This is it.. and its 80 degrees in the Northwest with blue skies. "Everybody's Forki'n on the Weekend"

 

"Only" 30 years old, and probably not forgotten, another marvel of TDK design the MA-XG 90.
Top of the line tape around 1990.
I wonder if these were more expensive to mfg. than the MA-R 90.
I don't remember what the prices were back then.

 

Yes, these are the ones that I used in the 70s. They still hold up today.

 

They were fairly rare in the Boston area as well.
I bought them at Tower records in Boston and at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge.

 

Did not have good results with Sony videotape, but it was VHS and early 90s. Seemed to be lower quality and dropouts, vs. Maxell, 3M/Scotch, National/Panasonic, JVC, TDK, who all made their own tape and generally much better unless professional/broadcast grade. Some brands' standard VHS tapes were quite good vs. needing 'high' grade on others because their low grade was not good.

 

3M/Scotch started to outsource their cassettes in the early 80s to others and it varied. The Highlander was made by Swire (Swill?) Magnetics in Hong Kong and it turned into the BX later. Really lousy. Good thing their better cassettes were made by Denon in Japan through the 80s into the early 90s and were quite good.

 

Haaah .. Love that.. Thanks!

 

Hot looking tape, but nothing was as expensive to manufacture as the MA-R with the steel inner sheet as a core.

 

I've given away hundreds of tapes over the years. Like one friend I gave all my Zappa Mothers recorded albums on tape to, which was about 25 tapes. Very nice transfers. Another friend got all the Beck / Clapton-associated albums, and my sister got the Stones and Dylan cassettes. Mick and Keith, Page and Plant on Rockline!!!!

What remains are the rare Prog, radio concerts, oddball lounge & exotica, boots, and some van Morrison, Waters and Floyd, etc. I have The Residents early material (I never listen to that stuff), and things I thought I needed at the time, and certainly did not.

You know what I have somewhere buried deep in the collection is a Bud Lite commercial featuring Adrian Belew singing their praise "This Bud's For You" in a Crimson tonality!. That might be cool to dig out and post on the tube. I was recording late one night, a concert or something and it came on and I just let it roll rather than pausing the tape as I normally would have. I have a feeling that once I start digging through these I will find a lot of little treasures that need digital transfers. Now that prices are up I may as well get with it and do it.

 

I have 178 prerecorded on various TDK SA's. I popped one in on a lark today in my CR4, and I'll be damn, it sounded pretty good. That made me mad because I was going to erase them with my bulk eraser. Now I have something else on my to do list.

M~

 

What does all this have to do with avocados?

 

The part about ...

M~

 

Addressed on page eight.

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