Avocado Memories: Photos of long-forgotten blank cassettes

I thought you mentioned you had your cr4 dialed not too long ago with willy. As I was reading the nakamichi manual on the "BX" series, they said I don't have to worry about previous recorded tapes when you wanna re-record it. But I guess its the right way to do it. I have a degausse'r but I'm just afraid to use it especially if I run the same tape to my high fidelity decks and I'm not sure if its gonna eventually mess up my permalloy heads...

 

I didn't send the CR4 to Willy, I just changed the belts and lubed it myself. I don't understand the part about the bulk eraser as it can't cause any damage to the deck, unless you drop it on the deck. All its going to do is to make all my prerecorded non-metal tapes almost new again.

M~

 

....Yeah just ignore that part.. I didn't know what I was talking about.
Talk about CR series. Not too long ago I picked up a CR-1A like new in the box. I didn't know they sound good too.
Back to the tapes. I think I'm gonna re-record OMD on SAX-90 tonight. This thing is gonna trip you out. I have an old Tascam that I recondition. Man when you record a type 1 like denon, TDK, maxell. it sounds like a million bucks especially when you play it on a nakamichi or even the old pioneer.

 

Maxell XLII or IIs tapes were the best. Never jammed never tangled. The ones I have still play and sound great but sadly have nothing to play them on. Especially now that the Crossely packed up.

 

On Amazon they seem to be $10 per cassette. Not sure what's more shocking, the price or that they still sell them.

 

Not to be a downer, but if you had the Maxell XLIIS version of their tape, you'd have serious money to collect on each piece, The XLII tapes are also nice, but lack the chic "golden ring" look that says "I need this tape" which was found on the XLIIS tales for a while before they changed to flat black brushed plastic in an attempt to look like flat black brushed gunmetal steel.

 

The maxell xl2 series and the tdk sa series will always be historically in a toe to toe competition. Regarding to who's the best, its all a matter of personal preference. I use both but Id have to say I have more TDK SA than maxell xl2 or s. The maxell sounds like you put a super fine high dollar equalizer in front of your bare recording. The sound stage is just incredible! I really like it when I listen to the DeBarge album or a lot of Phil Collins albums which has a lot of studio techniques and some digitally recorded.
I like the sound of the TDK SA series too when it comes to recording the true raw sound of a recorded LP. When I run this format into my 1/3 octave analog graphics EQ, then to a tube amp. It just sounds like a million bucks. Depending on how you stored it and 35 years later, it just sounded like it was recorded yesterday.

 

The TDK SA-X was like you describe the Maxell XLIIS, kind of EQ'd to sound extra stunning. But the SA-X tapes might be to the extreme. They really beef up the high end in a good way.... unless your music does not need it at all.

I tended to grab TDK SA, SA-X, and MA, or Maxell XLII and XLIIS for most needs, and Denon chrome C- 110, BASF C-120.

Sometimes I went with what was on sale, and what came with a zipper tote bag, as I love goodies and my entire taping hobby was conceived around what music I was likely to want to take with me on car trips or air travel. So those cute tote bags with zipper for cassettes was a factor in my purchases.

I did play the hell out of some tapes and not play at all others. Sad that the Sinatra, Muddy Waters, and a few other big box sets taped to cassettes never got played even once. Those I can sell off being sparkling clean. Some are TDK MA too.

 

Its good to look at and listen to both cassette company timelines. Ive recorded a lot of music all in the early 80's mostly using these 2 companies. Its just mind blowing when you listen to it even after 35 years or so.. Just totally sounds amazing!

 

The newer NAC National Audio Company tapes should be really good too. Ive recorded quite a bit of music using their tapes especially the high fidelity type 1. they just sound so phenomenal. especially the bass sounds like the a fine well recorded format in the 80's transition of analog to digital recording.

The earlier cassette like pre 1977 which I cannot really make a good comment because I didn't really use enough tape on that era breaking the seal of a brand new cassette. The only thing that I remember is an excessive hiss probably has a big contribution of the type of deck I was using too and not knowing enough on how to set it the right way. Not too long ago I acquired a top of the line rotel of the 70's. That deck separates the sound of the early Sony, Panasonic tabletops that Ive used. Its just super quiet, super high fidelity 70's sound. I'm gonna try to play around with the early cassettes that I haven't used before and hopefully it'll bring some magic.

 

Somewhere back in this thread I mentioned a Bell & Howell cassette changer I had. I couldn't find a picture on the net at the time, but I just found one now! So, feast your eyes on this!




What I just learned is that it's a model from 1968! I never knew it was that old. I had mine between 1975 and 1980.




And now, here's a cassette photo that I posted a few years ago but it's gone thanks to TinyPic deciding to retire. Since someone brought up dead image links, I'll re-post this photo of a just-then-found old tape I'd previously talked about, and I'll copy my earlier post about it.




This is the cassette I talked about in post#885, the one with a black shell on one side and white on the other. It's in pretty rough shape, but it's good to see it again! The text which is kind of reddish used to be black, obviously faded now.

In my other post, I said that I didn't remember a brand name. You can see that's because there's no logo, but among the text is "Audio Magnetics, Corp.", so that's now a solved mystery! Above that, it says "AV/Educator Premium". A specific non-consumer line, I guess?

And finally, it's a good thing that huge yellowed masking tape was put over the record tab, because if you look closely, you can see that the label has separated from the shell. Without that tape, it would be long gone; indeed, there's no label on the other side any more!

 

how does it change?

 

When it finished playing a tape, a mechanism would push it into a well. The well was accessible by lifting the lid, which is the area with the Bell & Howell logo. The plastic stacking box could hold up to 6 cassettes but was removable for playing a single tape.

 

wow that's 9-hrs of c-90 cassette.

 

The funny thing is that I really only remember playing cassettes one at a time. I might have stacked two or three one time or something like that, but I wasn't big on the multiple cassette play thing. I only had a few pre-recorded cassettes, and that's really what that machine would have been useful for IMO. Most of my cassettes had all sorts of things on them, often unrelated, and didn't make for linear listening!

 

This is the deck I use on special occasion like with visitor, holidays or sometimes sunday. I'm trying to be careful with its for I wont be able to fix it if it breaks. I had it only for a year and its quite good.

 

This thread has renewed my interest in cassettes.
I was avidly collecting them around 10 years ago, but I lost interest when the prices started getting crazy.
This morning I went on eBay to look at vintage cassettes and was amazed at the prices that were being asked.
So I went into the closet and pulled out my old TDK tapes to see what I had, and try to put a value on them.
I was surprised to find that I had a lot more than I remembered.
So now I need to sort through them and try to figure out what they are worth.
Most of them are from before 1990.

 

Am I truly nerdly if I think that is just beautiful?

 

That's cassette porn!

 

Tony at Cassette Comeback (see his youtube channel) has closed his UK store and handed the reigns to Antonio Cruz in Canada. You can buy sealed cassettes there as well as sell yours.

Cassette Comeback Canada - TDK Maxell Sony BASF Denon That's Fuji

 

No, I think it means that you have a good eye and appreciation for the beauty of vintage stuff.

 

Did it have Auto-Reverse?

 

I'd love to buy a couple of those from you to try out!

 

Maxell Metal Vertex, the fanciest cassette Maxell ever did imo.
They even stamped a serial number into the gold embedded inlay.

 

Panasonic did one almost exactly like it. A slight updated look for 1973.