Old Cassettes

A long time ago I adopted the "Buy the album, play it once and record to tape, wear out tape, play album again" philosphy. I'm just wondering, I know Steve takes mastertapes that are decades old and they play fine.
I've got 20 year old cassettes that still sound perfect.
I guess I believed the articles in the Stereo magazines back in the 80s that said that at least cassettes weren't made to have such a long life.

 

Dough, I just transferred an old 25 year old Maxell UDXLII cassette of some of my friends in college playing jazz and I was astonished at the great condition of the tape!!!!!

 

I bought a used cassette of the original pressing of Patti Page's Golden Hits at a secondhand store a couple of years ago and it plays perfectly to this day.

 

Not too long ago I pulled out some old Maxell XL II cassettes I recorded with a friend back i '75-'76 or so and they sounded great.

They cost a little bit more back then but I'm pleasantly surprised just how well they've held up over the years.

 

For a medium that was meant for dictation, cassettes are pretty robust.

 

Early cassette adopter here. Gosh, a lot of the early stuff sounded terrible. I still have a bunch of'em--stuff like Three Dog Night, Grand Funk Railroad, Guess Who. I wish the Tandberg didn't say bye bye...

 

This kinda branched into two different kinds of cassettes. I've posted another thread for favorite brand of blank cassette. This thread can continue with both old tapes you made yourself, but commercial cassettes are OK too. I will agree the early one's were pretty sad. The later one's weren't too bad, but I would rather buy the album or even CD and make my own tape for the car or boom box. The sound was always better.

 

I just pulled out my cassettes made from MFSL Beatles(the Collection) that a friend had. These were from the fourth play of the vinyl, cassettes were made in 1985 or maybe 1986, and were put down on TDK HX-s tape. I also encoded them in DBX, as I used to have an Alpine 7347 for my car(Dolby B, C, and DBX). I still have my DBX decoder for my home system.

These were made some 14 or 15 years ago, in a Sony 3 head computer controlled deck(TC-FX1010). Played back today on my NAK CR-4a- they sound really sweet!

Pulled out some other tapes and played them back this weekend as well, and couldn't believe the sound. Some of these were made using Denon 6 and Denon 7 tape, even some on BASF pure Chrome tape. I even found my box of 10 unused NAK type 2 tapes.

For something now hyped as low tech(cassette)- it seems that for something we all clamoured to get away from when newer mediums came out- that some of us are going back to listening to.

As for doing an A/B, I don't have access to OPEN copies of those MFSL disks any longer, I should pull out some other stuff I did back then.


Chris

 

Hi,

Hey Doug,

I did the same thing about 20yrs. ago and am very glad I did. Sure is nice to have mint vinyl everywhere. And the cassettes just keep on rocking.

Should have guessed that someone from Belpre would have split this into two threads. Parkersburg people would have done it all in one.

Peace,
Jeffrey

 

Amen, brother!

 

Regarding prerecorded cassettes - I always wondered why the ones I made at home from an lp sounded better than the pre-recorded ones. Was the grade of tape better? Was it the fact that I dubbed it in "real time"? It wasn't just that the tapes were "optimized" for the recorder (i.e. - same recording unit as the playback unit) becuase I could borrow a tape made by someone else, and it STILL sounded better than the corresponding pre-recorded release.

 

Yes's 90125 was available on AGFA chrome tape, as a premium on the 1st run of cassettes available. A&M used BASF Chrome tape to use on a lot of their cassettes (Like Brother Where You Bound/Supertramp and the Police Synchronicity) It did improve certain things, but how did they hold up to age? Don't ask. Don't knock a factory made blank, because it's not only the tape, it's the shell and mechanics too. In retrospect, cassettes take a beating, hold up OK in good storage, and are 5 mechanical points away from 8-track, IMHO.

Now, cassettes are showing up in the clearence racks like 8 tracks back in 1981. Another trade progression! Ah, what's next?

 

Steve, in 1982 I bought a Nautilus half-speed mastered cassette of the Police's "Ghost In The Machine" duped on Maxell II with Dolby B. It sounded better than the oroginal CD version.

I no longer have the tape but I would send it to you for proof that a prerecorded cassettecould sound good. I had the same positive experiebce with the CBS Mastersound cassette of Billy joel's "Songs In The Attic" duped on chrome tape. This one I may still have.

 

I once owned the MFSL tape of Revolver. I was very disappointed!

 

Re: Re: Old Cassettes

Really....are you from Parkersburg? Actually I grew up in Vienna and moved to Belpre 8 years ago when I got married.

 

Ahhh! Ya know I'd always wondered about the MFSL cassettes from back there in the '80's. I had never had a chance to listen to one, and never knew anyone that had any.

Did you not like it from the start? I have no clue as to how MFSL duped them, but I am sure it was with much higher end pieces than typical factory stuff available. Hell- even some of my own dupes of MFSL LP's it hard to tell.

 

Re: Re: Re: Old Cassettes

Hi,

Hey Doug,

Yea, I've spent lotsa time in your neck of the woods. I'll send ya an email w/ details.

The Music Never Stops,
Jeffrey

 

This was clearly the BEST quality Type 4 metal tape I have ever used. The dynamics of the source were retained like a near mirror image. Too bad I did not have a 3 head tape deck to really take advantage of what this tape had to offer. After they stopped making the tape I switched to Maxell MX-S metal tapes.