First a vinyl revival, now a cassette comeback..

[hifi]

Sales of cassette tapes hit a two-decade high

Some 195,000 cassette tapes were bought in 2022 - up 5.2 per cent in a year and the tenth annual consecutive increase, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[12th Monkey]

Vinyl has tactility and a sound that appeals to some - cassettes were rubbish - poor fidelity, wear out, serial access. Ugh.

 

[manicm]

Vinyl has tactility and a sound that appeals to some - cassettes were rubbish - poor fidelity, wear out, serial access. Ugh.

Actually cassettes could sound excellent. We had a Technics double deck, and I copied the well recorded Pink Floyd AMLOR, onto a decent TDK blank, and the copy sounded better than the original! This often happend with vinyl copies onto tape as well.

But as you say, the sound quality was ultimately negated by the inherent unreliability of tapes and players. Good riddance.

 

[matthewpianist]

I had loads of cassettes as a teenager, and made mix tapes for family trips in the car as well as for girls I liked multiple times. It was great fun and even on my first tape deck (a Sharp RT-100) it could sound reasonable - even better on a Fisher (with auto-stop!) which replaced it and then on an Aiwa AD-F410 (auto-reverse!!).

By my mid-teens CD was my main format but I was still playing lots of LPs too, on a Pioneer PL-12D and Sansui P-D15 (the Pioneer much the better of the two). At 18 I met my first wife, and I was pretty much made to drop vinyl and tape, with limitations on CD as well but I managed to cling onto that with a Denon DM-30DAB and matching SC-N50 speakers (the only thing I was allowed when we moved in together).

Post divorce I scraped the money together to buy a decent system (Arcam CD73T, A65+ and Quad 11L) but it was a while before I could add anything else. When I did, it was a Project Debut turntable (the original one) and vinyl has only ever left my system for very short periods since, in fact I've had several nice turntables (Thorens TD150MkII, Michell TecnoDec, Rega Planar 3 with TT-PSU, and my current Project). Tape, on the other hand, has hardly been seen expect for a brief time with a Technics RS-BX501. The motorised door was a novelty, I quite liked the look of it and it sounded reasonably good, but tapes were becoming harder to find (even blanks) and the sound and longevity just didn't match up with my CDs and LPs.

I got a couple of cassettes last year as part of special launch 'packs' with new albums (The Coral and Birdy), but they're still shrink-wrapped and it's unlikely they'll ever get played. I no longer own any type of cassette player, and I don't see myself buying one. I've recently wrestled with myself (yet again) over trying to simplify my system, but I've accepted that when it comes to the crunch I will never simplify further because I love my CD and vinyl collections too much, and in my present system both sound superb. Add the whole musical vista offered in very high quality by streaming, and there's just no place for an outdated, hugely compromised format like cassette. It might appeal to hipsters who want to show they're different, but it's a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Noddy]

Vinyl has tactility and a sound that appeals to some - cassettes were rubbish - poor fidelity, wear out, serial access. Ugh.

Exactly, I have memories of pulling out tape that was wrapped round the insides of my Sony Walkman. An iPod or an iPhone knocks it for six.

 

[plastic penguin]

Yes cassettes don't appeal to me anymore. If my parents couldn't find me, someone would say, "just follow the tangled celluloid and you'll find him". Of course, back in the day, with proper cassette deck, dancing peak meters, it was a cool format. The reality was very different.

Never again....

 

[Nico69]

"For anyone who remembers using a pencil to painstakingly rewind an unspooled cassette tape, ...."

Aaargh! One of my bug-bears! Clearly the people that write this piffle have never actually used a tape or had to wind one back in. A pencil simply isn't wide enough. It HAS to be a Bic pen. End of. No argument.

 

[nopiano]

"For anyone who remembers using a pencil to painstakingly rewind an unspooled cassette tape, ...."

Aaargh! One of my bug-bears! Clearly the people that write this piffle have never actually used a tape or had to wind one back in. A pencil simply isn't wide enough. It HAS to be a Bic pen. End of. No argument.

 

[12th Monkey]

Actually cassettes could sound excellent. We had a Technics double deck, and I copied the well recorded Pink Floyd AMLOR, onto a decent TDK blank, and the copy sounded better than the original!

I suspect that's some loss of fidelity appealing to your ears, which is fair enough.

I used to record what I wanted from the top 40 on an Amstrad contraption that my mum bought. Weirdly, it played things back at a slightly higher speed than it recorded them. I have never trusted Sugar since!

 

[Sixtyten]

The only new cassette mechanisms made now are those which would have barely passed muster in a £9.99 Saisho personal stereo, Dolby's refusal to licence any of their noise reduction systems anymore and the cassettes themselves using tape of questionable provenance then you have to wonder why people are buying this stuff. Then you realise that it's not to do with the quality and all to do with "quirkiness" "Look at us, we're releasing a "cassette" (is that how you pronounce it?)". Now? You can buy stuff on on 8 track, and DCC, and MD. Well I'll show you "quirkly", as my next release its on CED and V2000, with a special Zoetrope and Steam Organ version coming in the Autumn.

 

[matthewpianist]

Back when I was using cassette I also played games on a ZX Spectrum +2A, did my homework on an Amstrad PC1512 with no hard drive (you had to load the MS-DOS operating system into the 512k of memory before you could put another 5.25" floppy disc in with a programme on), printed it using a 9-pin dot matrix printer, a remote control for the TV was a luxury, the closest thing to the internet was Ceefax and Teletext, and the only phone was a ring-dial landline one mounted on the hallway wall.

 

[Nico69]

Back when I was using cassette I also played games on a ZX Spectrum .......

Posh git! I had a ZX81 and used a portable tape deck to save and possibly load games taking 15-20 minutes sometimes and often resulted in failure. A quick tweak of the Azimuth screw on the tape head usually sorted that.

 

[Friesiansam]

Like vinyl, cassettes went out the window when I moved on to CDs. Have never looked back.

 

[manicm]

I suspect that's some loss of fidelity appealing to your ears, which is fair enough.

I used to record what I wanted from the top 40 on an Amstrad contraption that my mum bought. Weirdly, it played things back at a slightly higher speed than it recorded them. I have never trusted Sugar since!

No it's not high fidelity loss, please substantiate your claim. One reason being the blank tape just is of a higher quality than the original tape, as for copying vinyl it was widely reported in professional hifi magazines that with a good deck and tape, the copy would sound just as good if not better.

Perhaps you've never heard of high-end tape decks like the Nakamichi dragon? And yes your Amstrad contraption was probably cheap and cheerful hence the speed change. Modern budget decks are crap too by the few reviews I've read - such as the respected Ana (Dia) Log yt channel.

 

[podknocker]

Like vinyl, cassettes went out the window when I moved on to CDs. Have never looked back.

CDs will give you a closer version of the recording, even if the recording's a bad one. Cassette and vinyl are lower resolution formats and will hide any limitations of the recording, flattering the sound. I listen to well recorded music on CD and now similar quality streaming. The sound quality is great and there's no surface noise, or clicks and the levels of distortion are negligible. The vinyl revival and the current cassette fad are happening because people want to rebel against modern things, for whatever reason and they want to stand out and be different. That's fine, but they are listening to old, low resolution and poorer quality formats. Fact.

 

[matthewpianist]

No it's not high fidelity loss, please substantiate your claim. One reason being the blank tape just is of a higher quality than the original tape, as for copying vinyl it was widely reported in professional hifi magazines that with a good deck and tape, the copy would sound just as good if not better.

Perhaps you've never heard of high-end tape decks like the Nakamichi dragon? And yes your Amstrad contraption was probably cheap and cheerful hence the speed change. Modern budget decks are crap too by the few reviews I've read - such as the respected Ana (Dia) Log yt channel.

How on earth can a cassette copy be better than the LP? If a certain quality isn't there in the first place, surely cassette doesn't have any magic to put it back?

 

[Al ears]

Exactly, I have memories of pulling out tape that was wrapped round the insides of my Sony Walkman. An iPod or an iPhone knocks it for six.

A pencil was always a required accessory.

 

[Al ears]

How on earth can a cassette copy be better than the LP? If a certain quality isn't there in the first place, surely cassette doesn't have any magic to put it back?

It all depends on what the cassette was actually created from. If it was from an analogue master tape then there are those that would say the sound quality would be better than vinyl if using a quality playback device.

 

[abacus]

If a recording sounds better than the original it was recorded from, get rid of it as it is total rubbish, a good recording should sound identical to the original it came from.
Copy a vinyl to a cassette on a Nakamichi (Or other high end deck) and the results will be identical as vinyl is itself very limited in its capabilities.

Bill

 

[Nico69]

A pencil was always a required accessory.

It's N.O.T. a freakin' pencil!!!!!!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaSN4J3a_60

 

[podknocker]

I'm surprised Futureshop don't sell legacy retro tape rewinders. If they did, they'd probably cost 3 grand.

 

[Al ears]

It's N.O.T. a freakin' pencil!!!!!!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaSN4J3a_60

?

 

[plastic penguin]

I'm struggling to think why cassettes are making a comeback. At least with vinyl you have the kudos of having a physical thing you can actually read the lyrics and even had posters inside - and they came in various colours to boot.

IMO cassettes were like the Emperor's new clothes....

 

[Al ears]

I'm struggling to think why cassettes are making a comeback. At least with vinyl you have the kudos of having a physical thing you can actually read the lyrics and even had posters inside - and they came in various colours to boot.

IMO cassettes were like the Emperor's new clothes....

It's purely a fad. Certain groups are delivering their latest music on cassette purely as a gimmick. And that's surely all it is.
I can understand the resurgence in Vinyl and , if you have the kit and a large bank balance,reel to reel.
However, cassettes will not take off again.

 

[podknocker]

Is R2R making a comeback?

Thorens TM 1600 Reel To Reel Tape Machine

Thorens TM 1600 reel to reel tape machine is a beautiful designed purist analogue playback addition to Thorens range. Principally designed as a half track quarter inch machine accomodating reels upto 10.5" in size at speeds of either 19 cm/s (7.5 in/s) or 38 cm/s (15 in/s). It includes...

www.audioaffair.co.uk

Can you buy music on this format and how would anyone be able to enjoy this very expensive device?