Wow! Hearing that Mantovani ( 5:06 )song gave me chills. Reminded me of my father who always listened to 105.1 WRFM New York, beautiful music. We kids used to call it the Daddy Station! Love you daddy!
Yeah, I tend to use things that I buy right away. I wouldn't have bought something if I didn't want to make use if it. I don't believe in buying things to hold onto and not use and enjoy.
@@applegal3058 I try to as well....but I have amassed stuff that I intended to sell and just haven't had time to list them. Kind of a good catch 22.. :)
The audio quality of the cassettes sounded marvelous. Whenever I hear of people claiming how audio tapes, or even home recorded video tapes, can deteriorate after 10 or 40 years, yet, I have hundreds of home-recorded tapes that still play fine of the same age, it got me thinking . . . Is it possible that such tape deterioration, that people lament about, resulted from hundreds of replays of those tapes? I bring this up as the tapes in my collection, that have held up well for me, may have been replayed a dozen times over the many years. With my ADHD, I don't have the temperament to enjoy replaying a tape 100 times. But, it is nice to hold onto such tapes as there are no assurances of it being replaceable in the future.
Like many things, it's all about storage. Stable temperatures & humidity, plus little to no dust, helped these tapes a lot. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preservation_of_magnetic_audiotape has some info about "sticky tape".
I got a few tapes from the 70s, 80s, one of which was taped over sometime in march of 1992… they lasted longer than 30 years and if conditions are right will last another 60, maybe 70.
No matter where in the world you go, if you find a collection of more than 10 old records, cassettes, 8-tracks, or open-reel tapes, at least one of them will be a Mantovani recording.
@@ivok9846 This from Wikipedia: "Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (Italian: [anˈnuntsjo ˈpaːolo mantoˈvaːni]; 15 November 1905 - 29 March 1980) was an Anglo-Italian conductor, composer and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature." My take has always been that Mantovani was responsible for almost all the music you would hear in supermarkets, malls, and elevators in the '70's and '80's.
@@aTrulyPowerfulSpirit I have a Mantovani LP box set and a few single records and even a reel to reel. I bought them myself in the past year. Sometimes that music hits the spot for relaxing.
I know that the 8 track format is probably the underdog of all audio formats, but I absolutely love them. I own close to 200 of them and I have a one single cartridge player and two 8 track tape changers that can play multiple tapes back to back, just like a CD changer. They can sound really good on a maintained player, with a high quality audio system. My compact cassette collection is around the 200 mark also. I'm just a huge fan of vintage audio in general.😊
Just curious Ray Williams if the 8track carousel player you have is a Qatron or Telex player. I worked at Telex when they manufactured the Telex 8 track player that held 12 tapes. The models 48H and 48D also have the TMS 101 and The last model built TMS 1000.
@mike keech Hello Mike, I have the RCA Mark 8 eight track changer ( Model VYC - 950W ) that has the removable magazine, that can play up to five 8 track tapes back to back at a time. It also has an Am and Fm turner, with a built in amplifier , so can hook up speakers directly into the player. My second 8 track changer is a Mitsubishi MGA ( Model TD-83 ) that will play up to three 8 track tapes back to back. I don't own a Telex or Qatron carousel 8 track changer, but I would absolutely love to acquire one of those players someday. 🤗
Despite having been born in 81 there is always something nostalgic for me when I hear a Don Ho song, as my parents(mother, and step dad) were big into the beach/Tiki scene, and I still have my late step father's old Tiki bar setup in my game room. 👍
Cassettes took off here in the U.S. when cassette players became available in cars just like 8-track did before it. 8-track stuck around for as long as people still had it in their cars. Once CD players hit automobiles the Cassette slowly died. A lot of what went on in the U.S. revolved around what you had in your car.
WOW!!!! It has been 54 years!!! I remember when these came in long skinny boxes with the cassette sideways at one end. Right next to the record albums! WOW!!! 54 years!!!!! 😐
I got my first cassette recorder/player for Christmas in 1968. My dad bought me a couple of pre-recorded cassettes a few months later. One was “Diana Ross and The Supremes Live at ‘The Talk of the Town’”. It looked just like those you unwrapped here. AMPEX.
The reason for rearranging songs (or reversing sides) is to keep side 1 (A) longer than side 2 (B). this is to avoid a long blank space (break) between the sides of the tape. If there was a 2 minute blank space on side 1 (A) then you would have to fast forward to the end or flip the tape and rewind side 2 (B) to the beginning.
When I made home tapes I always tried to fill side A , leaving about 20 seconds of tape before the tape turned round ( I have always had auto reverse machines ) ...At the end of side B , I didn't mind leaving a few minutes of blank tape ( if I had nothing of the same style to fill it with ) . I can't imagine not making home tapes any other way .
I don't think that most people associate compact cassettes with the 1980s because 8-track held up their adoption in the U.S. As you said, compact cassette and the Philips machine were introduced in the U.S. in 1964, and pre-recorded tapes started to be made soon as well. Maybe it wss LP on the one hand, and reel-to-reel on another, that made cassettes less important. Where I came from, cassettes took up in the late 1970s, my father had two R2R machines. Interesting cases, different from the typical Norelco boxes.
It's amazing how good these old cassettes sound, especially when you consider most cassette players back in 1969 weren't capable of producing the sound quality of more modern cassette decks. You wouldn't think they would have been recorded as well as they are.
From what I recall, pre-recorded cassettes started to get _cheap,_ with its audio and the materials used for manufacturing them, by the late 1970s. Home cassette decks were pricy back in the early 1970s; as the only people I knew that owned them were upscale enough to afford them. When I bought my first home cassette deck in 1977, I paid $150 (US) for it, which would equal over $700 (US) in 2023 (US) dollars. So, for the standards of living in the 1970s (US), they were on the expensive side.
Gotta love how these old tapes feel lip sync-able but modern releases don't (unless you get on something like 439 hz to make it feel real, again). This is because some time down the line the process of up pitching audio by 10 cents A.K.A 0.1 semitones became more and more of a thing.
One reason to just flip the sides entirely might be if the leadout on side 1 was going to end up considerably longer. Better to have side 1 be longer and flip right into side 2 rather than having to fast-forward or rewind there.
I really love the case design of these. That Ray Charles tape would be awesome to have. I LOVE his music. That man was 150% pure talent and is still a pleasure to listen to. The tapes sound pretty well. Sure a little low on the high frequencies but that was to be expected from an older formula Type1 tape and with a few dacades of storing. But i did hear a lil bit of tape aging and slight dropouts on the "the world of Mantovani" tape. It's pretty cool they even wrote on the covers what tape stock they used. Something i NEVER saw on any pre-recorded cassette. Thanks Kevin for doing a sequel to this "50 year old cassettes" video you did a while back :)
Back when the MJ album "Thriller" was £14 in the UK record stores, I got a quote from C.O.P.S Limited in the UK to duplicate an independent album on to chrome tape. 1000 tapes duplicated with boxes and colour inserts for £1000 (plus VAT tax which may have been 20% or less) So someone was making a lot of money from 30 million copies of the "Thriller" tape..
I'm surprised at how good they sound (age relative) - could early cassettes have been duplicated in real time? Surely not... The collector in me kept saying _"Don't open them!"_ 😜
@@AndrewHeller-jn7dx : Yeah, audio cassettes spent maybe a decade with universally low audio quality for the transcription & similar markets (reel-to-reel and 8-tracks were the entertainment-grade, because both ran tape much faster), so by the time they started doing music cassettes the industry had been fairly well developed.
I have a handful of these early ('68 to '72) pre-recorded cassettes in my library. Those early PRCTs sound much like these, which is to say high frequencies vanish above 10k, there's a significant amount of tape hiss, and they are basically listenable. FYI I am guessing that today's National Audio Company (founded in 1969) was one of many companies which was involved in the (then-new) business of high-speed cassette tape duplication. It's conceivable that Ampex outsourced their duplication to NAC's Springfield, Missouri facility. Who knows?
@peacearchwa5103 Thank you so much. Highly fascinating info! However, my memories of the ones, I'd owned back then, seemed more rosy, than you had just painted. Now, I'm awfully confused.
I remember Windmills of Your Mind from a doctors office I visited a lot when I was a kid. I guess they were playing the “easy listening” music to help calm down anxious patients.
Moral of the story: Ampex were really good at making tapes =P I'm impressed by the stereo separation on these (though it was 1969 so I guess they just hard-panned everything and called it a day). Also everyone had to have a crack at Proud Mary huh
The oldest tape I had as a kid was Peter, Paul, and Mommy from 1969. My uncle bought it in the 1970s and handed it down. Cassettes have came a long way, I got some new cassettes albums from Record Store Day.
I used to have that record I think I sold it in a bundle collection 10 years ago.. I never actually listened to it.. just remember the AND MOMMY .. made me laugh.
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 it’s my introduction to the folk music, I thought they were a Sesame Street group, because they played children’s songs in the late 1960s and throughout the 70s like “If I Had a Hammer” and “Mail Myself to You” those I listened from Peter, Paul, and Mary!
If stored right, audio tapes ought to last a long time, though not indefinitely owing to chemicals breaking down and plastics failing eventually, but the fact these ones were still in as-new condition with only the one needing repair, that's pretty good stuff...
Watching this while I work. Proud Mary by CCR just so happened to be playing on the office radio at the same time the Proud Mary tape was being tested! 😲
Your channel (and Joe Collins' channel) inspired me to get back into cassettes way back like over ten years ago. It's a fun hobby. I was able to get a nice stock of blanks before the prices got ridiculous. There still isn't anything comparable to cassettes! My current project is to find a NOS cassette receiver to put in my car. Thanks for the fun videos.
I would love to have a WAV copy from all of these cassettes, they are incredible for their age, and sound very good still. Nice video, Kevin, thank you for posting it ♥
lossless 16/44 or 24/48? I would be interested to see the sonograph results.. I bet they reach up past 18khz in some cases unless they were limited somehow.
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 The maximum frequency for cassette tape "type 1" on non high-end equipement is around up to 12000 Hz, sometimes less, for type 2 tapes you can reach 14000 Hz, and for type 4 (metal tape) probably 15000~16000 Hz, expensive equipements like Nakamichi can reach 20000 Hz if you use this equipement for recording on the tape with correct bias and azimuth.
@@techmaster-ch5yd In my experience, it is really hard to hear the difference between 14khz cutoff and a 12khz cutoff or frankly an 8khz cutoff. Most musical instruments never get anywhere near 12khz. There just isn't a lot of music up high. Guitars have a frequency range up 1200hz. Violin can reach 2637hz. 4186hz for a piano. A harmonica can reach 10khz, though that is theoretical. A chart of string instruments shows most top off at a few khz. It might be my hearing, but I can detect a 12khz tone. Apply a filter to whack anything over 8 or 10khz and I just can't hear the difference.
Yes JVC can be good - Japan Victor Company. Even the middle of the road dual deck by JVC I have works like a champ - I had another one almost the same but with speed control and it had a ghost in it.
5:30 You can't visit a Salvation Army Thrift Store, Goodwill, Value Village, etc. on a regular basis without seeing Mantovani records and I do have a few of his albums while the one I most highly recommend is his 'Gypsy Soul' Phase 4 album on London records (also available on out-of-print CD's). One of the best tracks is from the movie 'Villa Rides!' (starring Russian-born actor, Yul Brynner, playing Mexican revolutionary Poncho Villa. Haha!) composed by Maurice Jarre ('Lawrence of Arabia', 'Doctor Zhivago', 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome', etc.) which is certainly NOT a Gypsy tune, but it's great as are the Hungarian tunes on the record. :)
Very interesting to see these tapes in action, nice to see that most didn’t even need any repairs! As long as they are stored in acceptable conditions, tapes will just keep on working!
10:34 In Brazil in the 70s a lot of people used something very similar here: they were called "cartuchos" (cartridges) in cars (and only in cars) though I can't say precisely if they were 8-track but they were endless loops too (my father told me when I was a child). As I was a child I can't be sure if they were 8-track, playtapes of some similar format. So it was not only there that they used this format in cars.
I have a lot of cassettes to this day, including some soundtracks that are still sealed and my tapes from the 70's and 80's still sound great today. Generally speaking, cassette tapes survived much better than 8-track tapes, the latter of which would inevitably have the tape splice snap apart and the foam pads disintegrate, not to mention how practically every artwork sticker on an 8-track tape has bubbling due to the deterioration of the glue. All in all, cassette tapes were generally well-made and built to last.
Youre right, the cases seem to be made from softer plastic, so they won't break as easily. What they lack, compared to the PHILIPS ones, is the little tab that prevents the tapes from unwinding.
I have the same World of Mantovani cassette from 1969, also I have a bunch of cassettes including some early ones from 1967 (AMPEX started to produce pre-recorded cassettes in 1967).
Fascinating! What you did with the pressure pad on that Mantovani cassette is exactly how I repair any of my cassettes when the pressure pads tend to fall out…
Thanks for sharing. This video initiated a stream of consciousness consisting of my 1968 Mustang and the cassette deck that I installed in it. Not HiFi by any stretch but boy did it leave me with many fond memories that I'll always treasure.
You are the second person this week that I have seen say the ball point pen was the official cassette tape winder, but I grew up that the 'official' was the #2 pencil. It even fits way better than bic pens. Another great video!
Nice job! My dad had that Norelco portable cassette recorder. I immediately recognized the American Pie cassette. I had it! Unfortunately, it contained an edited version of the title cut. Not as truncated as the 45 version, but missing the entire piano/vocal first verse and faded to trim a few seconds off the end. I eventually bought the LP. 🤓
@@Heike-- It was longer than the radio/45 version but shorter than the real album version. It seems to have been an edit done specifically to make the two sides of the cassette have approximately the same running time. There was also a song on side one of the cassette that was repeated on side two. I think it was “Winterwood.”
"Boss, we accidentally reversed the sides of the tape! - Nevermind, we'll stick the labels on to match." - would be my guess for the swapped sides... 😁
Interesting. I know that in a few years the earliest VHS videocassettes will be 50, wonder if there are any of those OG 1977/78 Magnetic Videos that are still sealed (not re-sealed). Wonder what it would be like to play those for the first time.
Some of the early 70s cassettes are not recorded at overdrive high levels like much later. So even with dolby they may be a bit noisier for hiss but the sound quality from cassettes recorded at a proper level is quite good, and enjoyable, accepting them for what they are. They slammed the tapes harder later on becuase some people demanded "louder, LOUDER!!" and also to cover up more of the tape hiss background noise, but ended up with higher distortion and more muffled highs.
I remember borrowing audiobooks on cassettes from the local library in the early to mid 80s. They came in a plastic case with a garage door style shutter which you would push to one side to open. I've never seem those again anywhere other than the library.
These are beautiful ❤️ and they still sound fantastic, at least as good as the technology of 1969 allows! I guess they took inspiration from 8-track with the revised running order. I wouldn’t have minded if we continued doing that.
Puff the Magic Dragon hit me right in the feels. I've bought a couple tapes off eBay that snapped on the 1st play, but it's not that hard to fix, even the shells that don't have screws.
I found a ton of old southeast asian market cassette tapes at a thrift store and they were in those clamshell-type snap cases. Though, it was mostly stuff from the late 70's to the 80's. Billy Joel, Springsteen, Michael Jackson etc. They looked legit but I'm not 100% sure they weren't bootlegs.
Excellent find! I wonder if those tapes (minus Don Ho) were part of a package given away when you purchased an Ampex stereo? The Ampex Micro 85 system we purchased in late 1968 came with four pre-recorded Ampex made tapes (including Mantovani), three blank tapes, speakers and microphones all for about $200. Ampex bundled that stuff up to get you hooked on compact cassettes.
The reason I believe the tapes are authentic in 1969 Warner Brothers was Warner Brothers, Seven arts and it had the logo on all of those tapes. I think Ampex had the market back then as well. They didn't sound too bad, considering they didn't have all of the electronics that the late 70s through 90s had much better sound quality with Dolby B/C HX Pro, or DBX. That was a real game changer. The frequency response got so much better with the newer tape decks, but in the late 60s I'm thinking the high frequencies didn't go much above 10 KHz.
wow I didn't know they sold cassettes in the 1960s. I figured the tech was out there but I didn't realize they were mass marketed. And yeah, as you said it is becaue of the 8 track. I figured that was the precursor.
The fact they were cheapening out on cassettes, even in 1969 (they are glued or sonically welded) though. Another thing I noticed is that they are very quietly recorded, likely due to the equipment used back then.
Delightful video! The thing about the swapped sides is not that unusual. Well into the '70s, it was common (particularly for jazz and instrumental records) to have swapped sides on vinyl vs. open reel or cassette. I'm not sure why but it's a thing I've noticed a lot. The CD releases as often as not use the cassette running order, and often even the record sleeves have the order different from the discs themselves.
All those cassettes and different styles of cassette case reminds me of my grandmothers cassette collection. Cassettes were popular not just for music of course, at home and in your car, they were used for computer games in the 1970's/80's and even in the 1990's. I used cassette tapes to store my BASIC programs for the first 6 months on my Apple ][ in early-1983 (until I purchased a floppy drive). Some cars still had cassette tape players until 2010 or thereabouts. Ahh the days of the Driving Mix Tape. A friend of mine purchased a brand new Commodore 64 in 1991 and was too cheap to get a floppy disk drive, so he ended up buying a large library of games on cassette (at $0.99 and $1.99) and loaded his games from tape ... and was still doing this well into the mid-late 1990's. On a C=64. He was happy to wait and watch the patterns on screen while the games loaded. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was playing Doom, Command and Conquer, etc ...
These actually appear to sound very good for their age. The tape doesn't appear to have become brittle or deteriorated. They are also Ampex branded, a name also associated with the early days of video tape technology. However what interests me is that I assume these were released by the artists record label (CBS, Warner Bros, Atlantic etc) or was there some kind of licensing deal with Ampex? I say that because I don't ever recall the brand of tape being mentioned on pre-recorded cassette tapes released in the 1970s. I'm also fascinated how you ever came by new old stock for these in the first place.
@trevorbrown6654 I too want to know where these were found NOS! The only thing I can think of is that they were in a unmarked box in an ancient old warehouse with a dusty corner which never got any attention, and sat year after year, and long forgotten possibly under old pallets and other junk, then one day they sold the place and a cleaning crew came in an discovered them while hauling stuff out. It does happen with mass merchandise goods although since the computer age inventory control has gotten so good and the use of bar coding that it is rare something drops off the radar like it might have up until the mid 1980s or so.
With all of that lot being manufactured by the same company in the same year, after the initial pleasant surprise, it's not really unexpected to see them all playing ok after the first one proves to be in perfect shape, but other than that it's an amazing feat!
my late aunt and uncle met don ho at a bar and sat next to him. he said he got tired of singing tiny bubbles. they also listened to him on the radio at 6 am in the morning for a radio program called hawaii calls .
Although each recording apart from these releases have their own character of sound, it's a bit homogenized across each of these cassettes...there's a certain lower-fi character in the sound from Ampex's duplication that's imbued and comes across on each. Nice to hear them and see them in such good condition. Thank you.
I found two used old tapes like this. A Black Sabbath tape and a Moody Blues tape. They both sounded horrible and the Moody Blues' felt pad came loose shortly after playing. But, I keep them as collectables cause they look kinda cool.
Wow thanks for the video. The collector in me cringed when you were opening those! But it was amazing they all were mostly still working. I moved to the US (from the UK) in the 80s to go to Uni. My first regular exposure to cassettes was in car stereos and I hated them so much. Back then the players in American cars were awful and would stretch the tapes out really quickly and after a short time they'd sound awful. And the cases were always cracking and breaking and falling apart. I can't tell you how much this caused me to despise cassettes. When I bought my first car in the US it was a 60s Mustang that has an 8-Track player installed and OMG I loved it so much better. I have no idea if the player I was using was just higher quality but to my ears they sounded so much better. And the cassettes themselves were like tanks and nearly indestructible. There wasn't hardly anything being released on 8-Track by then so I was always going to thrift stores, yard sales and used record stores to find stuff I could play. I found so much at the famous San Jose, CA flea market. I never got over my dislike of cassettes (even today).
Puff the Magic Dragon always makes me sad because it makes me think of my old stuffed animals and the adventures we had when I was a kid and how - at some point - I played with them for the last time. My first one is still out on a shelf but the rest are in plastic bags in my crawl space. 😢
In June 2009 I found 3 boxes of cassettes at a recycling center someone left to throw away. They ranged from the 60s to the early 90s. I took them home. One was the Ray Charles tape shown here. Many of the late 60s tapes were still shrink wrapped & still are today. Conditions varied because I found them outdoors on a hot Florida day. I've been afraid to play many of them.
Рік тому+2
Puff (The Magic Dragon)... Hahaha, I will always remember this songs thanks to the film Meet The Parents.
Of the songs I'm familiar with there mostly seemed to be like a slight warble in the stereo that I think is probably age related but I'm very impressed with how you did the sound as the effect was subtle. The Ray Charles sounded incredible considering the conditions.
I can see why you played the Don Ho tape last. The alcohol coming off that recording would have obviated the need for head cleaning.
HA!!!! Savage ;)
Lmao
snrk
Hahahahahahahahaaa... play me some Dean Martin!
I remember his talk show back in the 70's. He couldn't get two words out without slurring at least one of them!
Wow! Hearing that Mantovani ( 5:06 )song gave me chills. Reminded me of my father who always listened to 105.1 WRFM New York, beautiful music. We kids used to call it the Daddy Station! Love you daddy!
In Seattle we had KSEA beautiful music, 100.7 and ditto to dad listening at night before lights out. The strange security in old memories.
It's amazing cassettes that are that old can still be found sealed today.
people hold onto 'stuff' . Ever see those storage locker shows?
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 True. It's not that uncommon people do that.
Yeah, I tend to use things that I buy right away. I wouldn't have bought something if I didn't want to make use if it. I don't believe in buying things to hold onto and not use and enjoy.
@@applegal3058 I try to as well....but I have amassed stuff that I intended to sell and just haven't had time to list them. Kind of a good catch 22.. :)
You can buy a shrink wrap machine for about 30 u$s...
WAW, that is exact the tapedeck I use and - for now - stays in perfect condition !
The audio quality of the cassettes sounded marvelous.
Whenever I hear of people claiming how audio tapes, or even home recorded video tapes, can deteriorate after 10 or 40 years, yet, I have hundreds of home-recorded tapes that still play fine of the same age, it got me thinking . . .
Is it possible that such tape deterioration, that people lament about, resulted from hundreds of replays of those tapes? I bring this up as the tapes in my collection, that have held up well for me, may have been replayed a dozen times over the many years.
With my ADHD, I don't have the temperament to enjoy replaying a tape 100 times. But, it is nice to hold onto such tapes as there are no assurances of it being replaceable in the future.
Like many things, it's all about storage. Stable temperatures & humidity, plus little to no dust, helped these tapes a lot.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preservation_of_magnetic_audiotape has some info about "sticky tape".
It's hilarious how so many "experts" says cassettes will only last 30 years
The sad reality is an expert in any field is ultimately only an expert in being wrong.
I got a few tapes from the 70s, 80s, one of which was taped over sometime in march of 1992… they lasted longer than 30 years and if conditions are right will last another 60, maybe 70.
No matter where in the world you go, if you find a collection of more than 10 old records, cassettes, 8-tracks, or open-reel tapes, at least one of them will be a Mantovani recording.
as a european, i'm wondering who is mantovani?
and I have much more than 10
Definitetly lol, also Franck Pourcel most probably and maybe Paul Mauriat
@@ivok9846 This from Wikipedia: "Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (Italian: [anˈnuntsjo ˈpaːolo mantoˈvaːni]; 15 November 1905 - 29 March 1980) was an Anglo-Italian conductor, composer and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature." My take has always been that Mantovani was responsible for almost all the music you would hear in supermarkets, malls, and elevators in the '70's and '80's.
I also live in Europe and I can confirm this as I have bunch of Mantovani records.
@@aTrulyPowerfulSpirit I have a Mantovani LP box set and a few single records and even a reel to reel. I bought them myself in the past year. Sometimes that music hits the spot for relaxing.
I love unwrapping vintage cassettes. I opened a brand new Memorex MRXI S from 1987 and it still had the new smell!
I know that the 8 track format is probably the underdog of all audio formats, but I absolutely love them. I own close to 200 of them and I have a one single cartridge player and two 8 track tape changers that can play multiple tapes back to back, just like a CD changer. They can sound really good on a maintained player, with a high quality audio system. My compact cassette collection is around the 200 mark also. I'm just a huge fan of vintage audio in general.😊
Just curious Ray Williams if the 8track carousel player you have is a Qatron or Telex player. I worked at Telex when they manufactured the Telex 8 track player that held 12 tapes. The models 48H and 48D also have the TMS 101 and The last model built TMS 1000.
@mike keech Hello Mike, I have the RCA Mark 8 eight track changer ( Model VYC - 950W ) that has the removable magazine, that can play up to five 8 track tapes back to back at a time. It also has an Am and Fm turner, with a built in amplifier , so can hook up speakers directly into the player. My second 8 track changer is a Mitsubishi MGA ( Model TD-83 ) that will play up to three 8 track tapes back to back. I don't own a Telex or Qatron carousel 8 track changer, but I would absolutely love to acquire one of those players someday. 🤗
@@rwj777 I also have an RCA
YXC-950W
One of the best and most 'relaxing to watch' channels on the internet. Thank you so much.
Despite having been born in 81 there is always something nostalgic for me when I hear a Don Ho song, as my parents(mother, and step dad) were big into the beach/Tiki scene, and I still have my late step father's old Tiki bar setup in my game room. 👍
The only other country the fully embraced 8 track machines was Japan where they used them in Karaoke machines up until the early 90's.
Cassettes took off here in the U.S. when cassette players became available in cars just like 8-track did before it. 8-track stuck around for as long as people still had it in their cars. Once CD players hit automobiles the Cassette slowly died. A lot of what went on in the U.S. revolved around what you had in your car.
Yes, it was all about the cars. My new (2019 😆) truck can’t even play CDs. It’s streaming or MP3’s on usb stick only.
My 1998 Passat had a cassette player.
Meanwhile in Japan, it revolved around karaoke. 8 tracks and laserdiscs were huge there (mostly) for that very reason.
WOW!!!! It has been 54 years!!! I remember when these came in long skinny boxes with the cassette sideways at one end. Right next to the record albums! WOW!!! 54 years!!!!! 😐
I got my first cassette recorder/player for Christmas in 1968. My dad bought me a couple of pre-recorded cassettes a few months later. One was “Diana Ross and The Supremes Live at ‘The Talk of the Town’”. It looked just like those you unwrapped here. AMPEX.
Thank you for posting this. I love opening old cassettes. You have a great channel :)
The reason for rearranging songs (or reversing sides) is to keep side 1 (A) longer than side 2 (B). this is to avoid a long blank space (break) between the sides of the tape. If there was a 2 minute blank space on side 1 (A) then you would have to fast forward to the end or flip the tape and rewind side 2 (B) to the beginning.
Thanks for the explanation. I has been wondering why.
When I made home tapes I always tried to fill side A , leaving about 20 seconds of tape before the tape turned round ( I have always had auto reverse machines ) ...At the end of side B , I didn't mind leaving a few minutes of blank tape ( if I had nothing of the same style to fill it with ) . I can't imagine not making home tapes any other way .
I don't think that most people associate compact cassettes with the 1980s because 8-track held up their adoption in the U.S. As you said, compact cassette and the Philips machine were introduced in the U.S. in 1964, and pre-recorded tapes started to be made soon as well. Maybe it wss LP on the one hand, and reel-to-reel on another, that made cassettes less important. Where I came from, cassettes took up in the late 1970s, my father had two R2R machines.
Interesting cases, different from the typical Norelco boxes.
It's amazing how good these old cassettes sound, especially when you consider most cassette players back in 1969 weren't capable of producing the sound quality of more modern cassette decks. You wouldn't think they would have been recorded as well as they are.
From what I recall, pre-recorded cassettes started to get _cheap,_ with its audio and the materials used for manufacturing them, by the late 1970s.
Home cassette decks were pricy back in the early 1970s; as the only people I knew that owned them were upscale enough to afford them.
When I bought my first home cassette deck in 1977, I paid $150 (US) for it, which would equal over $700 (US) in 2023 (US) dollars. So, for the standards of living in the 1970s (US), they were on the expensive side.
I bought Back to the Egg by Wings for 50 pence from a charity shop last year. 45 years old and plays absolutely fine.
Gotta love how these old tapes feel lip sync-able but modern releases don't (unless you get on something like 439 hz to make it feel real, again). This is because some time down the line the process of up pitching audio by 10 cents A.K.A 0.1 semitones became more and more of a thing.
Mantovani!!!!🤗🤗🤗🤗 I still have that album... what a beautiful, beautiful album... "Windmills of Your Mind"... truly, so ✨epic✨
One reason to just flip the sides entirely might be if the leadout on side 1 was going to end up considerably longer. Better to have side 1 be longer and flip right into side 2 rather than having to fast-forward or rewind there.
I really love the case design of these. That Ray Charles tape would be awesome to have. I LOVE his music. That man was 150% pure talent and is still a pleasure to listen to. The tapes sound pretty well. Sure a little low on the high frequencies but that was to be expected from an older formula Type1 tape and with a few dacades of storing. But i did hear a lil bit of tape aging and slight dropouts on the "the world of Mantovani" tape. It's pretty cool they even wrote on the covers what tape stock they used. Something i NEVER saw on any pre-recorded cassette. Thanks Kevin for doing a sequel to this "50 year old cassettes" video you did a while back :)
Back when the MJ album "Thriller" was £14 in the UK record stores, I got a quote from C.O.P.S Limited in the UK to duplicate an independent album on to chrome tape.
1000 tapes duplicated with boxes and colour inserts for £1000 (plus VAT tax which may have been 20% or less)
So someone was making a lot of money from 30 million copies of the "Thriller" tape..
love the crackling sound of 50 year old shrink wrap!
I'm surprised at how good they sound (age relative) - could early cassettes have been duplicated in real time? Surely not... The collector in me kept saying _"Don't open them!"_ 😜
No not real time. It was always speedy duplication but they did it well.
@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777
Very fascinating!
Thanks much!;...I'd always wondered!
@@AndrewHeller-jn7dx : Yeah, audio cassettes spent maybe a decade with universally low audio quality for the transcription & similar markets (reel-to-reel and 8-tracks were the entertainment-grade, because both ran tape much faster), so by the time they started doing music cassettes the industry had been fairly well developed.
I have a handful of these early ('68 to '72) pre-recorded cassettes in my library. Those early PRCTs sound much like these, which is to say high frequencies vanish above 10k, there's a significant amount of tape hiss, and they are basically listenable. FYI I am guessing that today's National Audio Company (founded in 1969) was one of many companies which was involved in the (then-new) business of high-speed cassette tape duplication. It's conceivable that Ampex outsourced their duplication to NAC's Springfield, Missouri facility. Who knows?
@peacearchwa5103
Thank you so much.
Highly fascinating info!
However, my memories of the ones, I'd owned back then, seemed more rosy, than you had just painted.
Now, I'm awfully confused.
The Dead Kennedys had a great idea of leaving one side of the cassette tape blank to help kill the music industry.
I remember Windmills of Your Mind from a doctors office I visited a lot when I was a kid. I guess they were playing the “easy listening” music to help calm down anxious patients.
Moral of the story: Ampex were really good at making tapes =P I'm impressed by the stereo separation on these (though it was 1969 so I guess they just hard-panned everything and called it a day). Also everyone had to have a crack at Proud Mary huh
The sound of the plastics omg your video bring me memories in the 90 unboxing my first cassette album. Very nice find Kevin.
The oldest tape I had as a kid was Peter, Paul, and Mommy from 1969. My uncle bought it in the 1970s and handed it down. Cassettes have came a long way, I got some new cassettes albums from Record Store Day.
I used to have that record I think I sold it in a bundle collection 10 years ago.. I never actually listened to it.. just remember the AND MOMMY .. made me laugh.
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 it’s my introduction to the folk music, I thought they were a Sesame Street group, because they played children’s songs in the late 1960s and throughout the 70s like “If I Had a Hammer” and “Mail Myself to You” those I listened from Peter, Paul, and Mary!
If stored right, audio tapes ought to last a long time, though not indefinitely owing to chemicals breaking down and plastics failing eventually, but the fact these ones were still in as-new condition with only the one needing repair, that's pretty good stuff...
The most important factor is exposure to heat, air and sunlight the plastic covers kept the content safe for a really long time.
@@Q80Warlock if stored properly cassete tapes last more than a human lifetime
Watching this while I work. Proud Mary by CCR just so happened to be playing on the office radio at the same time the Proud Mary tape was being tested! 😲
What are the chances!!😊👍❤️🏴
Your channel (and Joe Collins' channel) inspired me to get back into cassettes way back like over ten years ago. It's a fun hobby. I was able to get a nice stock of blanks before the prices got ridiculous. There still isn't anything comparable to cassettes! My current project is to find a NOS cassette receiver to put in my car. Thanks for the fun videos.
I would love to have a WAV copy from all of these cassettes, they are incredible for their age, and sound very good still. Nice video, Kevin, thank you for posting it ♥
lossless 16/44 or 24/48? I would be interested to see the sonograph results.. I bet they reach up past 18khz in some cases unless they were limited somehow.
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 The maximum frequency for cassette tape "type 1" on non high-end equipement is around up to 12000 Hz, sometimes less,
for type 2 tapes you can reach 14000 Hz, and for type 4 (metal tape) probably 15000~16000 Hz, expensive equipements like Nakamichi can reach 20000 Hz if you use this equipement for recording on the tape with correct bias and azimuth.
@@techmaster-ch5yd These definitely struggle in the treble.
@@techmaster-ch5yd yes .. limited in tape formula. excellent response. I'm still interested in seeing sonograph results.
@@techmaster-ch5yd In my experience, it is really hard to hear the difference between 14khz cutoff and a 12khz cutoff or frankly an 8khz cutoff. Most musical instruments never get anywhere near 12khz. There just isn't a lot of music up high. Guitars have a frequency range up 1200hz. Violin can reach 2637hz. 4186hz for a piano. A harmonica can reach 10khz, though that is theoretical. A chart of string instruments shows most top off at a few khz.
It might be my hearing, but I can detect a 12khz tone. Apply a filter to whack anything over 8 or 10khz and I just can't hear the difference.
I like the 1969 cases they seem more durable and ruggad.
Remember watching a daily Don Ho variety show mid/late 70s, middays during summer, sick days
I love your JVC tape deck.
It is an excellent brand.
Yes JVC can be good - Japan Victor Company. Even the middle of the road dual deck by JVC I have works like a champ - I had another one almost the same but with speed control and it had a ghost in it.
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 ¿Cuál fantasma?
5:30 You can't visit a Salvation Army Thrift Store, Goodwill, Value Village, etc. on a regular basis without seeing Mantovani records and I do have a few of his albums while the one I most highly recommend is his 'Gypsy Soul' Phase 4 album on London records (also available on out-of-print CD's).
One of the best tracks is from the movie 'Villa Rides!' (starring Russian-born actor, Yul Brynner, playing Mexican revolutionary Poncho Villa. Haha!) composed by Maurice Jarre ('Lawrence of Arabia', 'Doctor Zhivago', 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome', etc.) which is certainly NOT a Gypsy tune, but it's great as are the Hungarian tunes on the record. :)
Very interesting to see these tapes in action, nice to see that most didn’t even need any repairs! As long as they are stored in acceptable conditions, tapes will just keep on working!
10:34 In Brazil in the 70s a lot of people used something very similar here: they were called "cartuchos" (cartridges) in cars (and only in cars) though I can't say precisely if they were 8-track but they were endless loops too (my father told me when I was a child). As I was a child I can't be sure if they were 8-track, playtapes of some similar format. So it was not only there that they used this format in cars.
Wow....what a find! Can't believe you got a collection like this!!!! Very Cool!
You don't like 8 tracks? There's nothing like a song fading out midway, CLICK, and then fading back in again.
I have a lot of cassettes to this day, including some soundtracks that are still sealed and my tapes from the 70's and 80's still sound great today.
Generally speaking, cassette tapes survived much better than 8-track tapes, the latter of which would inevitably have the tape splice snap apart and the foam pads disintegrate, not to mention how practically every artwork sticker on an 8-track tape has bubbling due to the deterioration of the glue.
All in all, cassette tapes were generally well-made and built to last.
It's interesting to see those cases. They seem more robust than the standard Philips case.
Youre right, the cases seem to be made from softer plastic, so they won't break as easily. What they lack, compared to the PHILIPS ones, is the little tab that prevents the tapes from unwinding.
@@BertGrink
Absolutely, which was a real drawback!
I have the same World of Mantovani cassette from 1969, also I have a bunch of cassettes including some early ones from 1967 (AMPEX started to produce pre-recorded cassettes in 1967).
Always loved how C-60 tapes could outperform Vinyl and sound near-CD(13bit/44.1KHz).
Some of these recordings sound really good!
Fascinating! What you did with the pressure pad on that Mantovani cassette is exactly how I repair any of my cassettes when the pressure pads tend to fall out…
But how about perished ones? I live in a country when it is hard to import those pads. Any alternatives you can suggest?
@@stupidfanboyph Try cutting a piece of felt and glue it onto the metal bit behind the tape itself….
Gotta love that classic 1960’s/1970’s cassette casing labels!
Very good , most tapes still sound good if not left in damp places. Good video as usual 👍
Thanks for sharing. This video initiated a stream of consciousness consisting of my 1968 Mustang and the cassette deck that I installed in it. Not HiFi by any stretch but boy did it leave me with many fond memories that I'll always treasure.
You are the second person this week that I have seen say the ball point pen was the official cassette tape winder, but I grew up that the 'official' was the #2 pencil. It even fits way better than bic pens. Another great video!
No, a pencil doesn't work nearly as well as a Bic pen, unless you live in Japan: ua-cam.com/video/vaSN4J3a_60/v-deo.html
I would much rather listen to any of these songs over any of today’s music. These tracks just sound so good.
Nice job! My dad had that Norelco portable cassette recorder.
I immediately recognized the American Pie cassette. I had it! Unfortunately, it contained an edited version of the title cut. Not as truncated as the 45 version, but missing the entire piano/vocal first verse and faded to trim a few seconds off the end. I eventually bought the LP. 🤓
@@Heike-- It was longer than the radio/45 version but shorter than the real album version. It seems to have been an edit done specifically to make the two sides of the cassette have approximately the same running time. There was also a song on side one of the cassette that was repeated on side two. I think it was “Winterwood.”
"Boss, we accidentally reversed the sides of the tape! - Nevermind, we'll stick the labels on to match." - would be my guess for the swapped sides... 😁
Incredibly cool!
NOS media that's 54 years old.
Woah. I listened to it with my headphones on, and it actually sounds pretty decent. Kinda spooky even.
Wow 54 years. I was born 1960, 😃 know them all. Nice to revisit the past.
Interesting. I know that in a few years the earliest VHS videocassettes will be 50, wonder if there are any of those OG 1977/78 Magnetic Videos that are still sealed (not re-sealed). Wonder what it would be like to play those for the first time.
the return of Don Ho!
Some of the early 70s cassettes are not recorded at overdrive high levels like much later. So even with dolby they may be a bit noisier for hiss but the sound quality from cassettes recorded at a proper level is quite good, and enjoyable, accepting them for what they are. They slammed the tapes harder later on becuase some people demanded "louder, LOUDER!!" and also to cover up more of the tape hiss background noise, but ended up with higher distortion and more muffled highs.
I remember borrowing audiobooks on cassettes from the local library in the early to mid 80s. They came in a plastic case with a garage door style shutter which you would push to one side to open. I've never seem those again anywhere other than the library.
These are beautiful ❤️ and they still sound fantastic, at least as good as the technology of 1969 allows! I guess they took inspiration from 8-track with the revised running order. I wouldn’t have minded if we continued doing that.
Puff the Magic Dragon hit me right in the feels. I've bought a couple tapes off eBay that snapped on the 1st play, but it's not that hard to fix, even the shells that don't have screws.
I found a ton of old southeast asian market cassette tapes at a thrift store and they were in those clamshell-type snap cases. Though, it was mostly stuff from the late 70's to the 80's. Billy Joel, Springsteen, Michael Jackson etc. They looked legit but I'm not 100% sure they weren't bootlegs.
There was always a rumor back in the day that "Puff the Magic Dragon" was a stoner song.
And some radio stations refused to play John Denver's song "Rocky Mountain High" because they incorrectly thought it was a reference to drug use.
True! Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff. Read the lyrics.
it is a pagan nod to getting high 100%. It's not a rumor - but it's not about any particular drug.
That scene from "Meet The Parents" when Greg mentions this to his future father-in-law........"are you a pothead Focker?"
Excellent find! I wonder if those tapes (minus Don Ho) were part of a package given away when you purchased an Ampex stereo? The Ampex Micro 85 system we purchased in late 1968 came with four pre-recorded Ampex made tapes (including Mantovani), three blank tapes, speakers and microphones all for about $200. Ampex bundled that stuff up to get you hooked on compact cassettes.
The reason I believe the tapes are authentic in 1969 Warner Brothers was Warner Brothers, Seven arts and it had the logo on all of those tapes. I think Ampex had the market back then as well. They didn't sound too bad, considering they didn't have all of the electronics that the late 70s through 90s had much better sound quality with Dolby B/C HX Pro, or DBX. That was a real game changer. The frequency response got so much better with the newer tape decks, but in the late 60s I'm thinking the high frequencies didn't go much above 10 KHz.
wow I didn't know they sold cassettes in the 1960s. I figured the tech was out there but I didn't realize they were mass marketed. And yeah, as you said it is becaue of the 8 track. I figured that was the precursor.
The fact they were cheapening out on cassettes, even in 1969 (they are glued or sonically welded) though.
Another thing I noticed is that they are very quietly recorded, likely due to the equipment used back then.
I love the quietness; &, miss the screwed together cases!
Delightful video! The thing about the swapped sides is not that unusual. Well into the '70s, it was common (particularly for jazz and instrumental records) to have swapped sides on vinyl vs. open reel or cassette. I'm not sure why but it's a thing I've noticed a lot. The CD releases as often as not use the cassette running order, and often even the record sleeves have the order different from the discs themselves.
I have a JVC TD-R421. Had it since 1989. Works and sounds great. A little weak with rewinding if a tape has gotten "sticky", but it plays REALLY well.
All those cassettes and different styles of cassette case reminds me of my grandmothers cassette collection. Cassettes were popular not just for music of course, at home and in your car, they were used for computer games in the 1970's/80's and even in the 1990's. I used cassette tapes to store my BASIC programs for the first 6 months on my Apple ][ in early-1983 (until I purchased a floppy drive). Some cars still had cassette tape players until 2010 or thereabouts. Ahh the days of the Driving Mix Tape. A friend of mine purchased a brand new Commodore 64 in 1991 and was too cheap to get a floppy disk drive, so he ended up buying a large library of games on cassette (at $0.99 and $1.99) and loaded his games from tape ... and was still doing this well into the mid-late 1990's. On a C=64. He was happy to wait and watch the patterns on screen while the games loaded. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was playing Doom, Command and Conquer, etc ...
One of the joy and memorable moments of my adolescence that would stay for the rest of my life is opening brand new sealed cassette tapes.
These actually appear to sound very good for their age. The tape doesn't appear to have become brittle or deteriorated. They are also Ampex branded, a name also associated with the early days of video tape technology. However what interests me is that I assume these were released by the artists record label (CBS, Warner Bros, Atlantic etc) or was there some kind of licensing deal with Ampex? I say that because I don't ever recall the brand of tape being mentioned on pre-recorded cassette tapes released in the 1970s. I'm also fascinated how you ever came by new old stock for these in the first place.
@trevorbrown6654
I too want to know where these were found NOS! The only thing I can think of is that they were in a unmarked box in an ancient old warehouse with a dusty corner which never got any attention, and sat year after year, and long forgotten possibly under old pallets and other junk, then one day they sold the place and a cleaning crew came in an discovered them while hauling stuff out. It does happen with mass merchandise goods although since the computer age inventory control has gotten so good and the use of bar coding that it is rare something drops off the radar like it might have up until the mid 1980s or so.
Have a few 60s cassette tapes and they sound nice. The music industry in the 60s era was wide open and produced some great stuff, that's a nice score.
Don Hoe SEALED!!! You are a LEGEND!!! A FREAKING LEGEND!!!
With all of that lot being manufactured by the same company in the same year, after the initial pleasant surprise, it's not really unexpected to see them all playing ok after the first one proves to be in perfect shape, but other than that it's an amazing feat!
my late aunt and uncle met don ho at a bar and sat next to him. he said he got tired of singing tiny bubbles. they also listened to him on the radio at 6 am in the morning for a radio program called hawaii calls .
Very cool! I remember my parents got a stereo system with a built in cassette player in 1970. It’s cool to see those old cassette tapes.
That's pretty cool that there are genuine ampex cassette tapes
This video is giving me techmoan vibes ✨
what's that ?
@@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777 another youtuber that reviews old tech youtube.com/@Techmoan
Ampex tapes were great quality
Although each recording apart from these releases have their own character of sound, it's a bit homogenized across each of these cassettes...there's a certain lower-fi character in the sound from Ampex's duplication that's imbued and comes across on each. Nice to hear them and see them in such good condition. Thank you.
i still have my tapes . haven't played them in years . good collection there .
I found two used old tapes like this. A Black Sabbath tape and a Moody Blues tape. They both sounded horrible and the Moody Blues' felt pad came loose shortly after playing. But, I keep them as collectables cause they look kinda cool.
Yes!
I was just watching your older videos and this popped up in my notifications.
Wow thanks for the video. The collector in me cringed when you were opening those! But it was amazing they all were mostly still working.
I moved to the US (from the UK) in the 80s to go to Uni. My first regular exposure to cassettes was in car stereos and I hated them so much. Back then the players in American cars were awful and would stretch the tapes out really quickly and after a short time they'd sound awful. And the cases were always cracking and breaking and falling apart. I can't tell you how much this caused me to despise cassettes.
When I bought my first car in the US it was a 60s Mustang that has an 8-Track player installed and OMG I loved it so much better. I have no idea if the player I was using was just higher quality but to my ears they sounded so much better. And the cassettes themselves were like tanks and nearly indestructible. There wasn't hardly anything being released on 8-Track by then so I was always going to thrift stores, yard sales and used record stores to find stuff I could play. I found so much at the famous San Jose, CA flea market.
I never got over my dislike of cassettes (even today).
Puff the Magic Dragon always makes me sad because it makes me think of my old stuffed animals and the adventures we had when I was a kid and how - at some point - I played with them for the last time. My first one is still out on a shelf but the rest are in plastic bags in my crawl space. 😢
What an awesome slice of history right there. Great discovery!
In June 2009 I found 3 boxes of cassettes at a recycling center someone left to throw away. They ranged from the 60s to the early 90s. I took them home. One was the Ray Charles tape shown here. Many of the late 60s tapes were still shrink wrapped & still are today. Conditions varied because I found them outdoors on a hot Florida day. I've been afraid to play many of them.
Puff (The Magic Dragon)... Hahaha, I will always remember this songs thanks to the film Meet The Parents.
I love this channel so much.
As if there wasn't a better compliment for the 8-track format, you just had to pick a dirty Certron blank. That's an aesthetic in and of itself.
I've been digitally transferring cassette tape recordings that I made in the late sixties, and the sound is still ok!
On Harper’s Bizarre 4, Witchi Tai To is a brilliant cover version of Jim Pepper’s original jazz composition.
In the 1970s, 8-track and cassette versions of albums listed at one dollar more than the vinyl.
Of the songs I'm familiar with there mostly seemed to be like a slight warble in the stereo that I think is probably age related but I'm very impressed with how you did the sound as the effect was subtle. The Ray Charles sounded incredible considering the conditions.