Remember that cassettes were Sony's cash cow in the '80s and '90s. The profits from Walkmans, tapes, and cassette decks are probably a large part of what got them through some of their big failures, like Betamax losing the format war to VHS, the music industry trying to kill DAT, and MiniDisc struggling to gain any more than a niche user base. And I think that when Philips' DCC was proclaimed to be the future, Sony responded by flooding the market with these cheap but good-quality Type I tapes, reckoning that if people were satisfied with the performance of inexpensive analog cassettes, they wouldn't have any interest in the high cost of DCCs.
And then, Sony, outside of the cassette market became part of the movie industry like Columbia and TriStar did, and so did Screen Gems for what was then a TV production company back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, that might be Sony Pictures. and also the music industry like Columbia, and Epic labels, along with Arista and more. Those were all Sony products like cassettes, electronics, and the music and movie industries. Remember the Betamax format? That was the first ever format that Sony introduced back in 1975, a year before VHS came along.
Many of those are still here. I have one EF from the mid-80's (possibly 1986-87) with many songs from Adamo in Spanish. Still sounds great. And I have one HF-ES from 1988 with many songs from Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Very interesting.
Your spot on with the premise the deck is more important then the tape. I have completely recapped my Teac C-3X and calibrated it myself. The recordings with new stock Maxell UR are almost indistinguishable from source. Considering I have a Teac A 6300 I have rebuilt and all the way up to an Otarti MX 5050 BIII with new tapes as well as my basis this proves to me not all is what it seems. Of course the UR is not a great tape but hey, they sound great in the car and the boat.
I appreciate the advise about "getting to know the ferric type 1" cassettes. After looking on eBay for Type IIs, I saw there is a substantial jump in price since my last purchase of Type IIs. Yeah, its starting to get silly. There are still some reasonable prices but you have really have to dig these days. Safe to say, its only going to get worse. Thank you for all the testing you are doing.
A good deck can make all the difference. Type 2 for those "special" recordings, Type 1 for everyday. It's more satisfying making a good recording on a "cheap" tape than on one you know is good.
The problem with the super-ferrics is that they've gotten to be MUCH more expensive than some type-IIs - particularly the Maxell XL-IIs. Most super ferrics that I've seen on EBay are well into the two-figure (US$) range and as such, can't justify such a purchase!
Sony made many of these types of cassettes aside from HF when it was cheap. I remember the EF cassettes. I had it since the early 1990's and it has the same shell as the CHF and LNX cassettes did. I got those from a local grocery store a long time ago when I was living in Brooklyn at the time. It has the label like the one in the HD-F cassette which was available only in the UK at the time, but never in the US. Then came the Super EF, and then EF Super and back to Super EF, and finally went back to EF once again. I remember the EF Super since I got at a local $1 store back in the mid to late 90's, and they sounded much of the same as HF and its counterparts. And then, came ZX, which was similar to EF, and it sounded a lot like the EF cassette. But the FX cassette, it has a brown coating ferric tape like the one used in the TDK D cassettes from the 1970's and 1980's.
Maxell did this, but with their type II cassettes in the late 80's, early 90's with the Maxell Capsule and a few other oddities I remember seeing in my local record store at the time.
I bought a 120 box load of the 1996 Sony FX 90s around 2012, and was genuinly blown away with there results, I pushed them up to +3 on my sony TC FX 211, and was convinced that it was old Sony HF-S tape, one of my friends thought I was bullshitting at the time, if I still knew him, I would have sent him this vid in a heartbeat. I went ahead and bought another three boxes off tapeline, ul well, his loss. :) :) Problem is now, someone like Tony raves on how good a certain tape is, then watch how almost immediately how prices for the tape in question quadruple overnight.
Nah, there's plenty of them out there, the vast majority of people selling cassettes they find in their cupboard aren't watching these videos 😁 The FX are great though.
Thanks enormously Tony. I get similar levels with my Sony FX cassettes too. I, like you, was really shocked to find out they could easily handle + 6dB without distorting. I too thought there was something not quite right with my deck when I saw the meters, but the bottom line, for me, is: They sound much better than I ever could have expected from ferric cassettes and I'm happy with their sound. Big thanks for covering these cassettes and for sharing your knowledge.
I remember when I was kindergarten I always listen to queen using my dad Cassette Tape deck while my mom giving me breakfast, its been 21 years ago and today my grandma want to listen to recent music, but the cassette is the only format that she understands, so I watch this video just to make sure I got the right type of cassette haha
Nice songs! I remember the market being flooded with Sony ZX tapes. I didn't like them (apart from the smell!), they were hissy and didnt's sound as good as other brands or other Sony models (well, I also didn't like the hiss of the EFs at first and remember asking my dad to buy TDK or Maxell instead, but I started to like them later. Nice to finally hear how good they can sound!), at least when recorded with the cheap equipment I had at hand. I wonder how would they sound in a nice deck.
I have a boombox I like to occasionally listen to tapes with like outside doing lawn work (if I don't feel like listening to my ipod with earbuds). It hisses like mad without a tape even being in the deck! It's just a noisy pre-amp. I think that is one of the major reasons boombox recordings don't sound good. It has a permanent magnet erase head which doesn't fully erase the tapes.
I bought some Sony FX I used. They don't have that totally brownish tape in it as seen in the video. But the shells are the same. Seems to be a little Hit & Miss with them. No "dirty ferric" at all (I originally bought them because of that). No hiss at all with Dolby B applied (and Dolby S) and totally free of distortion up to + 4. But you can't record to them as hot as seen in the video. They seem to be typical nineties ferric-cobalt. So I'm wondering if Sony just took, what was left and put in these cheap shells under the label "FX I". Don't get me wrong. It's a real nice Type I, but not all of them have that "dirty ferric"-tape in it.
@@CassetteComeback Excuse me, you have to explain "bitsa" to a german guy like me. Thinking about it four hours, but don't get what you mean exactly. 🙈
I like the way you analyze the sound quality.I'm listening to you on my cassette deck with the record button on like I'm going to make a cassette and I'm listening to your analogy on these different sound qualities and whether I have the equalizer on or off it almost sounds the same.
i was confused! I listened the video with my phone's in-ear headphones and it's impossible to find any difference! when i listened again all the stuff with my PC and Grado hearphone, it was waaaaaaay more clear!!!! BUT i'm surprised to hear how, a good calibrated deck, can obtain from a CHEAP, VERY CHEAP, FX tape!!!
You're not wrong with what's going to be most common! Nowadays, readily available (at realistic pricing) are theb Maxell UR and TDK FE... got some of the FE on the way so I look forward to trying it, but I'm really enjoying the Maxell UR nowadays..... Sadly though, I do lament the old days of TDK AD, and SA...they were all my go-to tapes back in the 80's; Maxell UD-XLII if the TDK wasn't available at hand! My cassette decks in the 80's were all Japanese, and so I never had any really good results with Memorex or BASF, or AGFA..... but those decks then were all 2head decks, and even now, my current Technics RS-TR575 is a nice dual cassette deck with auto-tape-calibration, but it's still only 2head.... 3head decks are getting expensive! I like this Technics as is just about 'mint', and after a good clean-up plays very consistantly and evenly across both wells, and uses those currently available Maxell UR tapes beautifully! I don't use any Dolby NR, so the high frequencies aren't crushed and then pulsed on playback.... these Maxell UR tapes sound great! So yeah... these bog-standard, normal ferric tapes that back in the 80's we'd have ignored, actually are great performers to this day... so yes, everyone get to love your Ferric Type 1 Tapes!! :-)
You have to be in the right regio so you get shipment for the right kind of money. If you are lucky, yes you can get real good tapes for very good money. I always expected those old Sony tapes to be good, as in the old days I always told: "Sony does not makes garbage, if there is a product with a Sony badge on it, it will be value for money". Much is changed since then and the Sony brand is not anymore what it used to be but this are cassettes from an old era. That there would be pseudo chrome in this entry level tapes? That is actually even surprising me, I will keep my eyes open for them! I kinda like the first song actually. I am not going to say that singer is the best, but it is kinda Peter Murphy like. there is much worse there out playing on commercial radio!
I always bought Sony when I could, but often found that they performed well, but weren't built to last. The singer is a close friend, who isn't a singer. We wrote the song together and he did these test vocals. Tried to convince him to have another go, properly, but he's not interested...
Just bought some EF USA And they have the Brown Color Tape, I was Hoping for the Black Color so I guess they also made another Vision of the "EF" w the Sony Hubs and welded Cheap Shells. Note- Shell and Text are exactly the same as in your video w Back Tape .Did I Pay to much for these tapes?
Another outstanding video sir. As well as a very interesting one too. I like the older EF with the paper label adhered to the shell but, man their getting pricey too. Anywho keep up the good work.👍👍
That Sony "Musica" is pretty cool and rare here in Italy. There is also the Sony "Nota" but I think they're both HF in a different style of case and wrapper.
@@CassetteComeback there are 46m and 30m called "data" too i think these were as you say aimed at kids, musica for music, nota for dictation and data for computer use.
@@TechieZeddie Nice. Love the 85 Maxell line. Great looks and tough as nails. Just subscribed. There's so many channels out there. This place is so much better than watching TV 😁
Interesting video. I remember using some of these Sony ferric tapes way back. One of them, a HD (I think) became more quiet during recording compared to listening to the tape blank, it is as if the bias was making them quieter, what do you think ? It is the only tape that done this.
I found My First Sony cassettes on remainder in the early nineties I think. Didn't want them for permanent archival, Just for recording my a few of my own lps to play on portables. I bought maybe six 2 packs. I made pretty good sounding recordings from vinyl on them but I don't know how they would stand up to your grueling tests!
I just tested one of these expecting it to be a waste of time, but it was actually really good. It's a really cheap looking tape and case, but it was able to take +6 without much distortion. I think these they are the lowest of the low end for Sony, but the tape inside must actually be fine - at least in this Thailand-made one it was anyway. Very surprising!
Ah yes Index. They were eventually bought by ARGOS (now owned by Sainsbury's). I have been coming across some of these cheaper Sony's. I'm looking for some good super ferrics to test if they work well for voice work.
My theory for why they have so many is the low price guarantee. It was VERY common in the 80s and 90s to release very slightly different products to different retailers who can offer a low-price guarantee because nobody else sells the same exact item. It was not just low ticket items like cassette tapes and floppy disks. Things like mattresses costing $800-$2000 did this too.
Great video on type 01 cassettes😍😍👍🏻!! Your Aiwa deck seems to handle really well at very high levels +6 to +8 dB with a good calibration with type 01 cassettes 😉👍🏻 This is why still you can get a good recording with some warm sounds out of branded type 01 cassettes with a decent deck like aiwa with fine bias tuning 😍😍👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 I like that feature very much rather than the auto calibration on some decks like JVC/Sony coz you can’t do fine tuning.
I once hated these humble looking EF or HF tapes because the specimens I picked from the flea market had lots of drop outs. However, a few months later I bought a cheap FX-I which yield acceptable resulton my Pioneer deck. So...I guess these later generations of Type I tape can perform relatively good as long as they are properly stored.
In start of video you told maybe the EF tape was made from another company...you said “syhand” or something? Iam askig you this becouse i have a supermarket brand S-Ferro tape (dark tape too) and have the same hubs as that tape. I think there are a chance they are the same. I found this tape to be very hissy too but can be recorded very hot. I feel this tape looses some of the bass, its a little brighter sound and not soo good at low end.
I have an old cassette that doesn't have type IV. Ihave fine-tuned bias plus 18 or 9+9 equalizer. I'm good at what I do but I don't want to take a chance and buy a type IV if it's not going to work.
Sony made some superb cassettes, very underrated. I have an unopened Sony EF90 in my collection, exactly like the one at 23:59. I really liked Maxell and Basf/Emtec but I still think TDK was the best selling brand.
Yeah, there was ZX and others as well, but the FN I also found surprisingly good...but very rare. Better than the FE, although the only thing I've got against the FE is their ubiquity, they are still a very decent ferric.
TDK also made other kinds of Type I cassettes like AD, AD-X, A, AR-X, and a rare one called OD. Never heard of an OD cassette before. It was “Optimum Dynamic” which was used from 1979 until 1982 or so and it wasn’t as bad as AD and other kinds of Type 1 cassettes.
If you're talking this FN: c-90.org/FOR_PROGRAMMER/tapes/Sony/Sony%20FN/0/cassettes_1_0.jpg then it's believed to be a brief, short-lived EF predecessor (circa 1984?).
In the early 70s TDK had three normal cassettes - LN, SD and ED. LN became D, SD became AD, while ED became OD then AD-X and finally AR. They had to find a way to push this super-superferric!
Dirty Ferrick tapes. I heard of this way back. Thanks for confirming this product. Most people at the time heard this but only were considering this as something coming. When in reality it was a throw mudd at the wall and see what sticks. The pressure for companies to find the magic bullet for tapes was at such high level corporations were churning out everything they had in the pantry to the cellar. So many products that the market saturation was standing room only.The 1990s created such fear with existing technology and new threatening their very survival. They also had to redo many products and enhance their products to compete. The one thing that caught everybody by surprise was the Napster war of media that would effect everything and completely changed media Lucky for us tape still survived. Thank the Tape God's 🙂
I ran across an old Sony type 1 tape that was so bad, my Pioneer CTS-410 auto calibrating machine would absolutely have none of it... it would give error code every time.
About getting a good deck, i just a Tascam 202MKIII. Not sure if it's really good or not but least it's better than anything i've ever had. I think i'm going to buy a few cassettes from your site and enjoy it. Too bad it doesn't have monitoring though :/
HI,this not related to this specific video,but what do you do with tapes that stick? i have a Sony that i have not played for years that looks pristine but will not run properly.it will only run 2 or 3 secs and stop and will not FF or rewind? Cheers
I had a tape which did the same thing, I took it apart, cleaned the internals with soap and water (not the actual tape), put everything back together and manually fast forwarded and rewound the tape with a pen a couple of times. Now it works fine.
Would you say that the current Maxell UR tapes that are for sale everywhere for a quid or so are comparable to these tapes or worse ? I know that type I tapes are probably the only tapes that will remain readily available in the future so my question is would it make sense to buy them for a Euro cheap now to have a stock of them for the future or are they worse than the type I tapes that you have presented here and in your other videos ?
Cassettes are all very subjective. Your ears and your deck are the biggest variables. To my ears and deck, the Sony in this video are better than the current UR...bearing in mind, if you've seen my video on them, that there are several versions in the same wrapper. I don't think people should panic buy, there is so much NOS out there and new tape from RTM and RTR are making a new one too. Look at the TDK FE, hasn't been made for a decade and they're all over eBay for about £1 each. Besides, won't you get bored just using the same cassette over and over?
@@CassetteComeback this recording on the same tape over and over is super strange to me. You've inspired me to record recently but I haven't done so in almost 20 years but when I did, I recorded once and that recording was permanent for eternity.
I think it depends what you want to use it for. The UR is a perfectly good tape and will give good results on a good deck even if not quite as good as say an HF.
I have a bunch of modern UR production, mainly the 90. They IMHO suck in MOL and top FR probably coz their ferric formulation looks too primitive and is light in color. That again probably means there's little cobalt added to make for higher performance.
Is there a reason why you've mentioned Saehan a number of times in these videos but always avoided testing them? Not all chrome tapes are expensive. If you're careful there are still some inexpensive ones. I've recently bought new sealed Saehan Memorex, and Sky (RAKS?) chrome tapes for under a quid each, delivered. Not top of the line but decent enough.
Not really, I just find the Saehan stuff boring I guess as there's so much of it. Sure, you look hard enough, you can still find cheap Type 2...but for how long?
Hey CassetteComeback, have you seen a gray tape before? As in not brown at all, but also not black like a chrome tape? Great work on the channel, I’m really enjoying it!
You are absolutely amazing!! So one thing I didn't quite get .. lighter brown colour is better than dark (almost black) just generally speaking, or not?!
Usually darker means there's cobalt doping. "Browner" means there more particles packed in there and shinier means better calendaring, but take tape colour with a pinch of salt, as it's not always a reflection on performance.
@@CassetteComeback Thank you, I guess it is more complicated than just the colour. I have SA and SAX tapes that are dark and shiny and these are good tapes that are generally recommended and although type 1 they are chrome like .. is that right? Are the SAs good for converting CD music? I am considering coverting all my CDs to tape and just going tape all the way.. your advice please if you can spare a couple of mins, thank you.
@@CassetteComeback oh, looking again on your cassette deck, i see hi and low. did a mistake there in my head, because i was thinking of the stability of left and right, like if you put a mono test tone on a tape the left and right would be perfect equal on a perfect example. but i guess thats a different technical thing.
Just check my three EF recently bought from ebay. Not the same, all brown colour. Then I noticed the one in the video are made in Japan, mine are madn in Thailiand and China. So I guess the whole thing is just a cassette lottery.
Bons vídeos, gosto de ver por causa da nostalgia que cria...lollolol, da musica também...., mas fico irritado, porque existe nos seus vídeos tantas cassetes virgens...onde as arranja, poderá um dia ter um vídeo que nos mostre onde se pode comprar???...obrigado...
@@CassetteComeback On the topic of affordable and popular Sony tapes in the (post)-Soviet market 😁, agfabasf.com/images/content/img54-19861.jpg agfabasf.com/images/content/img5420.jpg Now THIS was the shtick. Your default "9-rouble" (if I remember correctly; and those are Soviet roubles by the way) imported cooking ferric, but maan was it good... Extremely stable and indestructible, very very decent sounding (we had a 10-pack and only 1 of the 10 shed a bit of oxide over the course of its heavily-abused history, really cool cassettes IMO), very very mass market (they call it the "trolleybus cassette", something to do with it being used universally and everywhere maybe?). Of course (depending on location and timeline), instead of the EF, you could acquire a sexy-looking Maxell LN (with a strong distinct odor which lives to this day), an Agfa Fe I (those shed like hell), a Basf LH-E/Ferro Extra a bit later on (another legend with a marvellous sound), possibly something from the TDK range (mainly various shades of D), maaybe an ORWO (some say they're a bit abrasive/sticky-sheddy, others like them), an MK (probably the most ubiquitous stuff, made in the USSR and coated by Svema/Tasma/Slavich I think? sometimes with the use of ORWO know-how; mostly shoddy, with a greedily small amount of lubricant in the tape and the shell - oh Lord that squeaking - but still usable), or... you could cheapen out a bit (or get duped by a merchant, for the same 9 roubles + waste paper you'd have to hand over!) into a "Belgian" (actually, most likely Hong Kong-ese) white Maxwelle/black Hanny, or even a Wagdoms / "Japanese" Yoko piece of "type-0" junk, etc. That's it for today 😄
The transparent Sony Super-EF (1990) were probably the best of the "cheap" ones. The 1988 Super-EF also stands close to them, but 1990 version is better, with a stiffer body and dark/shinier band.
I have ONE CHF Sony.....and love the case it is in..with the sony name in the top corner..What is your or anyone else opinion of the Yamaha K1000 deck...just had to pop that question in there...I know it has nothing to do with this video...nice video as always...
If you want to play, you got to pay. This is not a hobby for little league or whiners. It is a hobby. Not expensive compared to some. At least, this one is fun and fun is rare! Go Tony, good luck on it all and stay safe mate!
What the heck?😂 Well these are the only ones most of us had at early age, or for me atleast.😅 Although mine were labelled premium ef and my tdk ones are labelled b60 or d60.
I just saw another video of you, crushing a bad tape, correction, the worst tape you ever used. In a glance its a copy of the sony musica, with the yellow hubs.
Remember that cassettes were Sony's cash cow in the '80s and '90s. The profits from Walkmans, tapes, and cassette decks are probably a large part of what got them through some of their big failures, like Betamax losing the format war to VHS, the music industry trying to kill DAT, and MiniDisc struggling to gain any more than a niche user base.
And I think that when Philips' DCC was proclaimed to be the future, Sony responded by flooding the market with these cheap but good-quality Type I tapes, reckoning that if people were satisfied with the performance of inexpensive analog cassettes, they wouldn't have any interest in the high cost of DCCs.
And they'd move straight to MiniDisc 😀
I knew it wouldn't take long until I found a VWestlife comment on this channel XD
And then, Sony, outside of the cassette market became part of the movie industry like Columbia and TriStar did, and so did Screen Gems for what was then a TV production company back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, that might be Sony Pictures. and also the music industry like Columbia, and Epic labels, along with Arista and more. Those were all Sony products like cassettes, electronics, and the music and movie industries.
Remember the Betamax format? That was the first ever format that Sony introduced back in 1975, a year before VHS came along.
They did pretty well with their Digital Data Storage (DDS) / DATs in the I.T. backup world for a while.
sony's cash nowadays is from playstation and tv production etc....
Dirty Ferrics sound like a cool band name.
Many of those are still here. I have one EF from the mid-80's (possibly 1986-87) with many songs from Adamo in Spanish. Still sounds great. And I have one HF-ES from 1988 with many songs from Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Very interesting.
I had a few EF tapes in shells that looked like your HD-F. I was too young to comprehend any of this but memories keep coming back :'-)
That's why this hobby is getting stronger. People won't remember what SD cards they used in 20 years.
@@CassetteComeback or any playlist - this is a big one
Your spot on with the premise the deck is more important then the tape. I have completely recapped my Teac C-3X and calibrated it myself. The recordings with new stock Maxell UR are almost indistinguishable from source. Considering I have a Teac A 6300 I have rebuilt and all the way up to an Otarti MX 5050 BIII with new tapes as well as my basis this proves to me not all is what it seems. Of course the UR is not a great tape but hey, they sound great in the car and the boat.
I appreciate the advise about "getting to know the ferric type 1" cassettes. After looking on eBay for Type IIs, I saw there is a substantial jump in price since my last purchase of Type IIs. Yeah, its starting to get silly. There are still some reasonable prices but you have really have to dig these days. Safe to say, its only going to get worse. Thank you for all the testing you are doing.
A good deck can make all the difference. Type 2 for those "special" recordings, Type 1 for everyday. It's more satisfying making a good recording on a "cheap" tape than on one you know is good.
The problem with the super-ferrics is that they've gotten to be MUCH more expensive than some type-IIs - particularly the Maxell XL-IIs. Most super ferrics that I've seen on EBay are well into the two-figure (US$) range and as such, can't justify such a purchase!
For now, ATR Magnetics out of York PA is selling chrome tapes for about $4.50 a piece (though they sell them in boxes of 10).
@@thespeezprice has doubled now, though they now have a "reel to reel" cassette variant, but it's $22 a tape
Sony made many of these types of cassettes aside from HF when it was cheap. I remember the EF cassettes. I had it since the early 1990's and it has the same shell as the CHF and LNX cassettes did. I got those from a local grocery store a long time ago when I was living in Brooklyn at the time. It has the label like the one in the HD-F cassette which was available only in the UK at the time, but never in the US. Then came the Super EF, and then EF Super and back to Super EF, and finally went back to EF once again. I remember the EF Super since I got at a local $1 store back in the mid to late 90's, and they sounded much of the same as HF and its counterparts. And then, came ZX, which was similar to EF, and it sounded a lot like the EF cassette.
But the FX cassette, it has a brown coating ferric tape like the one used in the TDK D cassettes from the 1970's and 1980's.
Maxell did this, but with their type II cassettes in the late 80's, early 90's with the Maxell Capsule and a few other oddities I remember seeing in my local record store at the time.
I bought a 120 box load of the 1996 Sony FX 90s around 2012, and was genuinly blown away with there results, I pushed them up to +3 on my sony TC FX 211, and was convinced that it was old Sony HF-S tape, one of my friends thought I was bullshitting at the time, if I still knew him, I would have sent him this vid in a heartbeat. I went ahead and bought another three boxes off tapeline, ul well, his loss. :) :)
Problem is now, someone like Tony raves on how good a certain tape is, then watch how almost immediately how prices for the tape in question quadruple overnight.
Nah, there's plenty of them out there, the vast majority of people selling cassettes they find in their cupboard aren't watching these videos 😁 The FX are great though.
Thanks enormously Tony. I get similar levels with my Sony FX cassettes too. I, like you, was really shocked to find out they could easily handle + 6dB without distorting. I too thought there was something not quite right with my deck when I saw the meters, but the bottom line, for me, is: They sound much better than I ever could have expected from ferric cassettes and I'm happy with their sound. Big thanks for covering these cassettes and for sharing your knowledge.
I remember when I was kindergarten I always listen to queen using my dad Cassette Tape deck while my mom giving me breakfast, its been 21 years ago and today my grandma want to listen to recent music, but the cassette is the only format that she understands, so I watch this video just to make sure I got the right type of cassette haha
Lovely
Thanks Tony. Another excellent video, as always. I love the Sony EFs but the TDk SAs and SAXs are my favourites.
Nice songs! I remember the market being flooded with Sony ZX tapes. I didn't like them (apart from the smell!), they were hissy and didnt's sound as good as other brands or other Sony models (well, I also didn't like the hiss of the EFs at first and remember asking my dad to buy TDK or Maxell instead, but I started to like them later. Nice to finally hear how good they can sound!), at least when recorded with the cheap equipment I had at hand. I wonder how would they sound in a nice deck.
Definitely they'll sound great in a very good quality 3Head deck. So much greater than cheap 80's & 90's cassette players 😉
I have a boombox I like to occasionally listen to tapes with like outside doing lawn work (if I don't feel like listening to my ipod with earbuds). It hisses like mad without a tape even being in the deck! It's just a noisy pre-amp. I think that is one of the major reasons boombox recordings don't sound good. It has a permanent magnet erase head which doesn't fully erase the tapes.
I guess you where just embracing the chaos with Sony.
Boom boom 😀
I bought some Sony FX I used. They don't have that totally brownish tape in it as seen in the video. But the shells are the same. Seems to be a little Hit & Miss with them. No "dirty ferric" at all (I originally bought them because of that). No hiss at all with Dolby B applied (and Dolby S) and totally free of distortion up to + 4. But you can't record to them as hot as seen in the video. They seem to be typical nineties ferric-cobalt. So I'm wondering if Sony just took, what was left and put in these cheap shells under the label "FX I". Don't get me wrong. It's a real nice Type I, but not all of them have that "dirty ferric"-tape in it.
They're "bitsa" cassettes...
@@CassetteComeback Excuse me, you have to explain "bitsa" to a german guy like me. Thinking about it four hours, but don't get what you mean exactly. 🙈
Sony EF was European HF. HF was sold in North America, while EF was sold in Europe.
HF was also sold in Europe
@@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele true
The EF was very common in México
In Chile we had EF and HF. EF was very popular in the 80s.
I like the way you analyze the sound quality.I'm listening to you on my cassette deck with the record button on like I'm going to make a cassette and I'm listening to your analogy on these different sound qualities and whether I have the equalizer on or off it almost sounds the same.
i was confused! I listened the video with my phone's in-ear headphones and it's impossible to find any difference!
when i listened again all the stuff with my PC and Grado hearphone, it was waaaaaaay more clear!!!!
BUT
i'm surprised to hear how, a good calibrated deck, can obtain from a CHEAP, VERY CHEAP, FX tape!!!
You're not wrong with what's going to be most common! Nowadays, readily available (at realistic pricing) are theb Maxell UR and TDK FE... got some of the FE on the way so I look forward to trying it, but I'm really enjoying the Maxell UR nowadays.....
Sadly though, I do lament the old days of TDK AD, and SA...they were all my go-to tapes back in the 80's; Maxell UD-XLII if the TDK wasn't available at hand! My cassette decks in the 80's were all Japanese, and so I never had any really good results with Memorex or BASF, or AGFA..... but those decks then were all 2head decks, and even now, my current Technics RS-TR575 is a nice dual cassette deck with auto-tape-calibration, but it's still only 2head.... 3head decks are getting expensive! I like this Technics as is just about 'mint', and after a good clean-up plays very consistantly and evenly across both wells, and uses those currently available Maxell UR tapes beautifully! I don't use any Dolby NR, so the high frequencies aren't crushed and then pulsed on playback.... these Maxell UR tapes sound great!
So yeah... these bog-standard, normal ferric tapes that back in the 80's we'd have ignored, actually are great performers to this day...
so yes, everyone get to love your Ferric Type 1 Tapes!! :-)
You have to be in the right regio so you get shipment for the right kind of money. If you are lucky, yes you can get real good tapes for very good money. I always expected those old Sony tapes to be good, as in the old days I always told: "Sony does not makes garbage, if there is a product with a Sony badge on it, it will be value for money". Much is changed since then and the Sony brand is not anymore what it used to be but this are cassettes from an old era. That there would be pseudo chrome in this entry level tapes? That is actually even surprising me, I will keep my eyes open for them!
I kinda like the first song actually. I am not going to say that singer is the best, but it is kinda Peter Murphy like. there is much worse there out playing on commercial radio!
I always bought Sony when I could, but often found that they performed well, but weren't built to last. The singer is a close friend, who isn't a singer. We wrote the song together and he did these test vocals. Tried to convince him to have another go, properly, but he's not interested...
Just bought some EF USA And they have the Brown Color Tape, I was Hoping for the Black Color so I guess they also made another Vision of the "EF" w the Sony Hubs and welded Cheap Shells. Note- Shell and Text are exactly the same as in your video w Back Tape .Did I Pay to much for these tapes?
Compact cassette tape . Founded by Lou Ottens and Philips and produced in Philips Eindhoven the Netherlands and Philips Hasselt Belgium.
Another outstanding video sir. As well as a very interesting one too. I like the older EF with the paper label adhered to the shell but, man their getting pricey too. Anywho keep up the good work.👍👍
It's because of the retro charm and rarity of the older ones. Get the HD-F. They look similar and are much cheaper.
Cassette Comeback Never heard of HD-F before. They used the same cassette shell as the CHF and LNX cassettes from the 1980’s.
The blue Normal EF sound really good to me for heavy/thrash metal
That Sony "Musica" is pretty cool and rare here in Italy. There is also the Sony "Nota" but I think they're both HF in a different style of case and wrapper.
Yeah, they are. Designed to appeal to children I think.
@@CassetteComeback there are 46m and 30m called "data" too i think these were as you say aimed at kids, musica for music, nota for dictation and data for computer use.
Don’t worry I even unwrapped some of my sealed tapes I just had the urge
I'm an avid taper, so when I want to use a new one, I just wait until I've done a video with it first 😁
@@TechieZeddie Nice. Love the 85 Maxell line. Great looks and tough as nails. Just subscribed. There's so many channels out there. This place is so much better than watching TV 😁
The hubs on the HD-F are the same as the 1988 version of the Super EF.
Am I hearing a slight influence from The Mission on Embrace the Chaos? I'm digging it
Interesting video. I remember using some of these Sony ferric tapes way back. One of them, a HD (I think) became more quiet during recording compared to listening to the tape blank, it is as if the bias was making them quieter, what do you think ? It is the only tape that done this.
Could be a deck fault of the tape is degrading. Depends how is been stored over the years.
I found My First Sony cassettes on remainder in the early nineties I think. Didn't want them for permanent archival, Just for recording my a few of my own lps to play on portables. I bought maybe six 2 packs. I made pretty good sounding recordings from vinyl on them but I don't know how they would stand up to your grueling tests!
What about the ZX tape?
Never had one. Never seen them in the UK.
Sounds like a Spectrum joke
I just tested one of these expecting it to be a waste of time, but it was actually really good. It's a really cheap looking tape and case, but it was able to take +6 without much distortion. I think these they are the lowest of the low end for Sony, but the tape inside must actually be fine - at least in this Thailand-made one it was anyway. Very surprising!
Ah yes Index. They were eventually bought by ARGOS (now owned by Sainsbury's). I have been coming across some of these cheaper Sony's. I'm looking for some good super ferrics to test if they work well for voice work.
Is that Embrace The Chaos available anywhere? I kinda liked it.
No. I'm looking for someone to sing it better...
@@CassetteComeback I'm willing to give it a bash :D - noysboys@yahoo.com
My theory for why they have so many is the low price guarantee. It was VERY common in the 80s and 90s to release very slightly different products to different retailers who can offer a low-price guarantee because nobody else sells the same exact item. It was not just low ticket items like cassette tapes and floppy disks. Things like mattresses costing $800-$2000 did this too.
You could well be right there.
Great video on type 01 cassettes😍😍👍🏻!!
Your Aiwa deck seems to handle really well at very high levels +6 to +8 dB with a good calibration with type 01 cassettes 😉👍🏻
This is why still you can get a good recording with some warm sounds out of branded type 01 cassettes with a decent deck like aiwa with fine bias tuning 😍😍👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 I like that feature very much rather than the auto calibration on some decks like JVC/Sony coz you can’t do fine tuning.
Type 1s are the most "cassette" sounding cassettes. That's why they're my favourite.
Cassette Comeback Exactly 😍😍👍🏻 !! Same here 😉👍🏻👍🏻.
I once hated these humble looking EF or HF tapes because the specimens I picked from the flea market had lots of drop outs. However, a few months later I bought a cheap FX-I which yield acceptable resulton my Pioneer deck. So...I guess these later generations of Type I tape can perform relatively good as long as they are properly stored.
Storage is everything. Treat them like something you treasure and they'll last. Dump them in a garage and they disintegrate.
I have two brand new EF 90 from the late 90's, but it has a very light brown tape. It says: Made in Thailand. Actually it sounds very nice.
In start of video you told maybe the EF tape was made from another company...you said “syhand” or something? Iam askig you this becouse i have a supermarket brand S-Ferro tape (dark tape too) and have the same hubs as that tape.
I think there are a chance they are the same. I found this tape to be very hissy too but can be recorded very hot. I feel this tape looses some of the bass, its a little brighter sound and not soo good at low end.
Saehan. Check my other videos, I've done one on them.
@@CassetteComeback Nice. I will watch that video!
interesting - i may have owned a FX I at some point - it looks familiarj
I remember buying Sony UX-S tapes at UFS (Unclaimed Freight Store) a local chain in 1993 for 1.00 a piece and the Sony HF were 3/ $1.00 at UFS.
I have an old cassette that doesn't have type IV. Ihave fine-tuned bias plus 18 or 9+9 equalizer. I'm good at what I do but I don't want to take a chance and buy a type IV if it's not going to work.
Sony made some superb cassettes, very underrated. I have an unopened Sony EF90 in my collection, exactly like the one at 23:59. I really liked Maxell and Basf/Emtec but I still think TDK was the best selling brand.
There was also the FN. Were they Sony's equivalent to TDK FE?
Yeah, there was ZX and others as well, but the FN I also found surprisingly good...but very rare. Better than the FE, although the only thing I've got against the FE is their ubiquity, they are still a very decent ferric.
TDK also made other kinds of Type I cassettes like AD, AD-X, A, AR-X, and a rare one called OD. Never heard of an OD cassette before. It was “Optimum Dynamic” which was used from 1979 until 1982 or so and it wasn’t as bad as AD and other kinds of Type 1 cassettes.
Yeah, look for my other Type 1 video where I go into some of the TOTL.
If you're talking this FN: c-90.org/FOR_PROGRAMMER/tapes/Sony/Sony%20FN/0/cassettes_1_0.jpg
then it's believed to be a brief, short-lived EF predecessor (circa 1984?).
In the early 70s TDK had three normal cassettes - LN, SD and ED. LN became D, SD became AD, while ED became OD then AD-X and finally AR. They had to find a way to push this super-superferric!
I like the superEF, sounds good and has a nice clear shell.
Dirty Ferrick tapes. I heard of this way back.
Thanks for confirming this product. Most people at the time heard this but only were considering this as something coming.
When in reality it was a throw mudd at the wall and see what sticks. The pressure for companies to find the magic bullet for tapes was at such high level corporations were churning out everything they had in the pantry to the cellar.
So many products that the market saturation was standing room only.The 1990s created such fear with existing technology and new threatening their very survival. They also had to redo many products and enhance their products to compete.
The one thing that caught everybody by surprise was the Napster war of media that would effect everything and completely changed media Lucky for us tape still survived. Thank the Tape God's 🙂
I ran across an old Sony type 1 tape that was so bad, my Pioneer CTS-410 auto calibrating machine would absolutely have none of it... it would give error code every time.
Probably gone bad
Right now I’m into the late TDK SA-X. Surfer Girl fro the 45 double LP is incredible!!!!! The DRAGON loves these.
no CHF?
About getting a good deck, i just a Tascam 202MKIII. Not sure if it's really good or not but least it's better than anything i've ever had. I think i'm going to buy a few cassettes from your site and enjoy it.
Too bad it doesn't have monitoring though :/
HI,this not related to this specific video,but what do you do with tapes that stick? i have a Sony that i have not played for years that looks pristine but will not run properly.it will only run 2 or 3 secs and stop and will not FF or rewind? Cheers
I had a tape which did the same thing, I took it apart, cleaned the internals with soap and water (not the actual tape), put everything back together and manually fast forwarded and rewound the tape with a pen a couple of times. Now it works fine.
Would you say that the current Maxell UR tapes that are for sale everywhere for a quid or so are comparable to these tapes or worse ? I know that type I tapes are probably the only tapes that will remain readily available in the future so my question is would it make sense to buy them for a Euro cheap now to have a stock of them for the future or are they worse than the type I tapes that you have presented here and in your other videos ?
Cassettes are all very subjective. Your ears and your deck are the biggest variables. To my ears and deck, the Sony in this video are better than the current UR...bearing in mind, if you've seen my video on them, that there are several versions in the same wrapper. I don't think people should panic buy, there is so much NOS out there and new tape from RTM and RTR are making a new one too. Look at the TDK FE, hasn't been made for a decade and they're all over eBay for about £1 each. Besides, won't you get bored just using the same cassette over and over?
@@CassetteComeback Thanks for the detailed answer. It was interesting to read. I will try those TDK FE tapes soon enough.
@@CassetteComeback this recording on the same tape over and over is super strange to me. You've inspired me to record recently but I haven't done so in almost 20 years but when I did, I recorded once and that recording was permanent for eternity.
I think it depends what you want to use it for. The UR is a perfectly good tape and will give good results on a good deck even if not quite as good as say an HF.
I have a bunch of modern UR production, mainly the 90. They IMHO suck in MOL and top FR probably coz their ferric formulation looks too primitive and is light in color. That again probably means there's little cobalt added to make for higher performance.
Is there a reason why you've mentioned Saehan a number of times in these videos but always avoided testing them?
Not all chrome tapes are expensive. If you're careful there are still some inexpensive ones. I've recently bought new sealed Saehan Memorex, and Sky (RAKS?) chrome tapes for under a quid each, delivered. Not top of the line but decent enough.
Not really, I just find the Saehan stuff boring I guess as there's so much of it.
Sure, you look hard enough, you can still find cheap Type 2...but for how long?
Hey CassetteComeback, have you seen a gray tape before? As in not brown at all, but also not black like a chrome tape?
Great work on the channel, I’m really enjoying it!
I have, can't recall what I saw it in off the top of my head.
You are absolutely amazing!! So one thing I didn't quite get .. lighter brown colour is better than dark (almost black) just generally speaking, or not?!
Usually darker means there's cobalt doping. "Browner" means there more particles packed in there and shinier means better calendaring, but take tape colour with a pinch of salt, as it's not always a reflection on performance.
@@CassetteComeback Thank you, I guess it is more complicated than just the colour. I have SA and SAX tapes that are dark and shiny and these are good tapes that are generally recommended and although type 1 they are chrome like .. is that right? Are the SAs good for converting CD music? I am considering coverting all my CDs to tape and just going tape all the way.. your advice please if you can spare a couple of mins, thank you.
Tony, thanks for your report... I own a few LNX by Sony. Do you know how they compare to the tapes you tested?
LNX = CHF = Their late 70s entry level cassette. Decent at the time, more of a collectible now.
Thanks for your response. You always have some fun videoes!
Sony Type 1 are good HF was called Hifi In 1997-1998 years
HiFi 1994-1998
could a tape deck do auto bias calibrating on the fly if its have a read header before the main record and read head. ?
I've got a Denon DR-M44HX that's pretty fast at doing an auto EQ.
@@CassetteComeback oh, looking again on your cassette deck, i see hi and low.
did a mistake there in my head, because i was thinking of the stability of left and right,
like if you put a mono test tone on a tape the left and right would be perfect equal on a perfect example. but i guess thats a different technical thing.
I like his voice.
Just check my three EF recently bought from ebay. Not the same, all brown colour. Then I noticed the one in the video are made in Japan, mine are madn in Thailiand and China. So I guess the whole thing is just a cassette lottery.
Bitsa tapes...bitsa this and bitsa that 😁
Bons vídeos, gosto de ver por causa da nostalgia que cria...lollolol, da musica também...., mas fico irritado, porque existe nos seus vídeos tantas cassetes virgens...onde as arranja, poderá um dia ter um vídeo que nos mostre onde se pode comprar???...obrigado...
I used an FX once,got tangled in player after three plays
My dad worked at Ampex in 1982. He got me a good deal on tapes. Sound quality was good but too much 4K and 8K treble.
Спасибо за познавательный обзор
Пожалуйста. Я буду делать больше.
@@CassetteComeback On the topic of affordable and popular Sony tapes in the (post)-Soviet market 😁,
agfabasf.com/images/content/img54-19861.jpg
agfabasf.com/images/content/img5420.jpg
Now THIS was the shtick. Your default "9-rouble" (if I remember correctly; and those are Soviet roubles by the way) imported cooking ferric, but maan was it good... Extremely stable and indestructible, very very decent sounding (we had a 10-pack and only 1 of the 10 shed a bit of oxide over the course of its heavily-abused history, really cool cassettes IMO), very very mass market (they call it the "trolleybus cassette", something to do with it being used universally and everywhere maybe?). Of course (depending on location and timeline), instead of the EF, you could acquire a sexy-looking Maxell LN (with a strong distinct odor which lives to this day), an Agfa Fe I (those shed like hell), a Basf LH-E/Ferro Extra a bit later on (another legend with a marvellous sound), possibly something from the TDK range (mainly various shades of D), maaybe an ORWO (some say they're a bit abrasive/sticky-sheddy, others like them), an MK (probably the most ubiquitous stuff, made in the USSR and coated by Svema/Tasma/Slavich I think? sometimes with the use of ORWO know-how; mostly shoddy, with a greedily small amount of lubricant in the tape and the shell - oh Lord that squeaking - but still usable), or... you could cheapen out a bit (or get duped by a merchant, for the same 9 roubles + waste paper you'd have to hand over!) into a "Belgian" (actually, most likely Hong Kong-ese) white Maxwelle/black Hanny, or even a Wagdoms / "Japanese" Yoko piece of "type-0" junk, etc.
That's it for today 😄
You should try the Sony HD-F. Bet it's the same.
The transparent Sony Super-EF (1990) were probably the best of the "cheap" ones. The 1988 Super-EF also stands close to them, but 1990 version is better, with a stiffer body and dark/shinier band.
I have ONE CHF Sony.....and love the case it is in..with the sony name in the top corner..What is your or anyone else opinion of the Yamaha K1000 deck...just had to pop that question in there...I know it has nothing to do with this video...nice video as always...
These were the bare bones bargain basement basic Type I's that Sony did.
Yeah, it's in the title of the video
my man, you didn't review the musica cassette :((((((
are you from bristol
Yep 91 was the last of the 'spokes'era
Good tune Tony, Quality Goth that.
Is it goth? I've never been one or in to it. I've got a lady doing vocals for a new version.
great job!
I have zx sony tape
Хорошая коллекция сонек 😋
True about perception & fact Its what we make of it
What we are told IS COLD LOL
Are ANY of these SONY tapes still available?
They not manufactured any more, but they mostly for sale in my webstore.
HF-S, HF-ES are everything but not low grade tape: they’re top of the range, no argue about that.
If you want to play, you got to pay. This is not a hobby for little league or whiners. It is a hobby. Not expensive compared to some. At least, this one is fun and fun is rare! Go Tony, good luck on it all and stay safe mate!
...the answer my friend is blowing in the wind - the answer is blowing in the wind ;)
Another great video!!!
What the heck?😂 Well these are the only ones most of us had at early age, or for me atleast.😅
Although mine were labelled premium ef and my tdk ones are labelled b60 or d60.
who is the artist of "tears in rain"?
Me.
villarosso.bandcamp.com/album/tears-in-rain-feat-megan-mcduffee
Now I am confused... :)
Я кассеты сразу распечатываю как получаю
Don't really like EF tape, I like HF-ES.
I like sony
Yuck....I always hated those low bias cheap tapes
I just saw another video of you, crushing a bad tape, correction, the worst tape you ever used. In a glance its a copy of the sony musica, with the yellow hubs.
As I understand it, the use of such items as cassettes for users no special, it is the job of marketers and designers.