The Cassette Comeback - should it?
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- In which your esteemed host looks at the current "comeback" of the cassette tape as a modern commercial music format. Is there any good reason for cassettes to be back on the market? Or is it purely based on nostalgia for a format that we never really liked all that much? I'll talk about my own experiences with cassettes back in the day as both a consumer and electronics salesman, along with what I think about new releases on tape.
A small update: VWestlife pointed out in the comments that you'd never see XDR and Digalog together as they came from competing record labels, and it is likely that I just switched the cases at some point. I actually have several XDR tapes but most likely only one Digalog tape, which is Curve's "Doppelganger". It advertises digalog on the tape itself, so probably matches to that case too. (Yes, it's the one you see that got eaten by my TC-K96R.)
A few promised links:
The actual deck in the photo on my monitor: www.fryderykdanielczykstore.c... (looks like it's sold now)
Techmoan on Digalog and other digital bins: • Pre-recorded Cassettes...
VWestlife's review of the Pioneer CT-W606 (really the 616; he got an odd duck): • A cassette deck that e...
Affiliate links - I'd appreciate the commission if you want to buy something you see in the video!
Ebay (buy a cassette deck or some tapes): ebay.us/dhPUmY
Amazon (for new normal blank cassettes, or anything else): amzn.to/3OFaZMD
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:10 My cassette collection
02:28 The hardware - cassette decks
09:18 The format's biggest problem - hiss!
13:48 Tangent - what's this format actually called?
14:31 Blank tapes and recording at home
19:13 What about mix tapes?
20:54 Cassette's last stand - making it digital
24:23 Early conclusion and new cassette releases
26:23 How to ignore my advice and buy into the format
28:36 Wrapping it all up - Наука та технологія
A very well considered video. I love the old equipment, I like to play my old tapes…but it’s all about the nostalgia.
I used to call them tapes too, I only started saying ‘Compact Cassette’ in videos when I had to differentiate between the dozens of different tape formats I’ve featured. But yes it’s likely very few uttered the full name outside of Philips.
While I’m here…if you’d be so kind to point me to the source of the Pioneer digital NR cassette advert at 22:38 - it might come in handy for something I’m hoping to work on in the future.
Maybe you's like to make a video about DDi Codec? That's a software, that can encode and decode dolby on a PC or Mac. It's available within the Windows store. Since I only use vintage tape decks with dolby in hardware, I didn't try it myself, but may be that's interesting for your viewers :)
Sure! That's actually from the Pioneer 1998-99 Home Entertainment Components catalog, which you can get from Hi-Fi Engine. I had to hunt through a lot of links to different catalogs to find that specific one, but that is what the PDF is called on my PC so hopefully it is what they call it in their links (I don't 100% remember if they do, but it's definitely in there somewhere if they don't).
I remember you mentioning in one of ypur videos that, in a world where we can easily access music digitally, these physical formats are mostly merchandise.
Certainly, a lot of it is about the nostalgia, but it is not *all* about the nostalgia. That describes 8-Track, MiniDisk or DCC better. Perhaps in isolation, cassettes are like MD and DCC, an old and obsolete format that has been replaced by better things, but in practice there's just so much infrastructure, history, technology and infinitely large libraries that support cassettes. They're a sort of clunky MP3s, but that's not terrible at all! There is a point to using them, in other words, other than nostalgia.
@@ModernClassic Thanks for linking to my video about the Pioneer deck with Digital NR, although it's a stark reminder of how much my production quality has improved in the five years since then! The Japanese-market T-D7 deck actually does have an optical digital output, but it's only a passthrough from the digital input -- it doesn't output audio from the tape playback.
Nostalgia is one of the most powerful of human emotions. It's inevitable, most things that where old will be new again.
Not really. There's an admiration of the mechanical parts. I dont have nostalgia over typewriters for me to want one or own it. I dont believe in this nostalgia.
the physical format (in this case the cassette) has some advantages over streaming.
1) When you buy a cassette, you contribute to the artist's production chain.
2) the cassettes come with special sleeves, the exclusive lyrics or images of the band.
3) when you buy a cassette, the music belongs to you (not copyright) because you can play it whenever you want without commercials or interruptions.
4) Cassettes can sound almost indistinguishable from a record, as long as the media is in good condition or you have a good player.
5) the cassettes resist more than one would believe, I have cassettes that are more than 40 years old, that were collecting dust, near humidity, that have been dropped or played multiple times, and even so, they continue to sound impeccable.
6) the added value of the physical format is associated with touch, to materialize the abstract of music, the sound waves are recorded on an electromagnetic tape, and for some, that is magical.
7) in cassette format you can find music or records that are not in digital format.
8) tape type 1 cuts the treble, which (personally) strains the ear less, that is to say that when I listen to music in "better resolution" it tires my ear, I can rarely listen to more than two records a day (in digital), while on cassette I can listen all day.
9) for the mere fact of collecting and "hunting" cassettes + aesthetics.
10) YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE WHOLE CASSETTE, lately we are very lazy when listening to music, we look for an artist's hit, and we listen to it once, we get bored and jump to another song (basically, we are treating the music as an instagram post, degrading the effort and work of the artist to record an album) therefore, when you listen to an entire album forcefully, you realize hidden gems that, by staying with the hit, go unnoticed.
11) As a founder of a band, there is no comparison between selling a CASSETTE and handing it to a fan, than an album that sounds the same as on spotify, or simply showing a QR to direct them to streaming.
12) and best of all, YOU DON'T NEED INTERNET, A SPOTIFY OR APPLEMUSIC ACCOUNT. you take out the cassette, put it in the walkman or the deck and that's it, press play and enjoy.
Well said.
Just hopefully the tape does not get stretched or you wind up with spaghetti. Just how many times has it become entangled and then you have to disentangle it and use a pen to wind it back on all the while trying not to knot or crease it!
just never happens as often people think. Mostly to tapes left in hot cars.
@@tonywillans7556 So true! And also with neglected decks and tapes. In 40+ years of using cassettes it's only happened a few times with used tapes. I was able to splice and tape only losing a second or two (another positive attribute of cassettes)
@@brianmays4366 that mainly happened in car stereos. It's not nearly the problem it was back then.
You can record with cassettes, something you could never do with vinyls. I bought cassettes to do just that. If you had good FM reception and stations broadcasting good contents, it was a gift from heaven.
Do u see any small difference between a recording FM on a cassette and downloading from a tor...nt?
@@sc0or well yes I do, you mean you don't see one is physical and one is some digital numbers? Or that you don't see a cassette existing?
Also if you want to record from FM radio you still have to have something to record it with, not downloading a file from piratebay.
@@examplify4248 ) But you are going to make the same thing: to get a music you didn't paid for. So, why not to have it in the best quality in this case, if that doesn't bother you?
I used to do that growing up and I remember it fondly. I even have on of my tapes lying around, and one time I found a walkman so I could listen to it. Even though you could hear the tape had aged it still sounded awesome.
My dad had a recorder for vinyl with a built in radio. He could record the radio to vinyl. It also had an input where you could record vinyl to vinyl, or from a microphone and record his band live to vinyl. He had a jazz band from the 40s to late 70s
Many pre-recorded cassettes from the '90s and early 2000s were actually encoded with Dolby B NR, even if they didn't mention it on the label or insert. And I think that XDR/Digalog tape you have got put in the wrong case, as XDR was Capitol Records' technology, while Digalog belonged to the WEA Group (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic), so you'd never see a cassette advertising both XDR and Digalog. They were mutually exclusive quality improvements. Also some WEA and RCA cassettes from the '90s were Dolby S encoded, although they often make the logo so small that you need a magnifying glass to read it!
I've been looking for pre-recorded Dolby S tapes in the thrift bins for awhile with no luck... maybe they were there, but I just couldn't read the logo!
And I remember a salesman at Nobody Beats the Wiz (remember them?) practically begging me to buy a portable DCC player in 1997. "It can play regular cassettes, too!", he insisted.
That is possible! I mentioned in the video that I only had one other digalog tape, but it doesn't mention that on the case. The Skinny Puppy case also has a "W" stamped in it, which I didn't notice before, and that doesn't make much sense given that VivisectVI was a Capitol release. I probably switched the cases at some point. I'll update the video description to mention that. So really I only have one digalog release, which is actually Curve's "Doppelganger" (unfortunately also the tape that got eaten by my TC-K96R).
I have some classical tapes on the Telarc label that say "recorded on TDK SA Tape"
Dolby B is horrific. It’s like listening to someone talking underwater. DBX or Dolby S are another story.
Tapes have a smooth natural sound that’s pleasant to hear.
That's the snakeoil of analog formats... if it's not just ones and zeros, it must be more natural sounding, right? But not sure if there's any physical or biological hard truth behind that...
@@MetalTrabant Well no, because tape does have limitations and those limitations can be heard, so they will sound different to digital. But the equipment has a big say in it too.
Same for digital, cheap bluetooth earbuds aren't going to make low bitrate streaming sound as good as CD, yet both are digital formats. Same with flac and mp3.
Things sound different because of the source, the amplification and the speaker.
I Absolutely Agree With You even when the 90's hit and cassette tape started turning to digalog the audio quality was still better mainly because by the end of the day it's still analog
Just like fingernails on a chalkboard. 😊
That`s wow and flutter. ;)
it's just cool to hold music in your hands and own it
Ever heard of CD’s?
I prefer to not clutter up my place so I’ll stick digital from the high seas. Save for a handful of cassettes when I drive my vintage car.
@@Bonanzaking and get bluetooth cassette tape
cassettes should make a comeback i prefer them over vinyl, cassette decks are also fun to use and repair, i love making my own tapes
During my high school days in the 80's ,most people I knew including myself would buy an album on record, then make a copy to cassette. Part of the idea was to make it portable, but also it meant we could listen to the album as often as we'd like on cassette, while keeping the mileage down on the more expensive and fragile vinyl record. Not to mention most of us actually enjoyed the recording process, and if you happened to get lucky with all stars in the analog universe aligned perfectly, you could end up with a recording worthy enough to share with your friends. The only problem was it might sound great from your deck, but not on your friends. Good times! lol
You right
I did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. I still have my vinyl records, all played exactly ONCE.
Many people did the same also with reel to reel recorders.
But with its portability the Compact Cassette format was interesting for people, who simply want to play it, so record industry was forced to offer prerecorded cassettes. The player was very inexpensive, maybe the same price as 2 long play records. Reel to reel tape was more expensive, the unit costs as 20 long play records.
Not to mention that most commercially recorded high-speed-duplicated cassettes sounded absolutely horrible and were "jammin'" in a bad way, if you get my drift. Home recorded dupes by even modest decks on Maxell UD or similar TDK products were vastly superior. The shoulders of highways were littered with commercial cassettes with ribbons of tape spilled out their bellies, having committed hari kiri.
Boy u r so right. I got into Pioneer vintage sx750 rcvr CT-F2121 deck and CV SL15 spkrs an SG8500 Eq.
A Toshiba sr-A200 Tt. Mkg tapes from albums I bought at thrift shops. . .a great hobby.
Nobody seems to mention the SMELL of cassettes... That's probably what I'm most nostalgic about...
Remember the Dire Straits Brothers in Arms cassette tape smell? I'll remember that til my last day.
One shouldn't underestimate the coolness factor of a cassette walkman.
I have 7 walkmans 5 are working , 2 are not, 1 needs a battery cover
Gosh i’m a gen z person and i’m into a compact cassette world because of my grandpa. And now i have a whole 70-90’s hifi system including a cassette decks! This is a wonderful video and i thank you for sharing this video!
Rock on! 🤘
What receiver and speakers do you have?
@@kaohsiung99 i use Sony TA-F690ES Amp and Sansui AU-7500 for backup. Speakers i use is sansui XP-5000 3-way speaker
@@kaohsiung99 right now i use Sony Ta-f690ES and sansui au 7500 for backup. for speaker i use sansui X5000 but i seem cant find it on the web...
Never stopped rocking the cassette...
Have literally 100s of Board Tapes, Demo Tapes, Live Bootlegs, hell even old mix tapes
Could never transfer the whole lot to cd..never did....
Most Cassettes still peak with minimal loss... Rock on....
I'm pushing 50 and always disliked cassettes for all of the reasons you mentioned. However, I got bit by the retro bug and ended up with some vintage cassettes, then a portable deck, then a dual deck JVC. You said something that I think is important. Retail commercial releases sounded inferior to recordings one could make themselves. That's never been truer than now. I've got a decent sized digital, lossless, music archive. Recording from digital to cassette is very satisfying, given the excellent results one can achieve. Cassettes compress the sound and that's not a bad thing. Cassettes have punchy bass. So, I'm into the comeback and I would be regardless of what the "in thing" was. I'm revisiting my youth with much, much, much better gear!
I have no interest in collecting cassettes again but it would be fun to just build a Spotify playlist and make a mixtape easily
I’ve done just that, bought a cassette deck from the late 80’s and some blank cassettes. Then started to experiment with HD music onto a Chrome TDK or Maxell cassette. Sounds amazing. I’m only doing it for nostalgia. I have some great memories from my University days. I’m now in my mid fifties. 80’s was a great era. Miss it a lot. However, this revival is bringing back the good old memories again.
Here more or less the same, although - with GOOD gear - I tend to disagree that cassettes compress. Then you either recorded too hot or the equipment used is not capable of doing everything right. For me, cassettes never disappeared since 1977. I kept (and will keep!) using them till the day I die. Much better gear now indeed... instead of a Philips ghettoblaster D-8414 now a fully serviced Nakamichi CR-7E took over...
@@325iaddict To clarify, cassette recordings can compress the sound, if you want it to. It's best to record right at the Dolby bar. But, it is fun to push levels to the max as well.
@@OSXMan not entirely correct. What you mean is tape compression. That not always sets in at the Dolby level point (approx. +2dB at most decks). Take ANY metal cassette and you will have to push at least over +6dB to maybe, maybe hear ANY compression, sometimes the meter goes all the way to +12dB - without any sign of compression or distortion whatsoever (Kenwood KX-9010 in combination with That's MRX-PRO).
I still use cassettes since I was a child.
My cassette deck is a Grundig CF 21, I have it since my 13th birthday in 1998. Previously I had an Universum cassette deck.
In the 90's I bought the cassettes in our local radio and TV shop here in Harrislee. I always bought chromium dioxide cassettes by different manufacturers but over the years I found out that the BASF Chrome Super II has some of the best sound quality. That's why I only buy the CS II nowadays.
I used to buy mainly Goldstar chrome tapes made in Korea - they were ugly cheap looking shells but the tape itself was as good as any name brand chrome tape for 3x the cost to buy vs this one! A few years later the tech brand Goldstar merged with a chemicals brand called Lucky and renamed themselves as LG. This was why these tapes were so good! They were LG before that brand existed!!
In Germany we had a lot BASF cassettes back then
@@borntoclimb7116 I know, I'm German and live in Germany. :-)
i love that cassettes are making a comeback. a couple years ago i bought an old corvette,i wanted to keep the factory stereo in the dash. it just doesnt look right with a modern deck in the 80s dash. i started with buying some of my old favorites. soon i started seeing all the new metal bands i like are releasing cassettes, usually for 10 bucks or so. i also like when i go see a band live and get blown away by their opening band and can pick up their album for 5 or 10 bucks
Cassettes do have some benefits. The audio quality can be quite high and has unique feel from analog processing. There is something to be said for a more linear listening experience, as well. Plus you can display your cassettes with the spine out. I remember having lots of fun organizing my collection more visually while my records and cds sat in bins and books. It’s just a different experience with music, the more the merrier!
@Rick Blaine All new music is digital at some point. Most likely the cassette you buy is recorded from a digital source.
@Rick Blaine Yes. And nobody would hear any difference in double blind test. It's the old useless analog-digital controverse.
Exactly. It’s a totally different listening experience. I just played my Madonna Bedtime Stories on my Kenwood dual cassette recorder. And…it really didn’t sound bad. It’s one of the later cassettes Warner Brothers put out. The Digital to Analog tapes. I put my noise reduction to B and..not bad sounding at all.
Certainly cassettes sound better than Spotify (millennials)!
@Rick Blaine I think the lossiness is part of what I enjoy about it. With access to the digital files it’s a nice way to enjoy the same audio in a new/old way.
Another Millennial here. I remember the tail end of cassettes as many cars in the late 90's and early 2000s still had tape decks. Most of what I remember were hissy, muffled recordings which were often done on boom boxes. That being said, I'm super interested in the technical aspects and learning about new things. Techmoan's video on the format really piqued my interest, and I managed to find and fix a broken Sony TC-K461S Dolby S deck locally. I have been having a lot of fun with second hand chrome and metal tapes, just experiencing the tech and how good they can actually sound if you use half decent tapes, sources and recording equipment. 10/10 for fun factor alone.
I wish I were young again like you. I like physical media but I embrace all the steaming and Netflix and such. I don’t act my age. I wish society wasn’t so caught up on age but I’m told I’m the one with the obsession and dismissed.
My 1997 BMW came with a Dolby C cassette deck which was made by Alpine. I fitted a power amplifier as the output was really low and it has never sounded this good in that car!
Younger people who don't know what the cassette is had a listen to it in my car and can't tell the difference between it and CD....
For me, the best thing about the cassette, I also experienced with burning a CD via Nero, and that was having so much music that you want to put onto one cassette or CD usually means that you have to sift through all your favourite songs from start to finish and each time you have to get rid a favourite track that won't fit, you repeat this process a few times but end up with a CD or cassette with music that you can put on repeat and listen to it for 3 months straight LoL...
The harder it is to leave music off a recording, the better the final product!
You should try it sometime, it works for both CD and cassette... It's hard but the reward is priceless....
That is a gem. I bet S sounds as good as a CD? Did you record from a CD using S and hear any hiss? S is quite rare but
@@DM-ei6oo honestly if I'm using a type 2 or type 4 cassette, I still prefer no noise reduction. Dolby S works well on type 1 tapes, although it does change the sound quite noticably. Certainly eliminates the tape hiss, but everything else sounds a little compressed too.
@@sasheendowlath5245 exactly. I guess that’s why so many like their records over anything else. I know that a well maintained record and a B @ O turntable and a properly pressed record had none of the compression. The only tape format that may beat CDs is DCC but that is digital compression. Actually DAT has no compression but I was sticking with compact cassette
I'm a former Radio DJ of the 1980's who also worked in the TV/Film/Music industries & have alot of experience with ALL the audio/video formats since 8-tracks. I well remember the 1970's prior to the transition to cassettes (tho they did exist simultaneously but far poorer quality than 80's onward) when 8-tracks were king in ALL car stereos. Pre-recorded 8-tracks had superior sound quality due to wider tape width but had NO Fwd/Rewind which led to cassettes eventually winning the format war. Like all DJ's & audiophiles of the time I had top notch equip including reel to reels (still best sound quality of all formats) + cassette recorders with Dolby B/C (& even DBX later) which I used in recording radio broadcasts & near all my vinyl on 1st play for near flawless recordings given I was recording on higher end cassettes like the Maxell high bias with Dolby NR. Being a musician I'm an absolute perfectionist in sound quality & was swayed into the New latest greatest format of CDs late 1985 which I debuted myself on my #1 Radio show since it was supposedly far superior to cassettes or ANY tape claiming it had NO tape hiss (which was a genuine problem) & also supposedly greater dynamic range. So...that was ALL a big disappointing LIE in 1985 as I discovered that continued for YEARS til CDs improved many yrs later. Cassettes made on top home equip in the 80's were indeed extremely good blowing away the pre-recorded cassettes bought in record stores. My primary criticism then & always was cassettes NEVER matched the quality of vinyl records & most were made on the cheapest tape quality (with rare exceptions on better high bias CO2 cassettes) run off on HUGE spools as super fast speed when manufactured. So..this caused poorer high frequency reproduction & more tape hiss. Other problems were that cassettes did wear out due to tape being so thin & would lose sound quality from magnetized playback heads slowly erasing them + friction & stretching from Rewind/Fwd that can occur too over time. I was OCD in keeping my tape decks perfectly cleaned & demagnitized to prevent those issues...but ALL tape based media no matter if audio or video eventually degrade & dissentigrate with time. Long before it was cool or accepted I said that CDs sucked compared to vinyl & that cassettes sucked compared to reel to reel (unless recorded at regular speed on top notch Hi-Fi equipment with Dolby on expensive blank cassettes). I determined long ago that throughout history almost NEVER does superior technology win format wars...but that we ALWAYS instead set aside quality for convenience. FM radio actually existed for decades prior to replacing AM radio by early 80's for music which was ALWAYS inferior in sound quality. VHS absolutely sucked compared to BETA but won out even over superior 1980's lasediscs til the smaller version DVDs came along next decade. Japan & Germany ALWAYS had superior technologies & had high def TVs MANY yrs before the U.S. while we watched low quality blurry small screens for decades. So...as a Pro musician/broadcaster who was around for ALL of that...I can say we FINALLY believed our ears that analog music sounds better & more like we actually hear in person than digital...& cassettes are like records "analog". We also learned that when cassettes are mass produced by record companies on cheap tape at super fast speeds for max profit that they suck...but when recorded properly on home equip on more expensive tape they sound spectacular! So...this New retro return to cassettes ISN'T about quality but instead pure nostalgia of when we actually had REAL physical media UNLIKE an invisible, intangible digital download or streaming that can disappear instantly like digital photos, music or videos leaving us shattered like children dropping a freshly made highly anticipated ice cream cone on the ground. What we also learned is that there's something MORE special, permanent & life impacting about ACTUAL physical objects we can touch & feel & interact with whether they are vinyl records, tapes, books...or now even CDs & DVDs which have now also joined the dinosaurs of yesteryear. Turns out we also discovered Newer is NOT always better...& we long for the old days when we weren't a slave to a poor or often disappearing internet connection to talk on the phone, listen to music or watch TV. I think THAT is the wonderment that younger generations have rediscovered with the once extinct records & cassettes of decades ago in their parents & grandparents closets.
Tl;DR?
I kept all of my audio cassettes, mostly for personal nostalgia. Racked up a big collection between 1990 and 1995 from all different genres. The hiss was never an issue to me. It’s like the CRT hum. The sound is nostalgic all by itself. Yeah, I’ll be 45 in October. 😁
Agreed!
Agree 100%
Picked up a bunch of Rush and Yes tapes at the flea market, hooked up the old player and was very surprised at how good they sound. Will be looking to add to the collection.
This is the fun of cassettes today, scarfing up old troves and enjoying them as they are! The format all but forces you to listen to the entire album, which can lead to a different (hopefully enjoyable ; ) experience from picking and choosing songs here and there.
I found a Sony walkman from a thrift store. The walkman was made in 1997. I ordered a mc hammer tape from eBay and am waiting for it to arrive.
Did your walkman work okay?@@marccaselle8108
Hey, I’m a millennial and cassettes are nostalgia rather than curiosity for me! :P And I’m one of the youngest millennials, so I think the curiosity is really more gen Z! Except perhaps for the most well-off the same age as me - the rich kids might have had a MiniDisc or a hard-drive jukebox when I had a cassette Walkman!
I am afraid when you will be old you will understand that what you have now at klick will be only memory (If you will remember what and if it was) but it will be out of reach. And ypu will have tons to choose but not enough life time to find in each time something worthy in milions.
Snowflakes say it's crap, but loving the Ghetto Blaster Boombox thrills!
sorry, i hate old music, Beastie Boys, Pink Floyd only?
I am a Gen Z, I'm buying cassettes for nostalgia as well... I didn't have a good impression of cassette back then, but it all changed when I invested on a quality tape deck and recorded on a new old stock bnew/sealed blank tape...
Same.
Gen X here, I bought a walkman in 2000, cause the MP3 players of the time (remember Creative?) were very expensive, not much smaller than a cassette walkman and only had around 35mb (!) storage at that time, so probably sounded worse than cassette plus could only hold about an album, the same as a cassette!
I love my cassettes! The analogue sound quality which recording onto cassette tape gives can be worth its weight in gold - depending on what you are looking for. Mind you, get the best tape deck you can. My Revox B215 makes tapes on Chrome (without Dolby) which to my ears sound better than streaming or CDs. There's just something about that warm, inviting sound, especially these days
What a coincidence!! I have the same Technics deck as well!! But I bought it used of eBay, and I'm a 2K4 born GenZ, who is getting back into Cassette Tape since I have a nostalgia for the format with my mom playing them when I was very young in 2004-2007, and also listening to 80s Japanese City Pop also got me back into tapes. I record City Pop music onto tape from my laptop with it plugged into the Technics Deck!
Man Those cassette cases took me back to my own childhood in the 80's. I was born in 1975 and I remember buying cassettes even during the 90's! Such great memories when my country was still free and we were rich and prosperous! I miss those years so much
Those were good old days
@@joehatch1602 They were. Specially here in Venezuela. We were the richest and most prosperous country in latin America and now we are the third poorest only behind Cuba and Haiti. All because of socialism.
@@CCQ75 I hear that we are trying to prevent socialism here in USA lately it's been gaining popularity.
@@CCQ75 I hope you can take back your once great country from the socialists. More people here need to talk to people like you who have experience socialism and can explain first hand how bad it is. I'm on the side fighting for freedom. I'm not politician but I believe USA should be helping Venezuela fight for freedom in their own country and not just letting everyone from anywhere come to America. If everyone was like you coming in it would be fine but lots of people just want to take advantage of free handouts here and vote for more socialism. I would welcome people like you I bet you would enter the legal way and fallow the law here. Good luck fighting socialism in Venezuela
@@joehatch1602 Man, it seems to be happening everywhere. Even in Europe. Socialism is worse than COVID. It destroys democracies and prosperity.
Our former president Hugo Chavez (The one who implemented socialism in my country back in 1999),
Well he was told by one of his people that his policies were not going to help the poor get out of poverty he replied:
"You don't understand, we don't want the poor to stop being poor, they are the ones who support us, the ones who vote for us, if they come out of poverty and become middle class they will stop supporting us and will start opposing us, we need them to be poor, we're just going to give them hope and make them need us to survive"
That's how socialism works!
I sold an amp recently to a young guy who said he wanted to get into analogue audio, but couldn’t really afford vinyl so he was going to get into tapes. I think most of the driver behind cassette resurgence is people who didn’t grow up with them. I collect cassette decks, but not for their sound quality, just a fan of the mechanisms.
I agree, I think it's the novelty + the 80s synth revival aesthetic. Not to be mr vinyl evangelist, but I picked up a couple of good records (including the thompson twins for full 80s glory) at a thrift store today for $3/each... the selection of surviving tapes is probably in much worse shape. Turntables from the 70s/80s are typically much easier to revive than cassette decks.
I just dont see how someone could not afford a record player but yet somehow afford a tape deck? Even used decks that are half decent are now quite expensive and new ones that are worse than old mid range decks are 4 times the price of a brand new record player that sounds quite good.
I am into tape decks myself, but certainly not because it is cheap or easier to get into than "vinyl" or record players.
@@bloxyman22 Seriously. I was born at the turn of the century and didn't get any childhood experience with records or tapes, but I've recently been getting into a number of physical media formats for a couple reasons -- I like collecting stuff, and the mechanisms fascinate me.
I got a pretty good record player (direct drive, quartz lock) in very good condition on Craigslist for probably half of what I'd have to pay online to get a cassette deck that's been properly cared for and in similar working order. Not to mention tape costs. Official tape releases are cheaper than their vinyl counterparts; but if you want to do home recording, chrome and metal tapes are insanely priced right now. I've been fortunate enough to happen on some used ones at thrift stores for pennies, but that's always a gamble whether they're still in good condition.
I’ve started buying cassettes over the last few months. It’s definitely a nostalgia thing but I also enjoy listening to them.....that is when they work properly. Overall I’ve had good luck but I’ve got a few that just don’t work properly.
Thanks for this. In the 60's I graduated form reel to reel taping at home to cassettes.In my early days it was mainly about recording my own material off my own vinyl records or the radio. It was only later when pre recorded cassettes became available cheaply that I started collecting the music of my era.I have many cassettes that still play very well as do my old reel to reel tapes.And cassettes were great for playing in the car on road trips or just on the way to work.I also recorded many sermons in Church on cassette which I still have and play fine.I have been making sure I am backward compatible on all mediums.Geoff
Sure. Ever heard a metal casette with dolby s noise reduction? Extremely extremely hard to hear a hiss unless its turned up. Cassette was better than people think
Cassette without Dolby when played at moderate level is hard to tell from CD. Actually some best cassettes ( I record them myself but have also Thomsun set of cassettes) can be more impressive than average CD. - it is a mostly a matter of mastering, not the gear. .
Metal tape with dbx was like a Rolls Royce Silver Spur - did many people drive these back then? Digital made quality audio affordable to everyone.
@@ConsumerDV Quality in audio audio is not quality term - nobody set any requirements for such standard. Just personal pleasure which is no disputable. it was never at least my desire. Digital is also term which means nothing without clarifying what one has on mind.
@@Mikexception Why without Dolby? There seems to be some idea going round that Dolby makes things sound worse; maybe true with poor and badly set up equipment, but when used correctly it makes a massive difference to background noise without having any effect on sound quality.
Yes I have. And it's indistinguishable from CD, but very different to godawful MP3s with all their compression. Sadly though, most people will always choose easy to use over quality. I've tried the test with several people and none has been able to tell CD from cassette. But as with all analogue formats they are extremely dependent on the standard of the equipment used to play them. Anyone under the age of 40 that I've demonstrated decent analogue gear to has been utterly shocked to hear how good it is.
Cassettes have a unique analogue sound just as vinyl does. My pre-records sound 99% accurate in a/b tests to the source material with it's ever so slight "tape" sound added in giving it it's own one of a kind uniqueness. This is appealing to me. Something nice about popping in your own recorded tape that you painstakingly adjusted for perfect bias and levels on and enjoying the results, knowing that you are hearing it as it physically exists on magnetic tape being played on the deck in analogue form, the deck being the "instrument" playing it back for you in real time rather than just playing back a copy of digital instructions. Pre-records interest me a lot less, but I buy them occasionally from thrift stores.
Got 12 decks covering from the late 70's 'till the early 90's here and they were fully revised by me. 😅
I agree with Tony from Cassette Comeback when he says: a good deck makes any average tape sound good.
Glad I check in on your channel every now and then. I still like cassettes for the nostalgia. And recording on them still gives me a thrill.
The point in using cassettes is to have a physical media, things that move and rotate. The limitations of the media is what makes it appealing, getting the media better and better by increasing and dialing in the record level and the bias to it's limits. I have half a dozend tape decks, but only 2 or 3 of them are fully functional. I also have a small Hifi system from JVC (UX-T1) that has an actually very nice sounding tape deck integrated, even with dolby. I replaced the incandecant light bulbs within the LCD with LEDs. It has a very nice sounding aplifier as well.
To get dolby on modern tape decks, there is also a software named "DDI Codec", that can encode and decode Dolby with a PC. it is available within the Windows Store and for Mac as well as far as I know.
Regarding cobalt tapes and pure chromium: Pure chromium actually has less hiss, but can't be magnetized as strong as cobalt. BASF for example advertised their "Chrome Maxima" tapes in the 90s with "99% noise free" for a reason. But since Cobalt can be recorded much hotter and is mostly used to calibrate japanese tape decks and is cheaper in production (i guess), it took over the market. However, I like the smell of pure chrome tapes like a 80s BASF chrome super for example.
Cobalt tape formulations were originally created because the Japanese didn't want to pay DuPont the royalties to use their proprietary chrome formulation. Even BASF's own chrome tapes later included some cobalt in the formulation.
Personally, I wouldn't care much about physical possession, and I'd like to value the ease and portability of digital files just as "normal people". Unfortunately, most of the stuff I listen to has never been digitized professionally, or perhaps never digitized at all. I listen to time capsules - FM broadcast recordings made 40 to 50 years ago all across the world. Or live recordings of now-forgotten Estonian and Hungarian prog bands. If it's outside of "top 1000" - it's either vinyl or tape, there's no real digital alternative.
Ahhhh yes that smell!
And they still smell like that today!
I wonder what caused that smell, and now that I think about it after having smelt it possibly way too many times, is it toxic in any way? It's from the same era of leaded fuel and possibly leaded paint, asbestos everything and who knows what other toxic items were available back then!
Do you remember getting your brand new textas at the start of the school year when you were young? Do you remember seeing the box of textas claiming that they are non toxic? I actually thought about it just last week for who knows what reason and wondered what the hell happened before that time?
@@PeterMilanovski The area of potentially emitting exposed tape is so small, one has to waste a fortune to reach any substantial concentrations. And these have to be true European chromes (yes, Koreans did chromes too but in very small numbers, too late to sell well).
P.S. Isn't it strange that my grandparents' generation lived with all sorts of deadly stuff around them, from cordite to plutonium, and lived into their 90s. But my generation (50s to 60s y.o.) is already dying out. And my grandparents didn't use cassettes, ever. Coincidence?
@@jmi5969 LoL 🤣 makes you wonder!
Something is in the process and I can't quite put my finger on it....
I watched a video the other day about population growth and they talked about if population growth is the reason behind climate change, they showed a graph over time for population growth and I swear that I could have been looking at the global temperature over time... The two seem to correlate together so well that it's hard not to believe that climate change is a direct result of the existence of us! It's just that no one seems to want to say that there's way to much people on this planet for the way that we are living! It's unsustainable... Extinction isn't a possibility, it's inevitable!
The difference between us and our grandparents is while they were contributing to climate change, they didn't really know about it because they were killing themselves with the toxic items that were being produced at that time. We on the other hand have the toxic thing under control somewhat but we are beginning to see the end of the line approaching and the bloody train is speeding up! I'm not a grandparent yet, but I do want to experience it just as much as I want my kids to experience being in my shoes.... They need to realise that they are driving me crazy half the time and need to give it a rest already LoL 🤣.
Good to hear from you. Thanks for your informative content.
The term "Compact Cassette" came from Philips. They were the developers of this type of cassettes and everybody who wanted to use the format had to put that name and logo on cassettes and players. Only after the patent ended, the manufacturers stopped using that name and logo.
Prerecorded cassettes got the name "MusiCassette" with one C. But it's the same tape, the difference is, it's C45. Okay, the cassette versions of the 20 song compilations are C60 to C90.
also - The name scheme continued with the Compact Disc, from Philips and Sony.
Great video. I’m 53 and you nailed each and every aspect of my attempted return to the format, including the huge and heavy but beautiful deck that sits in display because I cannot get it working.
I only want cassettes to make a comeback just because I drive a 1980 Toyota Corona with a cassette deck, and a lot of the retro cars I'm into have them. I don't much care for home hi-fi cassette setups, but retro cars are a very compelling use case, albeit not the biggest demographic. I'm glad some of my favorite modern bands still release on cassette, at least
AM Stereo and Compact Cassette, yeah!
i need them for the same reasons, never i use it to play music, LOL, tooo crappy...
@@lucasrem I hate to tell you this, but cassette tape wasn't good enough for AM radio. The only time I have ever seen a cassette deck in a broadcast booth is when the station had a Marantz (i.e. portable/news/field recorder), and it was ONLY used for voice (on location interviews, ect.). Most the the time those cassettes cot transferred to a reel or cart as cassette runs too slow to cue up.
Vintage cars has to be the most expensive way to maintain a tape deck, for sure!
I’ve got a 1988 Mercedes 190E and it came with the cassette player (sadly in the boot). The previous owner upgraded to a DAB player. Perhaps a summer job to put the original Blaupunkt radio/cassette back in there, if only I can sort out the cables which he cut off!
The final nail in the compact cassette’s usefulness as a musical format was the MP3 player; especially the iPod 📱. If I were choosing an older format to get back into, it would be CDs 💿. You can get used CDs fairly inexpensively and, unlike vinyl, used CDs can sound just like its brand new counterpart.
None of my music came on CD so that’s a horrible idea, vinyl all the way!
I went straight from a walkman to an mp3 player in about 2002. I tried a few different portable CD players but CDs skipped and were too fragile for me to use while cutting the grass for 20 of my neighbors as a kid. ...but like with recording CDs or Vinyl onto tapes I bought CDs and encoded my own mp3s because downloadable ones were just trash in comparison, especially back then when disk space and bandwidth was at such a premium.
@@trumpsmum9210 Well if your music is rock & roll, then it certainly did come out on CD 💿. Anything older, like Jazz or Big Band or Classical, then those came out on CDs as well. Hell, the CD 💿 was calibrated on being able to play all 4 movements of Beethoven’s 9th symphony on a single disc.
@@robertlandrum1971 lol definitely not rock yuck
I've got cassette tapes that I recorded 30 years ago that still sound excellent. I also kept my cassette decks clean.
well Cassette are trash
I still have my treasured Yamaha KX-800U which I bought new in 1988 for over $500. I recorded a metric ton of live shows in the late 80s and 90s on a portable Teac deck. There is no way I would ever dedicate the time to digitize all of these shows so I love having this deck.
There was only one cassette that I thought had a special sound, it was Stealing Fire by Bruce Cockburn on chrome tape. I have the album on vinyl and CD but they sound thin and lifeless compared to that old tape. Something magical happened when that tape was made.
I could be wrong but it may have a special master recording on it compared to the cd and vinyl
Yes it should. As a matter of fact, I've never stopped using audio compact cassette tapes, like most people did. I have over 4,000 Compact Cassette Tapes in my collection. Cassettes are awesome 👍. I'm listening to one right now.
Comparing to a vinyl (of course I mean to use a good cartridge) with all a honesty, which media sounds better? Comparing prices, I can suggest that a vinyl disc sounds x4 times better. I’m asking because I was thinking to purchase a deck, but I’m not sure it makes sense to waste a price of about 40 vinyl disks to confirm my fears.
PS And all (99.99%) reviewers record from a digital source to a good tape. I even doubt they have at least 10 prerecorded cassettes. Not like you
The technology and inventiveness of the format is more fascinating as an engineering feat than the average audio quality. Pure nostalgia: worth the memories, not the money. Great, honest video.
I bought a Phil Collins cassette from 1989 on chrome for £1 recently and it is about the best sounding album I have ever heard. And I include cd, vinyl and mp3 in that. The clarity is unreal and the hiss is only audible if really loud.
Yes!! My deck has no Dolby yet I still hear practically 0 hiss unless it's really loud. And it's a garbage deck from like the 90s with a boombox mechanism, with plastic everywhere.
I don't understand why people say tapes sound so horrible, they really don't unless they are plum worn out. I am all for the cassette comeback
Cassette tapes are already making a big comeback I heard tapes as selling at their peak as high as they did in the 80s! It might pass that too!
I found your video an hour after recording several Roy Orbison 12" singles on a NOS TDK-SA 60 from the late 90s!! Cassettes were such an important part of my puberty (I was 15 in '89) and the very reason I know so many songs by heart!! I have finally managed to acquire a quite decent tape deck with many important features (Dolby B, C, fine bias etc.) and I do record vinyl albums on cassette from time to time, so I can have analogue recordings on an analogue medium. I even daydream of travelling back to '88 or '89 and buy all the Maxell UR-Fs I could find at the local supermarket!!! Am I a hopeless romantic? You betchya!! Will I keep all my cassettes till I'm out of this world? For sure!!!! One last thing: A couple of friends who have visited me recently have "accidentally" listened to some of my recent recordings on cassette and they went: "Is this a tape playing? Woooowwww!!!"
In 1974 I got a Sony TC55 mono cassette recorder. I borrowed the music centre from the guy in the next room to make copies of 7" singles. I had a pocket FM radio and eventually a Panasonic GX300 radio (FM, MW, SW). Although I did buy my parents a "hi-fi" system from summer earnings whilst at university it was two years after graduation before I bought my first system.
I used cassettes for recording the singles I own, for recording singles from friends that I couldn't buy, a few copies of friends LPs until I got the album and some from my own collection for listening on a Sony Walkman Professional WM-D6C. I recorded radio drama, programmes of interest including music and chat for listening on the journey to work the following morning (on TDK C180 the thinnest tape ever). I also made a few live recordings always hoping to do more. My deck was the Uher CR240 and then the Uher CR160 which ran off batteries, had stereo speakers and would power external speakers. I still have the Sony WM-D6C and Uher CR160. I missed out by not owning a Dolby S deck or at least one with Dolby HX Pro which can make a cassette recording very close to the original (CD, vinyl or from microphone).
I did own a Sony CD portable player but when commuting it would skip and battery life was short.
There are no modern tape recorders with any noise reduction and they can not use Dolby B, C, S or HX pro. Anyone serious and aims to get a quality recording or playback needs a working machine that is now 20 to 30 years old. Besides the rubber bands to move the mechanism the parts are nylon plastic and cogs cracked and damaged with no parts available. The same applies to video tape decks (VHS, Super-VHS, 8mm/Hi8/Digital 8, DV, microDV).
I was part of the golden age of cassette decks starting in the mid seventies. I can tell you that you didn’t buy a high end deck to play pre-recorded cassettes as most of these tapes were of inferior mechanical and audio quality. They were perfect for car stereos and were geared to that end. Every high schooler would have a cassette or 8 track player and that’s where most of pre-recorded tapes sales were. Serious cassette users would buy high quality recording tape such as Maxell, TDK, BASF, SONY etc. 90 minutes max because you could get 1 complete album per side on average and make near perfect recordings of their favorite LP’s to preserve the album and play the recorded version. The Teac A-450 was the first serious high end cassette deck and challenged open reel decks of the time. This deck still makes excellent recordings today if properly refurbished. Every company had its high end super deck ( Teac C-1, Technics RS-9900US, Nakamichi Dragon, etc.) and many moderate models that made very good recordings. Eventually all the manufacturers started dumbing down their circuit designs and throwing in a lot useless features to sell more decks. The best decks include all discrete circuits in the audio path. Integrated circuits were fine for mechanical circuits as it would make a complicated user interface a lot more affordable. The Teac A-450, Technics RS-M85 for example have completely discrete Dolby Circuits. Cassette Deck technology was very sophisticated back then and still is even compared to today’s technology. For example to reproduce the Teac C-1 and its DBX Adaptor, Mic mixer, etc. could cost in the range of $15,000.00 if adjusted for inflation. If your wondering if it would be worth doing it, I would say the high end audio market would love to add a few more suckers to their customer base. I’ve had many cassette decks over the years and cassette recording wasn’t just a hobby but a serious part of my audiophile life. I enjoyed making recordings of frequently played albums and making my own mix tapes for get together with my friends. I’m not knocking collecting pre-recorded cassettes but don’t think they should considered a serious element of a high end cassette deck usage. BTW. There were some quality pre-recorded tapes that came close to the end of the cassette era. Some were pretty darn good but still compared to a properly recorded tape on a high quality deck they could not compete.
The problem was, the cheapest cassette costs twice the price of one record (when we exclude the content). So the record industry has to use the cheapest cassettes plus to sell the pre-recorded cassettes with some loss, being compensated by the vinyl records. Both formats with the same price.
Hey. Good to see you back.
In the 80s I recorded a mixed tape for my mom so she had some favorite songs to listen to her on her walkman while riding the subway to work in Toronto. I knew her tastes in music and managed to pick all the songs she would've chosen herself. Took me a few hours to record the 90min tape - and after giving it to her never thought much more about it. Only recently (2022) she happened to mention she still has the tape somewhere in a drawer and has cherished it all these years. Turns out she played it constantly back in the day and it really alleviated her boredom on long subway rides to and from work. We don't know if it'll even play these days (it's almost 40yrs old)...but she refuses to throw it out because of the good memories (and the fact her son took time to custom-make it for her, I guess).
Chances are it still plays cassette’s are surprisingly resilient and may last longer than 30 years as stated by a common google search
@@thatcampingmann9543 Quite agree with you. The lifespan of a cassette has a lot of variables, starting with the specs and quality...and how it's stored of course. I've heard horror stories of how they become 'sticky' (Tom Scholz of Boston mentions this on the Third Stage album) and Eddie Van Halen also mentioned it in an interview). But I still have a homemade cassette recording from around 1974 (Philips C60 cassette) that still played last time a few years ago. Contrary to the predicted lifespan found on google searches as you say - as long as the magnetic oxide stays intact on the base polymer there shouldn't be many drop-outs.
@@SilentKnight43 yes lots of variables like you mentioned, and a very insightful comment. (Hopefully op’s tape he made for his mom still does work!)
The crown jewel flagship decks leave no doubt, the allure, the elegance, and with Type IV (Metal) the sheer slam these incredible machines were effortlessly capable of displaying! My feelings are quite clear….. I’ve mourned their discontinuance with great sadness, and wish for their return.
Thank you, very well done and it goes to show, some things are better left behind today.
I just like the sound and feel it’s nice it’s simple and it’s temporary it makes you cherish what you listen to
Cassettes have a unique sound signature that other formats lack. And each model of cassette has a different sound signature. I own Maxell URs, Sony HFs, a few Sony UX and UX Pro and RTM (Recording the Masters, which are one of the few manufacturer of brand new cassettes in 2022) Foxs. Maxell UR are good sounding and trebbles are great, Sony HF are better at reproducing bass, while RTM Foxs are balanced and more dynamic than the other two.
That's also one of the very few format to record analog content on it without going digital. It can also add "analog warmth" to Hi-Res or CDs digital track which can sound a bit harsh depending on the mastering process.
@@benjib2691 Do you know anywhere I can get some good quality walkmans???? You seem like you know a lot.
Pretty much agree with most of what you say. Though, from the very best cassette decks the recording and playback is on par with good vinyl in my opinion. In cassette decks there is an enormous difference between bad, good and great decks. It is incredible what they could get out of those tiny tapes. However, we never heard those great decks back in the day since they were and still are very expensive. Personally I stay away from any Dolby noise reduction, I feel it does more harm than good.
It does not have the dynamic range either does vinyl. It's romantic but not superior or even on par.
@@marklowe7431 You Loudness Wars artificial dynamic range boosting for CDs and Digital. Yeah, that is shit.
@@AudioGuyBrian A good bass guitar low B thump can have the needle beyond the range of the groove. It is what it is.
There's pros and cons.
Vinyl is great as long as the music is produced to fit within its limits.
Dolby is there to just try and polish a turd, yes it makes things even worse than they already were
@@Synthematix You must need your Dolby circuits re-calibrated. It is obviously broken on your deck. I can record a CD on a Maxell XLIIS tape on my 3 head JVC with HX Pro and Dolby B and toggle monitoring from tape and source and you will hear absolutely NO DIFFERENCE in the sound. Same with my Pioneer deck with Dolby S. An exact copy! But I keep my decks in like-new condition and have replaced all capacitors and re-calibrated everything to original spec.
You're right. We never used the term "compact cassette" back then. Just like we never used the term "vinyl" for records.
Great perspective and a wonderful trip back down memory lane, as always.
I'm 43 so grew up with tapes as the dominant format. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to songs my Dad had taped off the radio on a portable player. It had a built-in mic and I loved recording my own voice onto blank tapes.
Fast forward (heh) to age 11 and I inherited the big Sanyo music centre from the living room when my Dad used his Christmas bonus to upgrade to a Sony stack with CD. I made so many mix tapes on that thing, sitting there on a Sunday night with finger poised over the pause key, through the grunge, Britpop and indie eras, though I wasn't averse to dancier stuff either, with plenty of house and trance to be found in those old shoeboxes full of TDK D90s.
I made my last mixtape in 2001, taping Dave Pearce's Dance Anthems on a Sunday night and then dubbing the tunes I liked onto another cassette (by this point I was the proud owner of that Sony system.) Shortly after that I discovered mp3 downloads and never looked back. Recently I saw an old Fidelity music centre on a local FB freebie group and something compelled me to go and get it. Not half as nice as the Sanyo that served me through the 90s but for a budget system.that was sold in Woolies in the 70s, it still works perfectly.
I've had great fun showing my 11yo how to play a record, to tune a radio with an old fashioned knob and dial, and how to record from both onto a tape. He's both fascinated and incredulous that we had to go to so much effort (in his view) to listen to a song, when all he need do is say the title into his tablet or a Google speaker.
So glad someone else mentioned sitting by the radio with the record on 'pause' in order to catch tunes. I discovered so many great songs from more niche radio stations back in the day, and if it wasn't for cassette I may have never heard them again, or it might have been difficult to track them down later (sometimes you would get a run of tunes, with no reference to the artists on these smaller stations; or I would just miss the reference to the author/artist).
One thing I will say about the ease of which we can get music nowadays is that, at least for me, when I download lots of music, there's a tendency for me to just leave it in some folder and even forget about it. And then when I happen to be scrolling through some folders I might see the music and remember. I have to wonder if ease of access somewhat diminishes appreciation; or at least causes you to take what you can get for granted. Of course, that's just what I've found with myself. It very likely differs for others.
Anyway, it made me smile when you said you've been showing your 11 year old how it all works and how to use it. I think the whole activity of recording from radio or record has its own special appeal; both the user experience and the fact that you have to listen to the music, and be on your toes if you want a decently formatted tape. When I was in my early 20's (early 90's) my cousin and I used to visit a friend with a huge record collection; we would spend hours going through records searching for little gems to record onto a mix tape. And of course, you have to be present for the whole process, while listening to the music; we really had fun listening to the music and that kind of thing solidified our friendships. I remember those days with pure pleasure.
Unfortunately today modern music isnt worth recording.
@@SynthematixAbsolutely right sir
Yep, tapes were convenient. They were convenient in the 70s when you could pirate all of your friends' records and they were convenient in the 80s/90s because tape decks were way, way cheaper than cd players. Once cd players dropped to everybody-gets-one prices - and especially once cd-R's were around - cassettes died off fast. The normal (not high end) car tape decks sounded just as good or better when you plugged a crappy gas station cassette adapter and used your discman.
I remember as a kid fiddling with the dolby and normal/chrome switches on the family system having no idea what they did :D
My dad made copies of a bunch of his records for me too :)
No lie about the adapters. Using my Discman and a cheap Recoton cassette adapter, even my factory radio ‘86 Ford Escort sounded exponentially better than the best of tapes I ever heard in that car in 1990.
@@nicholastotoro7721 Because with digital era recordings started to be "mastered" means sharpened to sound sharp on crappy speakers. Same as mastering engineers used. For marketing CDs as much better. It couldn't be done with analog because appearance of noise in limited range of dynamic
@@Mikexception
Not just analog in-general, but cheap cassette tape media in-particular. Some people like the analog compression of vinyl, which is why it makes little sense to me to hunt down records that are completely recorded, mixed and mastered digitally.
@@nicholastotoro7721 Correct - my conclusion is that when analog is copied to digital it is 99,9% ok When digital is coopied to analog it is also 99,9% ok But when analog separate tracks are digitalized and then remixed like remastring and again put to CD or transformed back to LP then I personally give it low value. Having few like this I with my high expectation even avoid playing.
I would personally state that from my experience an imperfect situation or format etc can be the most enjoyable to have. I personally got back into Cassettes it was frustrating at first but I love the interaction with music.
Hello ! Where I can find cassette compare in 1990s you talking about ? Thanx.
I wouldnt mind seeing cassettes make a comeback, as well as minidisc. Both are small, highly portable, practically shockproof, and easy to record on.
I wouldnt be surprised to see tapes at least return to market, not just for the nostalgia but for the act of actually being able to hold the music you paid for.
I guess kids born post cassette tape era might find it interesting as a kind of novelty item or plaything, but beyond that, there's really no good reason to release music on cassette tape in this day and age.
Great variety of cassettes! I still have many of these in my collection. Many mixtapes as well.
I am 60 I've had high end cassette decks all my life, still use them today, I love them, if you go for a good machine, there is hardly any difference from the source, but only with top decks.
My point exactly its disguised as a cheap format when its actually a premium format. Rocking with my Nak 681zx and Revox B215
Thanks for your research and opinions.
I have lots of cassettes and a few decks I picked up at Goodwill and other thrift stores and occasionally play my mix tapes and practice sessions and live gigs of bands I worked in during my busy decades as a working musician.
Nostalgic for sure and priceless to me.
I’m partial to minidiscs but cassettes are a close runner up in my obsessive collecting habits.
I own multiple cassette decks including a Nakamichi which is my “master” recording and player. In the recent years for the fun of it, I recorded a mix tape from audio tracks of music on UA-cam via from an iPhone to cassette for the fun of it. A coworker said it would be easier to download from iTunes. But it was the fun of doing this. I still have that tape in my large cassette collection that includes metal tape, XDR and Digalog prerecorded tapes. Like the format for fun mostly.
Can you still get parts for your Nakamichi?
About a decade ago I found a pair of Nakamichi Cassette 1.5 decks at goodwill for $10 each. One of my best thrift hauls
Great video. I was a die-hard cassette guy in the late 80s and early/mid 90s. I've owned a few high end Walkmans and car stereos that played them. I loved that I could push the signal when recording without adding distortion which often helped some of the signal to hiss levels. I always used Dolby B noise reduction for the most compatibility. I still own all my cassettes and have a great mid 1990s JVC deck with low hours that was my mom's. It has a noise I need to have looked at when I have a chance, but it is in like new condition.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
The thing is, I have a big box full of cassette tapes, with music, and often I pressed REC on my boombox and recorded
my life, parties with friends up through the years. They bring back memories, and is fun as hell. The sound quality was
often good enough, so. My latest was a Tandberg Soundfreezer with a Sanyo super-D two band compander.
A measured (after 10 years of service) 11-26500 Hz, and a S/N ratio North of 100db.
I still use them, the last tape was Pink Floyd, dark Side..
You make a lot of good points. I have an old refurbished Akai tape deck that’s pretty decent. Play it through a Schiit Loki to help the sound out a bit…
Usually listen to mixed tapes I made way back in the day. Some radio recordings I made that act as my personal time machine.
But between Vinyl, Hi-res, CD’s and Bluetooth there’s only so much time. But for nostalgia’s sake, Cassettes certainly have a place in my music listening…
Yeah, mixtapes were cool, as you pointed out. Later on with cd burners it was also cool to record someone a mixCD, but this soon died out. Young people nowadays are definitely missing out on this kind of flirting possibility.
Hi from Denmark. I´m 54 and defiantly an Audiophile. I was a teen in the mid 80´s, and cassettes was still very must in use, even though the CD player has landed. I use to LOVE tapes and being able to do mix-tapes for friends and girlfriends. I bought my last cassette deck in the yearly 90´s (Rotel RD 9658X) from new, to use for making demo´s (i was in a band). I was way past cassettes and did CD and Vinyl playback, so i only used it for a couple of years, and then i was put away. Just recently i got interested in tapes again, and luckily i keept my deck and not it was time for me to try it our again.
The last couple of weeks, i have been playing pre-recorded tapes from the past. I also bought some brand new tapes, from various artists, to see/listen, if there was a difference in overall quality? I couldn´t pin point it, and it was like 50/50, depending on source material.? The one thing that makes me smile about this, is hte nature of cassette playback, the machines (mechanic), noise/sounds it makes, and the wonder of how it works. I love to hold a tape in my hand. I love to get my reading glasses on, to read all the small letters, in that kind of "inner" ;-) Soundwise.....Hmmm....still not convinced, but funny and nostalgic it is, for sure.
Btw.....the Rotel does a good job (imo). Cheers from Denmark.
As a longtime cassette user (in the past), I say a comeback for that format is ludicrous. (as are vinyl records)
the cassettes never went away ,i have good decks and when cassettes were decreasing in sales i start to buy them cheap in boxes ,and some of my friends when starting to use more digital recording as md´s and cd-r (audio only)they ofered me their decks or they would send them to the trash, i ended up not using for several years cassettes but when in 2007 i started again because i had several cassettes recorded when i was a dj ,either electronic music that i made my own tracks by starting to use a Roland groove box also other equipment and also earlier and till 2005 i made recordings of party´s that i would be responsable for the music but more rock music than other styles ,in 2007 i restored one of my decks that i haven´t use it that much when new and with new belts it started to work as new and having sealed cassettes i recorded some compilations and didn´t stop till today also have minidiscs but i started to record more cassettes . There´s one thing that i know that in other country´s people buy pre-recorded cassettes but in Portugal the cassettes had a very simple look without any inlay pappers ,they sounded good but with time they would start to dirt the heads of the decks, i remenber buying in London the dream of the blue turtles cassette from sting and it was another world ,this was a really nice cassette with a cover with very complete information and it had the words of the songs printed in very tiny size but i could read them at the time and was a chrome cassette ,but my friends and i and also lot´s of people i knew they would buy the record ,even if they didn´t have a turntable and ask to record it to a good cassette and today they have the records in perfect condition and listen to it since new on a well recorded cassette ,later they bought turntables when they were cheap because of the cd being the most prefered format and in Portugal they cease from one day to another to sell vinyl records (kind of imposed) ,i own thousands of cassettes and because i live in a very dry region they are still in good shape but pre-recorded ones i have ,this all my life , around 10 cassettes my first one was the pink floyd "More" o.s.t. the second was the first Boston Album bought in L.A. when it came out and again the cassette was very good sounding didn´t say that it was chrome but the tape was very dark ,but today i put it to play and the heads of the deck at the end of listening to a couple of minuts , get real dirty , but i have other cassettes and they still can be heard without notice a change in the sound quality and also have boxes filled with reels that with so many years i recorded over another recording this in my oldest reel deck a akai from 71 and it sounded perfect and those only use ferric reels , home taping is here to stay and will never go away even kids i know are starting to buy cassette decks and recording cassettes, some even have good equipment, i went to a kids house that is father was a highschool friend and he show me a dragon deck and all the cassettes were sony metal master ,this around 50 and some were still sealed ,his father wasn´t a close friend and i didn´t knew he was a what people call audiophile, he showed me a turntable that cost him almost 10.000€ , a project turntable but with many things improved, regards
I used my cassette so that I could record my first play of a Vinyl LP and then put the LP away. This meant I had a pretty good copy without scratches and skips. Cassettes were OK, that that's all.
I inherited my fathers Magnavox Record Player, which was their version of the Zenith Circle of Sound system of the 60's with a am/fm radio. I had it serviced and it works wonderfully, the tone arm tapping the side of the record each time to determine its size the dual coned speakers shake the house the bass is incredible. He had a huge cassette tape collection. Attached to the stereo is a Ampex Micro 95, which stacks cassettes (up to 6) and plays them all automatically, it is amazing and still works well :) Great video, thank you for posting.
I grew up with tapes, I didnt have any of my own because I was young in the 90s, but my dad and mum had them and I remember them fondly. But for me I genuinely like the sound you get from tapes, I'm often seeking particular sound qualities and I dont get those qualities with digital recordings, and a lot of the music I listen to actually try and emulate analogue like sounds. So for me the appeal of tapes in 2022 is around how they sound and the sounds of the mechanisms etc etc
Yes! They should. The sound is excellent. Too often we've been told that "only digital good" when half the fun of sound is to hear the variants, the unexpected. Audio tape is an inherently ephemeral medium; prone to many different imperfections and even being pulled from its shell by a faulty player or unhappy copilot. I embrace that about it, the warping can be exciting, a new dimension to sound that wasn't there before. As a musician it inspires me. Some musicians take it literally and we get lofi music that inspires a sense of nostalgia reminding us of yet completely detached from the audio tapes we had. Me? Its a matter of the sound variation and fluctuation, bringing about this new feeling similar but not the same to the original recording. Call me pretentious all you like but this simple fact of the medium has remedied many a creative block. I've taken to recording my music to tape, but that's a tangent entirely too long to get into here.
My take is this: audio tape is valid in all its forms are should be embraced and understood on its own terms and for what it is (instead of what its been built up to be in its absence)
Meanwhile, digital is a great archival medium so take that however you want to.
Video tape, too. My take is that even if the result is mediocre modern releases using it for nostalgia's sake, we will have a new manufacture supply of all of it, like we do with vinyl pressing.
And with VHS will come VHs-C, Video 8, Betamax, etc. we play our cards right we'll get laserdisc and CED among others back, too. Batteries for camcorders will be made again, because the demand became overwhelming and all the major issues if models from years gone by were solved. Manufacturers will try selling us on some fucked up digital hybrid but ultimately will reproduce models they did well with and variations upon those. New innovation will come mostly from the outside, people tinkering with used models. We'll get stuff like a walkman-like compact video recorder that attaches to a hand-held video camera, like a compact alternative to the EIAJ VHS camera systems, along with a resurgence of those as well. The manufacturers will be forced to produce all the components just as good if not better than vintage because once the spell of streaming is broken, the cost-cutting, revenue inflating, mass manipulation design methods will glare into customers' eyes and they won't out up with it anymore. They'll be forced to film in 4:3 for Video Home Release and obviously for the cathode ray tube TVs that will replace the oleds that people realized were the cause of their pandemic sadness and migraines. Damn blue light, didn't we ever learn? We did now. Smart phones will fall to pocket organizers, payphones, and microcassette recorders, but that's not got to do with tape.
Point is, we've only collectively convinced ourselves that any of the digital junk is better because its designed to look clean and because its expensive. But the truth is, its really limiting and what it claims to have over physical media really doesn't matter. Do you press your face against the TV screen in a sickening fit of consumer obsession? No? You listen to music and watch video casually? Oh, so 4k video and pristine audio really don't matter to you. The only one saying they should has been trying to sell you expensive shit that clearly hasn't made your life any better.
Dicth that useless crossover and pick up an '81 malibu. Cars had the same things happen, and anybody saying "this model bad" is the same as the self-proclaimed audiophile sitting on his throne on high proclaiming that the only sound worth listening to comes from the Wienershcnitzel 7299257883 component box and the Blaffenhorfen headphones with REAL WOOD and rose gold stainless steel with gold plugs and the chud in the comments demanding the still-frame of casually reading a video essay be shot in 4k on a camera costing $10,000
At least, the blank / new - brand new cassette tapes recordables should be sold again, to record our music
Being a Gen Z who was inspired by Techmoan to get a WM-DD33 I can safely say that it was a whole lot of fun repairing the walkman. Luckily people around me had plenty of old, unwanted cassettes (some of them even good like the TDK SA-X 90).
I also found an old Kenwood amplifier on the side of the road with a really basic 2 well deck built in.
Now I can't stop, I have to keep going. Sony TC-K65 is my next target.
I recently bought a fully refurbished DD33, quality wise it is excellent, weighty and solid. The sound quality is also very surprising. I’d rather listen to a tape than a soulless streaming service more often than not.
@@amnrilwell said. I agree
You lucky dog. I only mannaged to snag a sony sports walkman sx-34, wm4, wm-f1, wm-f18, wm-22, tcs-470
Thanks for this vintage memory - we all lived that time - May I know the name of your Argent Lavalier mic - it has an excellent quality sound
Great video....You brought back so many memories.
I like Cassettes, it is a lot mare hassle though, but the hassle I guess is some of the parts I enjoy. Nostalgia probably plays a bigger part than I would admit maybe.
I do remember one example (remember it very good) in the late 90`s I preferred the sound of my recorded Cassette to an bought CD. (I listened to the Cassete so much I bought the CD, but got dissapointed) It would be fun finding that Cassette today and see if I still think that, since my "Bias" could have subconsciously have made me feel that way. And I now actually have very good speakers in comparison to what I had back then.
Doubt it's subconscious, I had several cassettes people did me that never sounded the same when I bought them on CD. Also I had an album called Ceremony by a band called The Cult, that sounded better on bought tape than CD for some reason.
@@richardcrook2112 I guess the "built-in equalizing" an cassete does to the sound, is a sound I like or prefer probably. That would probably be an realistic take on it atleast.
I do, or did, have pretty good hearing though, and can usually hear much higher sound frequencies than others, and rarely like sharp and loud noises. I also usually do not like horns in speakers, so my conclusion has been that it MAY be because of my pretty good hearing. (Well, cassettes is not originally a part of that conclusion, but it fits with what I found out in later years I guess)
Due to so many vinyl mastering and pressing disasters in vinyl record's history, I must say - better smooth and quiet tape hiss, than harsh vinyl pops and cracks from poorly mastered and/or badly pressed vinyl records...
@KJER ERRT You'd need a proper cassette recorder too, and even on a Nakamichi, I'm pretty sure there'd still be tape hiss, albeit tremendously reduced.
Great video with some really good points! I like how you play your tape recording of the Evangelion soundtrack for about a second towards the end.
Late to the party but just wanted to commend you on your hard work and prep for a great video! I’ve watched some of your previous vids and always learn something.
Today I picked up my fully serviced Luxman K351 deck from the 90s with autoreverse and HX-Pro. 6 weeks ago I picked up my Pioneer CT F950 3-head deck again fully restored.
The Luxman deck sounds great today going thru an 8-watt 300B tube amp. Kind of a new discovery for me.
I have two more vintage decks, a Nak BX150 and Dual C939 that looks like a record player. Hundreds of cassette tapes collected over the past 9 years since retirement.
I am looking forward to record tapes via streaming via Roon.
Thanks for the inspiration!!
Nakamichie 7zx is stored somewhere looks like I should dig it out, I do recall it was an awesome deck with great record and playback even on cheap tapes 👍
Or you could sell it to me ! LOL. I still use my nakamichi rx 202 and love it
Yayyy. He's back!
Well, I am one who bought a cassette deck for it's quality of reproduction. I bought a Nakamichi Dragon in 1985 and only used TDK SA60, SAX60 and MA-XG90 cassettes. I play now them on either the Dragon or an Harman Kardon CD191 which is a fine deck. On the road, I went with Alpine decks which were above average then. Thanks for the memories and take care.
Because in 1985 you could not have affordable portable CD player with skip protection, and CD-R blanks were not available yet, so you had to make lemonade from lemons.
I was playing tapes til 2007 when I was then getting a new car that had a CD player instead. So I was also becoming a “Modern Man”. 😬
But then about 6-7 years ago I dug a Tascam 4-track out of the closet. Everything worked. I’m into music production so thought this was excellent.
Then last year Tascam released a new Cobalt tape that I bought directly at a high price.
But this year the whole tape memorabilia came flooding back.
Bootlegging music to blank tapes from various sources or setting up mix tapes was something I always did and lugging around 6 tapes at a time was my normal. And I’m welcoming all of it back.
I recently listened to my bootlegs from 30 years ago and they all sound just as good as I remember them. I never threw out my broke tapes either and they’re all still broken with bad sound, playing backwards or stuck.
I honestly don’t care if the sound quality isn’t as good. I consider the tape sound over the music as a feature!
Ever heard of foley? That’s the various random noises ppl put into their music because it makes it sound better. That’s all tape hiss is: just more foley added into the sound.
The other added benefit of tape is the deeper dive of listening to fewer artists at a time for longer periods. That’s how you got into an artist’s music. It wasn’t this dabbling around under thousands of artists at a time. It’s bullshit! You don’t draw any satisfaction from listening to so much in short periods of time, remembering nothing about it, even if the sound quality is better.
I’d argue that ppl listen to streams “out of convenience “, but it’s hollow and unfulfilling.
With tapes and physical media, you’re forced to focus on less, and from it, derive so much more.
With Dolby no longer licensing the analog-format Dolby Noise Reductions, no new releases have it, and no new players support it; thus "modern cassettes" are terrible. If someone were to come up with a supported-across-the-board replacement, sure, I could see its comeback as a niche thing for people who want a portable "one album removable" format. But Minidisc players are readily accessible for that, with better usability and quality.
The problem with cassettes is that by the time technology was available to make them "truly good" (Metal/Type IV tapes plus Dolby C or S noise reduction) they were already being replaced. So few portable tape players supported Dolby C, and I don't know of any "Walkman size" that supported Dolby S at all. (At least Dolby S recordings could be played back on Dolby B without noticeable quality loss, although they would sound muddier than if played back on true Dolby S.)
And yes, I was one of those '90s people who actually used Metal tapes and Dolby C (by the time Dolby S came around, I had switched to Minidisc.)
Good point about cassette technology being perfected just as it was becoming obsolete, but I wholeheartedly disagree about Minidisc being better quality. It's compressed, so it's crap. Just read the reviews in the hifi press when it was launched.
> thus "modern cassettes" are terrible
I have to disagree with you there, I've bought a few album releases on cassette recently and they sound as good as CD on a decent deck. One, by the band Wet Leg, came with a card inside to download the digital album, including FLAC, so I have a back-up of the tape if I needed it.
I regularly play tapes on a decent-ish but definitely not audiophile hi-fi and people can't tell the difference if asked.
Tape hiss is really only a problem when using headphones, when it becomes exaggerated by the closeness of the speaker to the ear. IMO....
I just wish I had a good dual capstan non auto reverse direct drive deck :) I'm goin' to get one some day. Always hated all those noise reduction systems, never used them :) It always souded muffled to me :) and a bit of a hiss never bothered me :) I've allways considered it charming to some extent :) :)
I always record without Dolby. My Aiwa F770 is a fantastic deck, the Dragon killer they called it, not sure about that but it’s certainly excellent.
The thing about the mix tape is you'd spend a whole evening picking tracks and recording them onto the tape.
Then when you play the tape, you just heard them all and it has lost impact lol
Great video. Ironically, I had the exact Technics tape deck you own. It looked and worked just as you described your unit does. It was stolen in a home breakin. I have a massive cassette tape library as well. All the things you mentioned and concluded I agree with. Tapes were a pain, but, I'd still like to have my deck and be able to listen to all of the music I'd collected. Again, this was a video worth watching.
Yes, cassette is still the cheapest analog source available. and love is cassettes...
You can thank vaporwave for a good portion of the comeback. They make small runs for collectors, same reason artists still release vinyl.
You are my hero. Being from this era, I totally understand your perspective. Rock on! 👍🏻
Would be nice to have a link to that 88-tape review article.
I have this standard response to, why? I have all the music in the world in my phone. This cassette, *points at a cassette*, has 90 minutes of songs I like. Crap to gold ratio is unmatched... :D Though, why I make my own tapes, and lug them around on walks, is mostly about the physical nature of the media. I * like * to switch tapes, I * like * to ponder, should I listen to this or that, while weighing cassettes of identical weight in my hands. I * like * the functionality and usage of a well working deck, be it my Technics M13, a deck from 1980, my own age. (Functions far better than I do.) Deck goes ka-chunk! It's fun. :)
Nope. Vinyl records can be produced as good and even better than 20 or 30 years ago. Tapes on the other hand really have a problem right now. There is no good tape, and there is no good recording equipment. And lets not talk about the lack of new playback equipment.
Btw there is currently some collectors hype going on around VHS tapes. Imagine a VHS comeback *shudders*
You can still find new tapes.
And you can buy an old deck and service it , it will give you close to "brand new" performance usually.
@@sh0t734 New tape that is produced is of inferior ferric type. There's only new-old stock for high quality, dito for recording and playback equipment. Plus modern decks lack Dolby NR.
I outlined just what is different about tapes vs vinyl. Today, vinyl is of even better quality than in the past, and there is no lack for playback equipment at any price point. Even the rather special parts like needles are still produced, with some product development ongoing. The only tape heads you can buy are cheap Chinese single-direction ones, and many new tape decks are outright mono.
Unless someone steps up the production game, the tape community will have to live off ever-dwindling new-old-stock and used parts.
@@graealex why use modern decks when you have the 85 - 93 decks of outstanding quality ?
RTM fox is a decent tape that s still in production , and there s the UR that is available in some countries still + the old stock ones.
@@sh0t734 Because the amount of them is limited, and parts eventually wear down. You wrote you can just "service" them, but certainly not at any stage. It's actually quite a big problem with portable ones - aka Walkmen, although from all brands. They often have corrosion problems, the electronics fail, and the very small and specialized parts cannot be replaced, as there is no stock left. It's even worse with optical media like Minidisc - the parts that usually fail simply cannot be replaced, unless you take parts from another unit, thus shrinking stock even more. This problem will eventually also apply to hifi tape decks, as the more durable parts like motors and electronics eventually start to wear down. Then you won't be able to fix them anymore.
Again it's the major difference. You can just buy a decent new record player for rather cheap, and you can get new releases on vinyl.
@@graealex
Why would you want to use a walkman ? I ve encountered a number of 0 decks that needed unobtainable parts and i ve seen no corroded decks or failed electronics besides the basic capacitors that some decks need.
I had used cassette tapes right until around 2005-2006, my stereo panasonic player went kaput around this time. Nice Video loaded with info, brought nostalgia right 80's 90's, 2000's
You mentioned Skinny Puppy and Techmoan, oh wow, you're certainly my kind of person, subscribed!
I replaced my cassette collection with MD back in the late 90's. I don't hate cassettes, but the drive speed inconsistency really drove me crazy back in the day. TDK was usually my go-to for tapes, mostly because i liked the aesthetic range they made for the Japanese market... Which came to me second-hand through anime soundtrack bootlegs my fellow enthusiasts and i used to trade. Thanks for rekindling those memories!