Hubs - The "Fingerprint" of a cassette
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- Опубліковано 16 лип 2024
- Many brands sold cassettes, but there were only a few manufacturers that actually made them.
In this video I look at the hubs of cassettes, so you can have a good guess at who actually made cassettes that you've never heard of.
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I was Surprised to see RAKS on here. The other day I came across a dozen or so RAKS HD-X II cassettes at the thrift store, and having never heard of the brand, gave them a try.. They're pretty decent cassettes that I can tell, and look like the older Maxell's, with the large metallic stickers. In fact, I've found a large number of odd cassettes at that thrift store, from the Denon HD8, to the TDK HX-S, BASF Chrome Extra, Several TDK MA's, An XL II-S, some 70's AudioMagnetics, AFGA, Philips, and BASF Cassetes.
But the craziest thrift store find? A Scotch Master III Ferri-Chrome inside of a 3M cbox.. I never thought I'd find a type 3 in the wild, and since my deck handles type 3 bias.. it sounds fantastic!
Tony you are a great storyteller. I love watching and learning about Cassettes from your videos. Now i have a big collection myself, it started very spontaneous. I may do a tribute video for you some day with my Sony Deck 😁
The most distinct feature of Maxell hubs is the shape of the tape clamp. Great video!
Very interesting, you have excellent knowledge, on all these brands, I'm learning loads, thanks.
Fantastic video!
And now I want to drill air-cooling-circulation-generating holes on the hubs of all my cassettes... :D
😂
Excellent, excellent video... Just what I was looking for!
TDK did RadioShack tapes as well. Back in the mid to late 90’s, you could walk into a Tandy electronics stores in Australia, and you could buy RadioShack tapes, that are exactly like a mid 90’s TDK SA and MA. Exactly the same tape and shell, just rebranded. I’m not too sure if they had the same extra formula range as TDK though, such as SA-X and MA-X.
Great video, thanks! Please allow me some inevitable comments - which I really don't do for the fun of correcting, but rather because I'm also fascinated by tapes and have been trying to track down who made what since I was a kid :-)
- The Fuji DR II at 4:17 should be SKC, not Saehan. I read this mostly out of the slip sheets and the leader tape. These hubs also appear in other SKC made cassettes, like agfabasf.com/images/content/1988-5.jpg or agfabasf.com/images/content/img3173.jpg - on the other hand, here we have a SKC cassette with typical Saehan style hubs: agfabasf.com/images/content/img3183.jpg My wild guess is that SKC and Saehan both bought hubs from one or more third party companies
- BBC and Bush at 5:51; take a closer look at the tape holding clamp, it is different from the Goldstar. Altogether, we have three completely different shells in this frame. With the Goldstar being a Goldstar, the BBC looking closest to some of the Chinese shells for Emtec, and the Bush probably being made by Forward.
- Tudor @ 8:17; Even here it is most likely that the Spanish shell factory which I use to call "Inverhouse" (because this word is embossed inside some of these shells) happened to buy hubs from the same supplier as BASF. About BASF, we know that they collaborated with different smaller companies in the plastics industry ever since the eraly days of reel to reel, for example Schneider in Germany and Posso in France. There are Schneider cassettes with clearly non-BASF shells, but the same hubs...
- ICM: There is one more very typical ICM hub which can be found in lots of OEM tapes from the early/mid 90's:
www.45spaces.com/audio-compact-cassette-blank-tapes/r.php?r=aud030870 Looks similar to Raks, doesn't it?
By the way, the holes in the ICM Turbo hubs were intended to build an air cushion between the tape and the shell during fast winding in order to reduce friction... well, here I agree with you that this claim was mostly snake oil :-)
- A great lot of more info for hub archeologists can be found here:
www.ez647.sk/cc/audio_cievky.html
Cheers! Martin
Cheers Martin. I'm not adverse to being corrected when it's polite and interesting like your comments, it's just the "You know nothing, this is XXXX" comments I don't like 😀
The final ICM is a good one. I looked at that and thought it had Raks hubs. I don't own a cassette which has hubs like that. Yes, I think there was a lot of part switching and mould buying, so like I said in the video, it's not 100% accurate, but it can give an idea. Thanks again!
there are like 5 ppl worldwide being able to tell Forward cassettes :)
Hey Tony, this video is like a lecture in the history of tape manufacturers. I found it both informative and entertaining. I certainly hope you are not through making these videos. There aren’t a great deal of cassette videos on this medium and most of them are a bore. Yours have passion. This is a media that you either love or are indifferent! The tape format requires you to get off your duff and get involved physically. I have been involved with it since the early seventies. I had to use those disgusting cheapies back then, but despite my situation, I was passionate about the medium. It was all I could afford! That being said, I still love it!
"Little flaws are what keeps a guy interested" - Kryten - Red Dwarf. Don't worry, I've got lots left to cover before I hang up my camcorder 😀
I love this, very informative and really fascinating.
Fascinating video! Thank you....must say that I love the look of those Sony cassette hubs with the black bar across them; they must look brilliant if your deck has a large view panel (my Yamaha 3-head deck has one of those narrow windows, though it does have an orange backlight!).
Great info Tony. I got one of those Scotch BX's (that you show at the start) in with a bunch of D's and Sony ferrics yesterday. They sound great, at least as good as a D or UR on my system. A real sleeper.
Very interesting. I was curious about this topic. When I was a kid ad had to fix a tape, I'd notice the differences in the hubs and wheels. One was the Radio Shack Concertape and Realistic brands. I forgot about the Realistic (it's been a while), but I remember noticing that Concertape had a hub with the pin instead of the clip. The tapes with the ability to see the hubs was Memorex (my father bought a couple of those.) When I get a chance, I'm going to take another look.
Thank you very much for this information Tony 🙏🏻 Thanks to you I now know the name and brand of one of my favorite looking tapes in my collection: the ICM TSATURBO.
Like you said, it screams late 80ies and it is very cheeky (a wannabe MA-R 😅). But I LOVE IT😁
The one I have is a pre-recorded album: The Disco Album, released in 1987 by Arcade - a Dutch label and record company.
Thanks again for sharing your insights and creating such wonderful videos, very much appreciated.
I think I used a few Boots branded cassettes from 1993-early 1995. My preference for tapes has always been
clear with black inserts or even solid shells in white, grey or black but to each their own. Mitsubushi and
Emtec also manufactured cassettes.
Nice video Tony! Very informative. I'm very glad to see that you finally put a 3M blackwatch cassette tape on one of your videos! I was reading some reviews of the 3M blackwatch tape and everybody just loves them. So do I! I just never had enough USD at the high-end audio store to buy more than two! They were $8.99 USD each and that's either a 5 pack of Maxell UDXL II or one 3M blackwatch 2020 or 4040. This was like 1987. Anyway, I have some of the Denon tapes mentioned above in the video and I'm going to have to try to compare them because I never did. What I do remember about the 3M blackwatch cassette tape was that they were so neutral. They gave you nothing and they took nothing away and it was the most smoothest mechanism besides the Sony Metal Master which is made of complete ceramic composite. I recently seen a sealed 3M blackwatch 4040 oh, I think it was, on eBay going for I think $24.99 in USD. I'm thinking about check it out Ebay again and seeing if it's still available. I might just try and grab it! If anyone out there has any sealed 3M blackwatch cassette tapes, I want them in a most bad way! Oh well, Tony you are awesome and you make the best videos on audio cassette tapes! Keep up the good work! Thanks!
Strangely enough about the Denon...check back in a couple of hours...
Any company may also have bought various parts from suppliers at any point in time. Whoever gave them the best deal or specs on clips, cases, screws, whatever. Maybe the tape is company A, the hubs supplier X or Y or Z or any combo. Also, various suppliers might have been asked to match specs of parts, making different looking hubs but, same supplier or different suppliers making the same hub design.
I think that RAKS ED-SX is the coolest of the bunch. That dark grey case, white hubs, big clear window and purple printing on black background is very cool.
Boots (from at least the mid 90s to 2000, when -- as far as I recall -- they stopped stocking own brand blank media) used Sony to make VHS tapes for them, along with Maxell, which was very unusual for those two companies to OEM for anyone (they also stocked Sony and Maxell brand media, so they probably got a special deal due to selling a lot of their own stuff for them).
I've seen Sony audiocassettes branded as Boots from the late 90s and remember the VHS tapes being those at the time.
Not got any late Boots, they did move to Maxell from the late 80s indeed. The best for me were the late WHSmiths, which were That's!
hmmm, my maxel SQ cassettes have that type of BASF or similar to the 3rd TDK hub you show in this video and the cassette shell has screws so it looks a tad different than yours. its also from lidl. im very happy with the sound of it, that i bought alot of them before the price started growing
Educationals from Tony, finally ✌
No idea why YT didn't show this to me 😐 Watching this right now from a Smart TV and it's midnight, now that's your definition of "nerdy" 😅 And don't worry, I *will* be here to point out possible mistakes, within my scope of -Google-fu- knowledge of course 😄
I'd expect nothing less 😅
i do have a panasonic EP 90 min cassette from 1994 in japan
at 17:40 that hub was used on the EP, PX, PX1, PX2 you point at the top
17:54 the NX, GX, HX used that 1988 hubs
they were OEMed also by TDK.
Yeah... I remember from where I was working, that most of the Panasonic/Technics branded cassettes were made by TDK back in the very early 80's ..! Sounded great, and performed just like the TDK equivalents....
First class 👍 Just what i needed, a simple guide, with room for error 👍
Hi, Tony! I really like SKC tapes, even though I never had SKC AX, but even LX are good ones, also I have one GX 90 and one pure chrome SKC CD II, and I am really getting good results with all of them. As for SAEHAN, I got five of AKAI GX-90 cobalted ferric Type II tapes made by SAEHAN - they definitely have SAEHAN shells and hubs, and one BASF Ferro Extra I also in the same shell as the AKAIs. But the fact all these tapes were made by SAEHAN is not bad, I am getting very good recordings with all of them. In AKAI GX 90 tape smells the same as for Maxell UD tape, so maybe it has similar formulation to the Maxell UD II tapes.
Saehan aren't bad at all...I just never had one that blew me away by how good they are. I guess it could be perception as they are so common.
the RAKS hub is a mixture of ICM "windmill" hub Kirunavaara has mention and the Denon hub. they are very precise, pity they used the neutral greyish Delrin instead of Alpine White colour used by the big four manufacturers, that would boost RAKS' looks.
Detective work complete
How about when any are put together sloppily and leave a few millimeters of the leader's end sticking out of the clip which causes yet another dent/crease that is an audible thump for a few seconds. Doesn't matter if it's clipped on underhand or overhand. I always took those tapes apart and trimmed the end perfect so that it ends under the clip/reel and not past it.
Thanks for sharing Tony. Can't help but missing the cassettes with large hubs in this video. Perhaps you can do this in a different video? Also including an item about Reel 2 Reel cassettes perhaps? Just an idea, maybe you can gather some rare and unusual cassette stuff and make a video about it :).
The reel cassettes have no interest to me. They only look good and at the price they cost now, they're not something I would get. The large hubs are most 46 minute Japanese cassettes and the price that the Russian gougers pay for them on Yahoo auctions, I'm not likely to get hold of one of those either...
Vestel of Turkey is(or was?) Europe's largest producer of TVs, and washing machines.
BTW this is a very fascinating video. I love stuff like this. Yeh, I really enjoyed a video about cassette hubs. Perhaps do a video about the DNA of pressure pads?
Yeah, I forgot about them. One of the biggest TV manufacturers in the world.
Vestel get a bad rap, but they're actually pretty good and a much bigger company (which basically produces the entire TV in-house) than people realise! Panasonic have several rebranded TVs by them now.
Excellent video. Love this investigation-type analysis.
I was wondering though, could it be the case that big manufacturers sourced the parts to make their cassettes from different companies? Like an HP laptop nowadays might have a Toshiba hard drive and a Samsung screen.
If that was the case, then a hub manufacturer could supply many cassette manufacturers.
I'm sure it was. I guess we'll never know, but so far I'm pretty sure I'm at least 50% right 😀
@@CassetteComeback Didn't mean that you are wrong, just wondering if the big names just glued together the parts sourced from elsewhere, then sold the cassettes to others who then put their own brands on.
I remember getting cheap Elf Tone cassettes from a shop we called Cheap Jacks. 35p each I think they were, in the early or mid 80s. I think I have one knocking about somewhere.
Yeah, I think they're like watches. Lots of brands, but there are a few factories that actually make the parts, then they're nailed together somewhere else.
Actually Tudor looks exact same as Dessauer Magnetband GmbH or just ORWO, i have same tapes with original brand "Magnetic Sound" as Ferro-Magnetic (Type-1) and Chromatape (Type-2).
And Sony have another main hubs that used in HD-F, EF, Super EF, also in some CHF-ish series, and even earlier, you can see "crescent"-like hole placed opposite clip through little window (actually in most classic shells you can check hubs through that window). Maxell's "modern" hubs started with 1981 tapes, older tapes have very interesting hubs with really big retaining peg. I have Maxell's OEM Hitachi LN90 1980 with that hubs.
Are you sure about ORWO? AFAIK they only used solid hubs without spokes. homepage-creator.telekom.de/-/CMTOI/cm4all/com/widgets/PhotoToi/17/23/25/00/15a7d72b7e6/scale_1200_0%3Bdonotenlarge/15a7d72b7e6
I guess you mean the Schneider shells which DMB used in the early 90's: www.45spaces.com/i/16b4f360b50ff517
They are undoubtedly similar, and the hubs may even come from the same factory. But if you look closely at the inside layout of the Dessauer and the Tudor shell, you will find them to be different constructions.
Yes, but some Magnetic Sound tapes looks different: content.onliner.by/forum/7f6/407/121477/800x800/74e4f99daa48b501b982bddf0a19f8bc.jpg
Golden wrapper Teac CDX has a 86 TDK hubs....what do you make of that? I have few of those and those perform just as good as ad-x
loved your website alot of UK/EURO tapes not available here in Canada/USA,the shipping costs are prohibitive but i guess this a worldwide issue,but i will not rule out some purchases! Cheers!
Costs the same to ship 1 cassette as it does for 20...
Raks is daughter company of TDK!!
I have many Rakses in my collection!!
4.43 - this is not saehan hubs. Such hubs were used only by skc in korea for fuji\axia cessettes with japan made tapes. Looks like it was fuji hubs.
5.56 - second and third cassette with hubs made by China\Forward. It was oem cassette producer, it made cassettes for konica, jvc, panasonic
I have Philip's fx ferro 46 and they have similar hub to the tdk 3rd one down.
Bush used Strand (UK, now called Strand Europe Ltd and seem to have some license agreement with Kodak) for VHS tapes, and I believe these were made in the UK, possibly sharing some DNA with EMI. Is there anyone who knows whether Strand also made audiocassettes in the UK? Strand also made VHS tapes called BBC, MGM (DSG exclusive) and Goodmans up until about 2004. Then they used their own brand Mr. Video/Audio/DVD, and possibly outsourced.
Well, the first generation BBC audio cassettes were both made by Saehan. After that, I've had some Bush that were clearly RAKS, but the BBC next gen, well there was a RAKS Type 2, at least. Other than that, I think they were a RAKS / BASF outsource like the Woolworths cassettes.
Hey Tony, I just found this very extensive database about cassette hubs: www.ez647.sk/cc/audio_cievky.html and there seems to be also something about leader tapes. It's organized in such a way that you can trace not only the manufacturer, but the period in which the product was made!
I've got some Maxell SQs with Saehan hubs.
Maxell hubs always have distinct clips from other tape manufacturers.
I'm a bit confused about some JVC cassette tapes. I have a few JVC GI 90 and some of them are identical to the Goldstar/BBC/Bush cassettes you showed in this video while some others are Saehan (both with squared-styled hubs and with "basic" hubs as I call them) and that makes sense because they are OEM products but there's also some UF-I and UF-II, which I always tought were genuine JVC cassettes, that looks identical to the ICM of Switzerland/Boots with the "turbine" hubs 😳 (here in Italy ICM cassettes weren't so common so I don't know them very well).
So I'm wandering if ICM actually made some cassettes for JVC or they just look very similar (maybe only the hubs are identical but the tape is different?).
The JVC GI (the one with Goldstar hubs) sounded ok to my ears but I was very unlucky with one of them because the tape got tangled around the pinch roller of the deck of my Philips stereo and while trying to untangle it, I snapped the tape 😭😭
I don't like JVC cassettes except the early Dynarec. The rest are a mishmash with nothing particularly outstanding.
I remember TDK referring in their advertising literature to their hubs back in the late '70's as 'high circularity' and indeed, compared to cheaper brands at the time, their fully spooled cassette reel didn't have the flat spots that the cheaper competing brands clearly exhibited, which led to more even tape tension on the supply reel minimizing wow & flutter and azimuth wander
The late 70s TDK were very good.
tony you did not mention JVC cassettes in which ive got a lot off
In the late 90s-early 2000s, Woolworths only stocked Woolworths own brand, BASF/EMTEC and Memorex brand blank media (VHS, audiotape and CD/DVD). I think they had Scotch head cleaners too, possibly some TDK audiocassettes in larger stores. It seemed to me some deal was struck with BASF, as Woolies own VHS tapes were clearly BASF rebrands, and so it seemed to me were Memorex at this point (although they performed poorly). I'm not sure if same holds true for the audiotapes.
It might. I've heard many things about the Woolie own brand cassettes towards the end...Forward in HK, is one, but I think they were a BASF / RAKS hybrid. BASF supposedly outsourced video cassettes to RAKS, so it could well be that RAKS also made their OEM cassettes at one point.
@@CassetteComeback Hey, always great info from you.
I first started buying blanks in 98 and Woolies and Memorex videotapes in there were definitely BASF clones, complete with the blue windows. I bought a Woolies audiocassette around that time and it was the black clip version with the plain shell like in your other video. It lasted pretty well.
I only think you ever saw RAKS own brand tapes in Lidl, and they must've been OEMing for Konica and JVC at one point in the late 90s-early 00s, because I have VHS tapes that match that theory. There was definitely some RAKS/BASF sharing of technology or something.
Its amazing that I can get a 5 Pack of Maxell UR 90 cassettes for 7-8 Euro and they are of decent quality, and still you pay 12-13 Euro in Argos for them Bush C-60 Cassettes for only 4 of them, and the quality (sound and phisical) is terrible. I recorded one Bush tape and the ferric oxide shed all over my tape heads. Its make me wonder how Argos can sell the Bush tapes for such a high price and Golden Discs (the Irish version of HMV) can sell the Maxell tapes at a reasonable price. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. THE CHANNEL IS GREAT!
They're just hoping people don't know any different. The old Bush are good Cassettes though.
@@CassetteComeback I agree
Argos own the Bush brand, or rather, Sainsbury's supermarkets own Argos, who bought Bush, before they were bought by Sainsbury's.
i have a question for you.what can be done about a sticking tape,plays and stops cannot ff or rewind? any ideas? THANKS
Try a hand winder. If still no good, try putting the tape in a known good shell and try again. Still no good? Then I'm afraid it's toast.
In the 2000s there were quite a lot of type zero tapes dressed to look like better ones. They'd all have clear shells, but the hubs were always a giveaway. They were still using the same old 1960s-based hub design; plain, and the spindles were raised rather than being flat to the plastic surround. The two sides of the mould would frequently not match up properly either.
They got quite good at mimicking better tapes (and were sold by Strand among others in latter years) but the hubs haven't changed to this day.
You could usually distinguish a European tape from a far-Eastern one by looking at the hub clamps; the Euro ones had those tiny cylindrical clamps that were a bugger to reseat if the tape ever snapped, whereas the Eastern ones, from the Japanese to the Koreans to the nasty type zeros, all had the larger, squareish clamp.
The Strand cassettes I remember were branded as BBC / Bush / Sky and from the ones I've used were all good, mostly made by Saehan and Raks.
@@CassetteComeback Yes, the '90s tapes were fine. In the 2000s though (Strand Gold and Mr Audio) the quality declined precipitously.
no Teac?
I have a Philips tape that was supposedly made by Fuji with Seahan hubs, and a Fuji tape with SDK hubs.
Towards the end, cassettes just became "bitsa"...bitsa this and bitsa that.
Where do Strand Magnetics fit in to this? They made/marketed the BBC, Sky and Bush branded cassettes, very likely other small name UK electrical/electronics branded tapes.
Strand just sold cassettes, they didn't actually make any.
Did Pioneer make there own N1-60 tapes???
No. Pioneer were either Fuji or Denon made.
А как же обзор C46L?
Я только недавно узнал, что диаметр C46L = 27 мм. Фоток в сети не было, до последнего времени: forum.vegalab.ru/showthread.php?t=37369&p=2639517&viewfull=1#post2639517 .
Вопрос: разнообразие диаметров 20, 22, 27 мм, если ли ещё варианты?
Ещё вопрос: всё таки есть реальные фотографии C240? Или самая продолжительная была C180?
Ещё вопрос: какая максимальная продолжительность получится, если наполнить лентой из микрокассет? Утверждали, что больше 270 минут.
Did Funai ever make cassettes. They're a huge OEM, that made a lot of products for Amstrad, like their VCRs.
Or Tanashin, which AFAIK is the only company still making cassette transports
Don't know, never seen a Funai cassette. I liked their Laserdisc arcade games like Inter Stellar. I though Orion made most of the Amstrad stuff, according to Sugar's autobiography?
@@CassetteComeback I know a lot of the Amstrad TVs were Orion, I had one, a CTV1400 14in colour portable in 1983. It actually lasted me 10 years, with no problems at all. I had a friend in the repair trade, and remember him saying the Amstrad VCRs, and VCR/TV combos were Funai, because they were awful to work on. Things like to service mode switches, they had to unsolder and resolder a load of wires, instead of using plug connectors. Bush and Alba VCRs were Funai as well.
@@CassetteComeback Funai was a huge Japanese VHS OEM - making Philips, Sanyo, Thomson and Hitachi brand VCRs in late 90s-end of VHS.
The other huge Japanese OEM was Orion, who had assembly plant in the UK and made for store brands like Bush, Alba, ProLine, Matsui, ASDA and JMB. They both never made blank media. Another one was Daewoo, also with a UK factory (they bought it from Thomson and mostly made Thomson and DSG brand VCRs).
LG OEM'd for Philips, Sanyo and Aiwa.
Samsung OEM'd everything VHS for Toshiba and Sony since late 90s.
Hi Tony,John from NJ here.Isnt it true that if you use some of these cheap tapes you’ll mess up your heads in your decks?? Here in America we have some really BAD tapes,one is called CERTRON ,or something like that,if you look at the tapes it looks like sand paper😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Yeah, tape that looks dull or like sandpaper isn't good. Stick to brands that you know and you should be fine.
I personally run away from anything with the Goldstar logo or branding. Pretty much everything they made was subpar quality.
I've found the ones I've used to be decent, if unspectacular.
I don't think I've ever used a Goldstar cassette. Just everything else I have ever seen with a Goldstar label on it was junk.
Yeah, they were low rent back in the day, but then so was Samsung. How times change, now Toshiba and Sharp are rebranded crap...
Cassettes are the new cocaine...
Any cassettes from Russia did Russians make cassettes
quite a lot actually :P we/they came a long way from making German tape homages to producing tape under the license and with the equipment of the Germans, with own ideas and formulas stuffed inbetween 😄 Soviet cassettes on the whole are usually classified as "MK". Svema, Slavich and Tasma were the main tape producers (out of these, only Tasma is exactly Russian, Svema and Slavich are Ukrainian). During the last days of The Union and later into the early 90s, lots of small enterprises (some of them partially international) appeared. mainly Range and Ronees. The pinnacle though (IMHO) is ECP (=Electro-Chemical Plant). The very first specimens had a lot of resemblance with other "small enterprise grade" cassettes while the mid-90s ones had a "loaded with BASF tape" label on the wrapper and a strong resemblance to AGFA in terms of plastic components, probably using German tooling (and you can actually find BASF cassettes with the absolute same construction!). Starting from around the mid-late 90s, all ECPs were no longer "loaded with BASF tape" but "BASF technology".
I didn't say a word about the quality 😅 Not too much first-hand experience and it's past midnight now anyway 😴
Slavich is Russian too. Agree with the rest.