Cassettes - Help me to embrace them

[david lloyd jones]

seems to be issues between the cassettes themselves and the means to play them.
as a boringly old fan, recent tapes have better sound quality - likely pro reproduction rather than tape to tape copying.
way back then it was a necessity, now it seems to be a choice.
that choice is not necessarily wrong- recent tapes are on the whole, great as far as overall sound goes (with some nostalgic extra hiss) as the general bass is better.

following a reply as typing, little to add, nothing to change.
cassettes are both fetishistic reminders of a 'better' past as well as an integral aesthetic of an anti establishment genre-ie you are heading to digital oblivion so I will head into an analog past

[Zeno Marx]

I thought Verbatim's a good brand! Going offtopic, but have you got any recommendations on good brands & places to order the CD-R's from?

Like most things, that depends on how much you want to spend.  You can buy archival media said to last 100 years, which is what places like the Smithsonian use, but it is pricey.  As a decent general rule, you want to buy media manufactured in Japan, but that will also cost you comparatively more. There are websites where you can type in the manufacturing codes to see where they're made, quality rating, etc.  They also tend to have photos of the different packaging so you can match up the blanks to the information and feedback.  Some burning software, like ImgBurn, will give you the manufacturing codes as it first reads the blank.  Verbatim made in Japan isn't the same, nor does it look like, Verbatim made in Taiwan.  Most Verbatim gets good ratings.  Also, like many things, they make a handful of different blanks and then screen print/brand them to order.  You'll buy a pack of Verbatims that read CM3-001, and then you'll buy a pack of Sony that also read CM3-001.

as a boringly old fan, recent tapes have better sound quality - likely pro reproduction rather than tape to tape copying.

This has not been my experience in the past and especially now.  Pro dubbing is all done on high-speed machines, and a lot of places use Type I tape.  Neither make for great copying.  From my understanding, it is common for dubbing facilities to not have stereo capabilities.  They mono it and mirror it over to the other channel.  I've had great dubbing luck with average quality machines in real time with Type II blanks.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

you are heading to digital oblivion so I will head into an analog past

This forum is full of potential T-shirt prints. This may be my favorite so far.

[JuhoN]

I got 3 decks / decs broken.

First was like combination cassette and cd player 100€
Second was like handheld walkman style player 20€
Third (and the last) 2nd hand cassette deck 40€ broke down just after 1-weekend of use.

I'm not going to get 4th.

[Theodore]

I got 3 decks / decs broken.

First was like combination cassette and cd player 100€
Second was like handheld walkman style player 20€
Third (and the last) 2nd hand cassette deck 40€ broke down just after 1-weekend of use.

I'm not going to get 4th.

If you had given at first 160 to buy one from a reliable technician, more likely you would have a deck now and you would have saved yourself from frustration. Seriously guys, we get what we pay. You expect to find a perfect working / condition deck with 40 and this to last for long ? You must be extremely lucky ! The problem is that seems reliable dedicated technicians who really care to do a perfect work are not many around. As for the indeed somewhat high prices ... Have you checked how much reliable calibration test tapes cost ? Or have you disassembled a deck to pieces and screws ? Plus the electronics to be checked. It's not i changed a belt and it's ready.

[Potier]

With tape decks it really depends. I bought most of my current decks at thrift stores throughout the years. Cleaned them up and did some very minor adjustments to them. I have a 90s Technics deck that I bought for 10 bucks and I've been using it for like 4 years straight without any issues. Got an old Harman Kardon in my living room that I bought for 20 bucks. Never had any issues. I have plenty of backup decks in case one craps out...but I never spent more than 40 dollars on any deck I own. In the last 2 years it's been harder to find them in the thrift stores though. I suppose that's because of the resurgence of tape-releases etc. If you know where to look, you can definitely get lucky. Spending money doesn't always help. Buddy of mine bought 2 older Nakamichi-Decks last year for big bucks and they both crapped out within a month or so...he probably spent more on those two than I spent on the like 8 decks I currently own.

[JuhoN]

I got 3 decks / decs broken.

First was like combination cassette and cd player 100€
Second was like handheld walkman style player 20€
Third (and the last) 2nd hand cassette deck 40€ broke down just after 1-weekend of use.

I'm not going to get 4th.

If you had given at first 160 to buy one from a reliable technician, more likely you would have a deck now and you would have saved yourself from frustration. Seriously guys, we get what we pay. You expect to find a perfect working / condition deck with 40 and this to last for long ? You must be extremely lucky ! The problem is that seems reliable dedicated technicians who really care to do a perfect work are not many around. As for the indeed somewhat high prices ... Have you checked how much reliable calibration test tapes cost ? Or have you disassembled a deck to pieces and screws ? Plus the electronics to be checked. It's not i changed a belt and it's ready.

I have no problem paying 20€ for vinyl LP. But it just feels bad to pay 200€ for cassette deck.
It's just matter of time anyways before it eats cassette to unlistenable condition.

[Theodore]

I have no problem paying 20€ for vinyl LP. But it just feels bad to pay 200€ for cassette deck.
It's just matter of time anyways before it eats cassette to unlistenable condition.

It's just matter of time before we all die, true. How much did you pay for your turntable, amp, pre-amp, speakers ? Your TV ? How much do you spend for beers ? Rhetoric questions. Oh well, i am not trying to convince anyone to spend money on anything, neither to say that something expensive means it's good. But when someone put some work on something, took care of it, that thing won't be cheap.

[david lloyd jones]

my basic cassette player com duplicator, com digitiser is great. cheap and functional.

as for cassettes themselves, there is clearly a recent fetish to replicate what was once an economic necessity, later fetishized both as object and also for sound.
at the end of the day, there are most folks who will buy and listen to whatever comes out in whatever format, cassette being only one of a number...

[SinkSlopProcessing]

How much did you pay for your turntable, amp, pre-amp, speakers ? Your TV ? How much do you spend for beers ? Rhetoric questions. Oh well, i am not trying to convince anyone to spend money on anything, neither to say that something expensive means it's good. But when someone put some work on something, took care of it, that thing won't be cheap.

See, that defeats the purpose of cassettes for me. It's supposed to be a cheap, accessible format, and yet I've now spent way more money trying to play them than I have on any other format.

I've never spent one cent to be able to play CDs. Because at any given time, I've always had no less than 5 devices just lying around that could play them: Blu-ray player, DVD player, game consoles old and new, computer disc drives, etc. I'll bet the same is true where you live, too.

[Theodore]

See, that defeats the purpose of cassettes for me. It's supposed to be a cheap, accessible format, and yet I've now spent way more money trying to play them than I have on any other format.

I've never spent one cent to be able to play CDs. Because at any given time, I've always had no less than 5 devices just lying around that could play them: Blu-ray player, DVD player, game consoles old and new, computer disc drives, etc. I'll bet the same is true where you live, too.

It was supposed to be the cheapest and most accessible format, still is cheap and accessible but not the most. There are CDr + digital files.

Let's do some maths. Tape costs 6-7 euro. CD costs 11-12 euro. 5 euro more. Let's say a CD player is free and an deck [not top, but serviced to last for years] costs 150. After 30 purchased releases you are even.

I understand your problem isn't with cassette format itself but with the decks, and you are partially right. They can cause frustration and lost money. I know it myself too, firsthand. But do you know many machines with motors, rubber parts, electronics and every kind of micro parts, that work perfectly after 30 years without a good service ? Even in this aspect, decks are good, still you can find units at low price that with a minimum work they will perform decently for quite some time. And if they have a proper FULL service, they will have many trouble-free years in front of them.

Anyway, to return to topic's title, noone can help you to embrace cassettes other than good tapes playbacked by a good deck. If even then you don't like them, then they are not for you. Nothing wrong. Everyone has his preferences.

[calaverasgrande]

Yeah it is kind of frustrating trying to find a decent tape deck. I don't get the prices? It's an obsolete format, and the fidelity was never that great. But you go up on Ebay and people are asking absurd prices for 25 year old decks. Likely with gummy pinch rollers and rusty heads.

My pain is that I have about a dozen board tapes that I want to get digitized. I'm mostly just going to put them in my itunes, but figure I'll probably post them on youtube for other people to hear as well.

[NO PART OF IT]

as a boringly old fan, recent tapes have better sound quality - likely pro reproduction rather than tape to tape copying.

This has not been my experience in the past and especially now.  Pro dubbing is all done on high-speed machines, and a lot of places use Type I tape.  Neither make for great copying.  From my understanding, it is common for dubbing facilities to not have stereo capabilities.  They mono it and mirror it over to the other channel.  I've had great dubbing luck with average quality machines in real time with Type II blanks.

Those hi-speed dubbing machines are more often used in a DIY context by labels, so if something is not "pro printed" IE with imprints on the shells, I suspect someone is using a worn out dubber (they wear out fast), and saying it is "pro dubbed".   

The experience I have had with pro tapes is very good.  It is exactly what I want from a tape; A minimal amount of hiss, good dynamics, and I can use Chrome, Cobalt, Type II High Bias, or whatever, for not much of a price difference.  Very good dynamics, since we are still talking about relatively lo-fidelity compared to CD, but I will admit, I am a believer in the whole "warmth" thing.  I think tapes and vinyl have a more organic quality to them, especially when rendered from analog sources. 

I just want to say, I don't have any nostalgia for tapes, they have never left my realm.  I bought only cassettes up until 2001 or so, mainly because discmen skipped too much, among other things, but this new fad of people "only buying tapes" is just vapid and tedious to me, for someone to broadly dismiss another person's work, even their favorite artists, because of format. Plain silly. 

That said, I continue to listen to cassettes because walkmans are cheap.  I haven't had the best of luck with dual tape decks since the one I had since childhood finally died last year.   

[JuhoN]

I end up buying this cheap cassette converter for 20€. It actually plays cassettes better than I expected.

I convert audio and save it to cd-r

[calaverasgrande]

My other great annoyance in this regard is that I live in NYC. Where anything older than 20 years is 'vintage' and some jackass is trying to make a fat buck off of it.  There are no crusty old men with stores full of rebuilt consumer electronics.  It would cost too much in rent to be able to justify such a store. Also it seems that none of the Goodwill or Salvation Army type stores are very good in this regard.  Maybe I need to go on a road trip to the heartland to buy a deck.