Cassettes - Help me to embrace them

[david lloyd jones]

buy several and flog them to 'jackasses'

[SinkSlopProcessing]

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.

You're assuming one can find a cassette deck that lasts for 30 purchases. My five decks combined did not last for 30 cassette purchases.

But you're right that any machine with so many moving parts is bound to fail eventually. Combine that with the more advanced age of these machines (compared to CD players), and you have the perfect recipe for failure. Which is why it's so discouraging that there's such a heavy emphasis on the format right now. I'm missing out on some great albums because I don't have the time or money to commit to repairing these damned things over and over.

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. 

Couldn't agree more. But everyone has voted with their wallets, and many stores dealing in experimental music stock mostly cassettes these days. Thus, based on their purchases, many people are dismissing artists' work if it's not on cassette. I wonder if the fad will wane once enough people reach the frustration level I'm at with the decks. Many did not experience this back in the 80s, and do not yet realize why CDs were welcomed with open arms when they arrived on the scene.

[calaverasgrande]

Meh. I have had tape decks in my last 3 cars. I almost never had any problem with them. I had a box of tapes and I'd blindly fumble with the tapes, then slam one into the deck. While driving 80mph down I-5 in California. I do not think that would work with CDs
Tapes are a totally robust format. A properly set up deck can get pretty damn close to the bandwidth of a CD, but not the noise floor.
The main thing that made CDs super popular was the ability to skip around, and not have to rewind. The durability of CDs is and has been terrible.

[Bleak Existence]

Word

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

Couldn't agree more. But everyone has voted with their wallets, and many stores dealing in experimental music stock mostly cassettes these days. Thus, based on their purchases, many people are dismissing artists' work if it's not on cassette. I wonder if the fad will wane once enough people reach the frustration level I'm at with the decks. Many did not experience this back in the 80s, and do not yet realize why CDs were welcomed with open arms when they arrived on the scene.

For a while I couldn't shake the feeling that CDs were basically expensive digital downloads. The digital aspect of it made it feel a bit like I was simply buying computerized music which I might as well download for free. For this reason, I turned back to tapes and vinyls, since these formats have a (perceived) higher level of physicality to them. I still like tapes and vinyls, partly for these reasons, but I've sort of lost my hostility/lack of interests in CDs. Perhaps because I now at times pay for a download once in a while as well, or perhaps because I've outgrown a temporary, somewhat pseudo-luddite prejudice?

[absurdexposition]

For a while I couldn't shake the feeling that CDs were basically expensive digital downloads. The digital aspect of it made it feel a bit like I was simply buying computerized music which I might as well download for free.

Still struggling with this myself.

[Andrew McIntosh]

Good to see this point being made. It's like buying something with too much packaging. As a physical format cds really are useless.

[SinkSlopProcessing]

Good to see this point being made. It's like buying something with too much packaging. As a physical format cds really are useless.

Near as I can see, CDs still have usefulness as a physical format (but bear in mind, this is coming from a born-again CD junkie. Your mileage may vary).

- A CD played through any halfway decent stereo setup will generally sound better than a digital file through one's computer (or *shudder*, a cell phone). Granted, there are now lossless music players in component form. But those will set you back quite a bit more money than a humble CD player.

- Backup purposes. Think of the CD as a backup for when your computer inevitably goes tits up. Yes, we all should really backup everything on our computers, but do you really update that every time you download a few albums? I definitely don't.

- The ritual. The same argument that is made for cassettes, vinyl, or any physical format holds true for CDs. Folks just like the ritual involved.

-They're shiny. So very shiny.... (hey, if people can fetishize vinyl & cassettes, I can fetishize CDs).

Are all these points reaching just a bit much? Mere stubbornness? Perhaps. But if we are indeed on the verge of an information dark age as some claim, then having a tangible record is important.

[absurdexposition]

Good to see this point being made. It's like buying something with too much packaging. As a physical format cds really are useless.

A CD played through any halfway decent stereo setup will generally sound better than a digital file through one's computer.

Lossless files through a decent soundcard (external, in my case), run through the stereo is going to be the exact same.

[Zeno Marx]

Good to see this point being made. It's like buying something with too much packaging. As a physical format cds really are useless.

A CD played through any halfway decent stereo setup will generally sound better than a digital file through one's computer.

Lossless files through a decent soundcard (external, in my case), run through the stereo is going to be the exact same.

indeed

[calaverasgrande]

yeah I have a mixer that my soundcard and record player are plugged in to.
Thence to an Adcom 535 and a pair of JBL 3ways from the 80's. It sounds just as good coming off of vinyl or digital. The digital goes much lower than the vinyl. The vinyl has a thicker bass sound.
CDs are only good for ripping MP3s. For daily driver playback, I hate CDs. They are way too skip prone.

[Theodore]

No, they are not exact the same. Digital file or the CD played in PC, going to a decent USB soundcard then to stereo, in theory will sound better than a CD player to stereo. A decent external soundcard has better DAC and clock than the cheap CD player. I say "in theory" cause i doubt anyone could really hear any difference though. Maybe if he has a crazy audiophile system to do the compare.

That said, CD is not useless. It becomes "useless" soundwise when there are lossless digital files available, cheaper. The audio output / sound character will be the same in both cases. As for the ritual and easy access, you can burn the files on a CDr. It's not the CD the "problem" here imo.

[SinkSlopProcessing]

Mark my words: in 10-15 years, CDs will come back into fashion. Replication costs will drop even further, nostalgia will set in for the old-timers, plus a new generation will rediscover them. And we'll have exactly the scenario we're now having with cassettes.

All (non-fringe) physical formats wax and wane in popularity. CDs will be no different.

[Zeno Marx]

I just wish physical space to own or rent lost some value too... maybe that's the next thing to fall cheap, as landlords realise younger people don't need large living spaces to contain all their stuff (it's all in the "cloud"), or younger generations will turn to semi-nomadic lifestyles through a future housing equivalent of Airbnb?

That's interesting, because a few weeks ago I listened to a conversation about Millennials buying homes as collectives and then moving from city to city within collective groups.  Own interest in a single home as part of a collective group, but then have access to many homes within the group.  There was even talk of owning parts of clothing wardrobes so they could be shared.  It had the vibe of old communes, but these were professionals making choices to have as many experiential options as possible and veering away from materialism.  Lots of money and buying power, but rather than buying stuff, buying into a quasi-nomadic lifestyle.

EDIT:  I should add that this was on a politically minded program.  It was part of a discussion about how labor laws, unions, property laws, and such will have to be re-written to change with how property and work has been, and will be, affected by "the shared economy."

[Andrew McIntosh]

Oh great, hippy capitalism, just what the world needs. California uber fucking alles.