Now you need a Sony Walkman 😉

I'm actually thinking about it, but I don't know where I would actually need a portable cassette player. 😜

Not really. Most of my old cassettes are warped from being in my car many years ago. I still listen to my metal tapes (mix tapes) made ages ago on decent equipment. Have a bunch of new blank metal and chrome tapes if I need to make more copies (my car is a 2002 dodge and it has a cassette tape player).

Nobody makes Metal tapes anymore, just FE and Chrome.

Hmm, which is better, FE, Chrome, or Metal?

I used to know this stuff, having been a big cassette guy myself 🤣

I do know, however, that analog tape of sufficient width, recorded on professional equipment at sufficient speed, is practically indistinguishable from modern CD-quality digital recordings. In fact, that was the primary recording method all the way from Bing Crosby (who popularized tape in the first place) until the digital era.

Try listening to some Dave Brubeck recordings from the mid-50's. They were recorded on analog tape, and yet they sound like they could have been recorded yesterday.

Oh man I used to love my Sony dual deck player / recorder. I do miss the durability of tapes - they'd slide around on the car floor for years and still work A-OK. If I saw a good example of that Sony unit I'd probs buy it but I can't see myself actually listening to tapes again - Spotify / Youtube is just too easy. In saying that though I usually just listen to the same old rubbish I was listening to on tape / CD back in the day 😵

I do understand why you snapped up that Magnavox though King_C ! Very cool!

Lol yeah that's exactly what my justification for putting a cassette player in my car was, they are just totally invincible (for the most part)! Also yeah it's nice having some physical media in a world where everything relies on the internet. 😁

Also @keen my understanding is that FE is common but can be a crap shoot ranging from cheap garbage to perfectly good sounding tape. If buying those to record with buy brands you know. I have heard that FE has good bass response compared to metal. Whereas metal is supposed have better highs and have less tape noise, chromium is a mediation of both. Both Chrome and metal are more expensive than FE and less common as well.

Also I don't know if anyone here listens to Retrowave or similar genres of music but a lot of those artists are putting out their albums on cassette. Retrowave music is basically 80's cinematic meets dance music, so to have that stuff on cassette is just really neat. 🤣

Here's a sample of retrowave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnBgowKwwT0

Oh and I was just in my local Walmart looking for something and happened to notice in their "sound section" a modern company (Onn) that also makes computer peripherals is selling 90 minute cassettes new in packs as well as a new portable recorder / player, like those older flat ones with a speaker at one end and the handle at the other. It was pretty bizarre seeing that there. 🤣

Actually, I've got five at home.

- A "modern" (less than 10 years) cassette with analog radio and CD. Nothing interesting, I used this to play music while painting and doing home maintenance.

- A Sanyo recorder (walkman sized). With a custom amplifier, I used it to load games into my ZX Spectrum +.

- An "old" (about 15 years) Philips walkman with analog radio. Not used anymore.

- An old (25 years or so) school Dixon cassette like this:

It can load and save programs into my ZX Spectrum without using amplifiers (modern cassettes don't have the same output level as old ones, and can't be used directly with old computers like MSX, Amstrad CPC or Sinclair ZX Spectrum).

- An even older (from late 70s) Vanica cassette player:

I've used this one to load things on my ZX Spectrum, but it don't work very well. I've replaced some capacitors and cleaned it, but the speaker often don't work (I guess it has bad contacts.

Also, I've got a CD to cassette adaptor (one of those that resembles a tape with a wire) to use other sound sources with that cassettes and a cassette shaped mp3 like this one. It fits inside a tape player, so I can copy directly files into a SD card and put it on my old computers.

I guess that is not collection (because I'm thinking about selling/getting ridden of cassettes 1, 3 and 5 and keep the portable recorder and the Dixons one (I only need cassettes for my retro activities). The same can apply to tapes: I only have some computer tapes, and one audio tape that contains some recording done with my friends too many years ago.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Ok so this is weird but I just recently got interested in cassettes again. I used to think they were the worst and CD's were the way to go back in the 90's and 2000's but now years later I recently gave cassettes a second chance and was surprised to find out that the audio quality was actually quite good if you didn't mind sitting through songs you didn't like or guesstimating where the next song started with FFW

Actually, a smart deck uses the pauses between songs as a cue to skip songs when using FFW. 😀

I have one of these, but rarely use it:

The sound quality is pretty nice if the tape hasn't stretched from too much use. I still wouldn't collect them as I prefer vinyl/CD.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Also @keen my understanding is that FE is common but can be a crap shoot ranging from cheap garbage to perfectly good sounding tape. If buying those to record with buy brands you know. I have heard that FE has good bass response compared to metal. Whereas metal is supposed have better highs and have less tape noise, chromium is a mediation of both. Both Chrome and metal are more expensive than FE and less common as well.

Aha. Now you've got me interested in tape again, I'm going to see if I can get some good quality stuff and make a mixtape with my Yamaha tapedeck 😀 (edit: it's actually one of those "smart decks", works pretty well)

King_Corduroy wrote:

Also I don't know if anyone here listens to Retrowave or similar genres of music but a lot of those artists are putting out their albums on cassette. Retrowave music is basically 80's cinematic meets dance music, so to have that stuff on cassette is just really neat. 🤣

Here's a sample of retrowave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnBgowKwwT0

Ooh, that's cool! Someone please do an OPL3 cover of this, please please!

I'm using vintage 1980's loudspeakers, and vintage 1970's amplifier, but my source is strictly digital, because tape degrades with each usage. There are fellow audiophiles that are quite crazy about tape, though. Usually they tend to go for Nakamichi Dragon, since it's probably the best tape deck ever made.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Hmm, which is better, FE, Chrome, or Metal? […]
Show full quote

Hmm, which is better, FE, Chrome, or Metal?

I used to know this stuff, having been a big cassette guy myself 🤣

I do know, however, that analog tape of sufficient width, recorded on professional equipment at sufficient speed, is practically indistinguishable from modern CD-quality digital recordings. In fact, that was the primary recording method all the way from Bing Crosby (who popularized tape in the first place) until the digital era.

Try listening to some Dave Brubeck recordings from the mid-50's. They were recorded on analog tape, and yet they sound like they could have been recorded yesterday.

Then you may be interested in this article. That guy recorded from Oracle Delphi Mark V with Koetsu Urushi Blue moving cartridge into blank tape using his Nakamichi Dragon tape deck, and the result is indistinguishable from reel-to-reel recording.

Who else has a reel to reel recorder?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

There are fellow audiophiles that are quite crazy about tape, though. Usually they tend to go for Nakamichi Dragon, since it's probably the best tape deck ever made.

The Dragon has it's fans and detractors. Many prefer the Nak RX-505 because of it's more traditional calibrations.

Errius wrote:

Who else has a reel to reel recorder?

I actually do also. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

Errius wrote:

Who else has a reel to reel recorder?

I actually do also. 🤣

Now there's oldschool. I use mine to listen to my dad's mixtapes from the early 70s.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Errius wrote:

Who else has a reel to reel recorder?

I actually do also. 🤣

I have one, but the recording head is broken 🙁

Tape.. Please, no. I don't mind DAT/DLT for servers, but I've little interest in either audio or data cassettes. I've got both a proper tape deck, plus a data recorder for an MSX. The five minute load time and the reliability are a pain, floppy, CD and hard disks were such an improvement.

I really must encode all my old data cassette tapes as MP3, and use an MP3 player..

Pre-recordered tapes, other then country, our German Slager, is hard to find here. I do have some pre-recordered tapes, from Queen, Bryan May, Turn up the Bass, and a few others.
Also have a collection of about 50 tapes.
Metal is the best, but you need a good tapedeck that can handle metal tape, since it needs different settings.
Also recorded using dolby c or s. Always make sure that if you use dolby, that you select the correct dolby setting when playing the tape.
Also a nice tapedeck is also nice to have, best with 3heads. Almost bought a nice yamaha deck a few months ago, 3 heads, dolby s, but it didn't work.

Check this video from techmoan.
https://youtu.be/jVoSQP2yUYA