Anyone still into audio casettes?

Electric Grave

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Revocate the agitator, Revocate the agitator, Revocate the agitator, Revocate the agitator...
 

norton9478

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Thanks for the comments everyone.

F4U57, that's a fucking boss library. Black metal tapes are so deep, I can't even begin to fathom trying to collect that genre. I'm more of a thrash/death guy anyway, but for real those are some impressive tapes.

norton, lemme see those thrash and speed tapes :)

I end up getting most of my tapes on Facebook groups or through Discogs. Very rarely do I find a tape in the wild that I'm actually interested in.

Nothing special

Ride the Lighting
Dead On - Dead on
Testament - Souls of Black.

and some wasted youth and pestilence... But those are sealed.
 

F4U57

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F4U57, that's a fucking boss library. Black metal tapes are so deep, I can't even begin to fathom trying to collect that genre. I'm more of a thrash/death guy anyway, but for real those are some impressive tapes.

Thanks man. A lot of BM not only sounds better on tape, but a lot of bands only release certain material on tape. If it's on the net, it's because someone has ripped it and uploaded it. Plenty of stuff can often times go unheard. It's a great genre to collect for, definitely.
 

EllertMichael

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I've lost almost all of my tapes. Missing for years, this one turned up Easter Sunday.


View attachment 44226

...And just like that I'm instantly back to cruising around in a red '92 Mazda 323. Awesome find!

I used to have a cassette rack hanging on the wall in my old apartment, but unfortunately they've been boxed up in storage ever since the move.
 

norton9478

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Can anyone recommend a stand alone Dolby SR unit?

I'm thinking of getting one to do both cassette and open real mix tapes. Now if I could get a Dolby SR unit and slow my RTR down to 1 7/8" ips... That would be ace. Nearly six and half hours per side.
 

GregN

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My Dad's Buick Lesaber that I drive sometimes has a tape deck in it, so I have the Mama's and the Papas, Enya, Tears for Fears, Metallica, The Jesus and Mary Chain tapes. I'll be on the lookout for others at Goodwill.
 

Electric Grave

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Rolling some tapes today...

Dio Sacred Heart
Massacre From Beyond
Ozzy Blizzard of Oz
Overkill Taking Over
Black Sabbath Heaven & Hell
 

madman

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Can anyone recommend a stand alone Dolby SR unit?

I'm thinking of getting one to do both cassette and open real mix tapes. Now if I could get a Dolby SR unit and slow my RTR down to 1 7/8" ips... That would be ace. Nearly six and half hours per side.

What kind of deck are you using for recording cassettes?
 

norton9478

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What kind of deck are you using for recording cassettes?

Whatever I pick up for $5, until it stops working.

If I bother to Pick up a Belt for my TEAC A120 Piano key deck, I would use that.

I would like to find a nice Dragon on the cheap.

But the SR stand alone unit would be more for the Reel to Reel stuff.

How good do SR encoded tapes sound without the decoder? Or with a B decoder? My reason for doing cassette mixes would be more for portable devices.
 
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madman

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Whatever I pick up for $5, until it stops working.

If I bother to Pick up a Belt for my TEAC A120 Piano key deck, I would use that.

I would like to find a nice Dragon on the cheap.

But the SR stand alone unit would be more for the Reel to Reel stuff.

How good do SR encoded tapes sound without the decoder? Or with a B decoder? My reason for doing cassette mixes would be more for portable devices.

SR I don't know much about, B is really just a treble compression scheme. Playing back a B encoded tape without B will just result in increased treble. It does nothing to reduce noise that way, though some find the increased highs preferable.

If you do manage to find a Dragon on the cheap, be prepared to spend a few hundred having it fixed up. I have one and it is not a low maintenance deck. If the heads aren't aligned properly it can cause the NAAC to kill itself while it tries to adjust the playback azimuth endlessly. Unless it's been serviced it'll need plenty of work. You also need to clean the tape path religiously. It's certainly worthy of its legendary status, but it's a bit of a money pit.
 

Tripredacus

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This setup with the EQ on top (this is a testing image) finally has fixed the sound of the tape deck.
PIbD5cVl.jpg


Technics stereo equalizer
Sony STR-AV710 with DBFB enabled, and another EQ there, default setting "E" in the pic, will change because it does not remember when power is removed.
Pioneer CT-M55R six cassette changer.
 

Tech&Music

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I actually came across a Dutch newspaper article earlier this year, about the resurgence of the cassette. The article is basically a write up of pieces of conversation between Lou Ottens, the 91 year old former Philips engineer who invented the cassette, and Thomas Baur, a guy who recently took over the last cassette duplication plant in the Netherlands. It's quite a good read if you can understand Dutch, as Ottens just does not understand why people still bother with cassettes or records, he just thinks people that think those physical formats are better due to the experience you get using them, are lunatics. It's just a shame Google Translate butchers the article.

There's an English interview with Lou Ottens from 2013 on The Register as well, also a good read as Ottens really goes deep into the history of how the cassette tape came to be the icon it is now. Figured there'd be some people in this thread that would like to see this.
 
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madmanjock

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I get Vinyl, I get flac flawless rips... but tape? That shit is just nostalga surely. Horrible sound quality.

Not a reason not to collect them, album covers and rare releases, sure I get that. Just a bit confused people would choose to listen to tape in 2018 if there was an alternative.
 

madman

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I get Vinyl, I get flac flawless rips... but tape? That shit is just nostalga surely. Horrible sound quality.

Not a reason not to collect them, album covers and rare releases, sure I get that. Just a bit confused people would choose to listen to tape in 2018 if there was an alternative.

Tapes can and do sound good on a decent deck. I'm not talking about some dual well shitbox or one of these new Chinaman specials that top out at 12KHz. Pre-recorded tapes of course have their limitations and will never sound as good as a homemade tape using a quality cassette or LP/CD. There are people who believe anything "analog" (even a tape made from a 16/44.1 source) sound better than CDs, FLACs, etc, but they're only fooling themselves. The cassette will never return to the mainstream and for good reason. Better, cheaper alternatives exist for playing music on the go.
 

itsofrustratin

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I get Vinyl, I get flac flawless rips... but tape? That shit is just nostalga surely. Horrible sound quality.

Not a reason not to collect them, album covers and rare releases, sure I get that. Just a bit confused people would choose to listen to tape in 2018 if there was an alternative.

just pure nostalgia basically. I wonder if VHS will follow suit
 

sylvie

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just pure nostalgia basically. I wonder if VHS will follow suit

VHS is great! I do not care about films that come out these days but I can get pretty much all my favorite stuff on tape for super fucking cheap. I don't mind the rewind. ;)
 

StevenK

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just pure nostalgia basically. I wonder if VHS will follow suit

Whilst the format was shit, that doesn't take anything away from some of the players. The best portable cassette players were far nicer pieces of equipment than any portable cd player, and weren't outdone until the best portable minidisc players in my eyes.
 

-SD-

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There’s a couple of good Techmoan videos on audio tapes and tape quality, well worth watching.

I used to have the slim rechargeable Walkmans with the remote on the headphone lead... it came everywhere with me during my late teens to early 20s. I went through a couple of them over the years, the new one was just the updated model of the previous one.

I always wanted a Minidisc Walkman but that never happened...
 
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