LogicprObe Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I missed that one too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEN MISTER Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Mobile Fidelity did a short run of early titles on Chrome tape. I still have the " Wheels of Fire" packed away somewhere. ZM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I remember someone doing them in real time ages ago but they were expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emesbee Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Does anyone remember the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) which was developed and released by Philips and Matushita in 1992. It was much more advanced than the existing cassette but made no inroads into the market and was soon abandoned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette I remember reading about that at the time, but never actually came across them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emesbee Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 The audio cassette was never originally meant as a hi fidelity medium. It was meant for use in dictation machines. It was only due to improvements in tape formulations, and the development of noise reduction systems to compensate for its inherent limitations that enabled it to become a higher quality medium. For all its limitations, I think its actually quite remarkable that it was eventually able to achieve the level of performance that it did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Funnily enough, the lurid piece of plastic shite that my two year old attached herself to at yesterday's fete stall was a portable cassette player. It comes as no surprise that the Dora The Explorer model with built in speaker and microphone has flown somewhere under the audiophile radar. I am nevertheless baffled that Dora and cassette tapes could converge in a 2003 toy. I long ago my tape collection to a mate's dad's coast shack. But I still have a few lying around - James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and some blanks - to make it less frightful than some battery operated torture devices. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surprisetech Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 I have 2 cassette decks still plugged in and ready to roll. Doesn't happen much tho. Me too. Yammy KX-500A in the garage system. I store all the tapes in the same cabinet, so it still gets used regularly. NAD 613 in the main system which rarely gets used now. Tapes are a mix of pre-recorded albums, copies of my vinyl that I made to play in the car, recordings from FM radio and live recordings. Always used TDK-SA, Maxell or Hitachi UD/UDXL, etc. and the majority have held up really well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 (edited) copies of my vinyl that I made to play in the carBack when it took time and effort to make a tape. Especially if it was a compilation and track selection and play order had to be made. It could take a whole weekend just to make a 90min tape...... I kinda miss that sometimes to be honest. The hands-on, real-time factor of putting together a mixtape. But I do love the ease of tick tick tick click burn MP3CD done. Edited March 30, 2014 by Dirty_vinylpusher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyse1 Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Noticed portable and cassette tape players appearing in a few current pop videos; Replay - Zendaya, rather be - clean bandit. Is Cassette tape making a resurgence as the cool "new" old format for audio playback? I hope not 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surprisetech Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Does anyone remember the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) which was developed and released by Philips and Matushita in 1992. It was much more advanced than the existing cassette but made no inroads into the market and was soon abandoned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette It was an early implementation of a perceptual audio codec. i.e. similar to MP3. Provided much better S/N ratio than the Cassette, but was not CD quality. http://www.mp3-tech.org/programmer/docs/audiopaper1.pdf "D. PRECISION ADAPTIVE SUBBAND CODING (PASC) Phillips Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is an example of a consumer product which essentially implements the 384 kb/s stereo mode of MPEG-1, layer I." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blk plastic Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I have boxes of tapes,from things friends have taped for me, vinyl I've copied over myself,original album cassette releases,and cassette singles.Always tried to use good quality blanks, TDK and/or Maxell chrome.I still have a tape player in my work vehicle and wouldn't swap it for anything. Keeps me connected to my youth,and the way I see it , that ain't a bad thing.Some of these whipper snappers today could take a lesson from that. Good music will hold up no matter how many years have passed regardless of what medium it's presented on.Tape on I say! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Maxell was my favourite tape on R to R and cassette. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kab Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I've found this site useful for exploring the hipster culture http://diehipster.wordpress.com Love it!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Love it!. Man.............that guy hates them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kab Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Man.............that guy hates them! Yes, The way he describes the beatings is pure poetry. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hergest Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 There is certainly some renewed interest in cassettes that could be described as a passing phase, i don't know where it's come from. The last few years have seen silly prices for NOS tape on Ebay from the 80s but not for pre recorded tapes. Hardly surprising as they are rarely anything worth shouting about. I still use cassettes as i have 2 decks here at home and both cars have tape decks. Since 1979 i've been making mix tapes of the latest singles i've bought plus 1 track each from recent lp purchases starting from the first which was brilliantly titled 'Various 1' I'm currently half way through 'Various 136' and as mentioned above it isn't a quick effort to record them all. The recording is easy but i have to know well all the lps i've recently bought to work out what 1 track to put on the tape and in what order. Sometimes my favourite track gets left off because another track will segue better in the mix. You can't have 3 in a row of the same key for instance or in the same style and you have to have a bit of an epic to end side 1 and a slow burner to start side 2 with a corker to round off the whole but nor let any of it ebb so someone touches the fast forward search. A cassette revival will never take off though in the way that vinyl has because of the lack of decent machines. There are still a lot of old ones around although some are frighteningly complex to work on but nobody makes anything other than fairly ordinary quality new ones. A 3 head Dolby S direct drive new model is out of the question. The research and tooling to make one to sell to a tiny market would make no sense.In comparison when vinyl seemed to be going down the toilet forever in the 90s you could still buy beer budget turntables or mid fi acceptable ones or top of the range mortgage the house type superb machines and pretty much anything in between. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 My cassette cover inserts were always top notch. I had made up a template in the Paint program (talking pre Windows-95 here) and I'd type, cut, drag and paste the track list in to the rectangle which would be the front of the cover and type the name of the mix or album in bigger font size for the spine. Print it, carefully cut it out, make sharp folds with a ruler to make it sit nicely in the case and secure it with a tiny bit of stickytape. The track list was printed in landscape orientation which worked better in terms of font size and use of space with side A and B track list side by side Everyone were very impressed by my neat covers. As my dad worked in the computer industry during the 80's onwards and we always had a PC in the house. I was one of the few kids at the time who had a computer at home, let alone had actually used one. Funny how things change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkaramazov Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Does anyone remember the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) which was developed and released by Philips and Matushita in 1992. It was much more advanced than the existing cassette but made no inroads into the market and was soon abandoned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette and then there was the other failed format, which failed earlier, Elcaset: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset Some gorgeous machines out there that nobody has ever seen: http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-EL-7.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I had a quick look through one of my boxes this morning Here's a few of the cassingles along with an unopened blank, one of my hand drawn covers and one which i made on the computer a long time ago. While this isn't one of the neatest ones you get the gist. Seems I was in a hurry cutting that one out haha. And the spine Jesus and Mary Chain and Sisters Of Mercy. Happy days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stump Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 Nakamichi 1000zxl LTD GOLD (When only the best will do) One for sale on audiogon for those who want a cassette player upgrade!! http://app.audiogon.com/listings/tape-decks-nakamichi-1000zxl-ltd-gold-2014-04-04-miscellaneous-5730001 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 Mobile Fidelity did a short run of early titles on Chrome tape. I still have the " Wheels of Fire" packed away somewhere. ZM. I had many cassettes for my car audio system. I discovered 'chrome' and 'metal' tapes by accident. I used to 'borrow' (never to return) my parent 'blank tapes' to tape all of their records onto so I could play them in my car. When I played back one of the tapes it sounded much clearer and had more punch (compared to the other tapes). I realized it was a 'metal' tape! That was the last time I ever played a 'standard' tape again! Went out and bought 'Metal' and 'chrome' tapes from then on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saxon Hall Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 I had many cassettes for my car audio system. I discovered 'chrome' and 'metal' tapes by accident. I used to 'borrow' (never to return) my parent 'blank tapes' to tape all of their records onto so I could play them in my car. When I played back one of the tapes it sounded much clearer and had more punch (compared to the other tapes). I realized it was a 'metal' tape! That was the last time I ever played a 'standard' tape again! Went out and bought 'Metal' and 'chrome' tapes from then on! TDK had a Category of Tapes they called SA (Super Avilyn) which would utilise the Chrome setting on most players. Maybe it was just what TDK called their Chrome tapes ? but the sound they produced was superb. They were a lot cheaper than the Metal tapes and they were basically the only tapes I used. They have lasted very well and still sound good https://tapetardis.wordpress.com/tag/super-avilyn/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 (edited) TDK had a Category of Tapes they called SA (Super Avilyn) which would utilise the Chrome setting on most players. Maybe it was just what TDK called their Chrome tapes ? but the sound they produced was superb. They were a lot cheaper than the Metal tapes and they were basically the only tapes I used. They have lasted very well and still sound good https://tapetardis.wordpress.com/tag/super-avilyn/ Yeh, I had loads of the TDKs! I think they had 'S', 'SA', SAX' etc. They were 'chrome' tapes. It's the only reason they sounded 'superb'! Edited April 5, 2014 by surfpurple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hergest Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 (edited) Yes, the Super Avilyn were superb and very robust. This SA 90 is Various 28 from November 1983 and it still sounds very good indeed. Edited April 5, 2014 by Hergest 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jezzaboogie Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 I went to a 90s wankers hipsters party last year where the host had a bought an old tape deck and encouraged people to bring their old tapes. When I turned up they were playing music from a laptop through his hifi. I of course insisted we put on the Prince tapes I had brought along and we were actually blown away by the sound quality. It sounded really REALLY good -- at least in comparison to crappy headphone out of the laptop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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