Cassettes still rock!

Inspired by this discussion, I hooked up the old, disused Rotel 960 cassette player to the preamp and simply inserted a home-recorded Maxell XLII-S from mid-1987 at the precise where it was last stopped, decades ago. Figured many degradable parts of both cassette and player would be shot and in need of an earlier poster's personal tech rehab person. Not so far! Instantly I heard 10,000 Maniacs just as it would have sounded decades ago -- probably better, given some updated electronics since then. 

The idea had occurred to me, but never got around to it before reading this. Glad I did! True, I never bought Akai or Nakamichi, so that quality is unattainable. But given what it is, a bonanza. Thanks for the thread.

Anachronistic enthusiasms always hit the dead end of original context.

Cassette was invented to lift the hassles of LP.
CD was invented to lift the hassles of cassettes.
Computer-based formats were invented to lift the hassles of CDs.

Go back to your earliest surviving, coherent Maxell cassettes -- in my case, home-recorded in 1977. Quickly you'll remember that what on cassette requires precisely-timed rewind, fast-forward, or tedious record-over, can now be accomplished at the touch of a remote player button.

Sound quality? As noted by OP and many others, cassette is great. Heard some obscure gems from 30-40 years ago that sounded better tonight than ever before. This old analog cassette medium is divine.

The knock on cassette is not sonics. It's hassle, outright impracticality, and, come to that, obsolescence. If you have cassettes that you still want to hear unedited, that still turn at the intended speed (Maxell, most likely), and still own a working player with working remote, then by all means incorporate the old device in your current system and use as desired or needed. Otherwise? Put all available desired content on a digital playlist, click by remote to a good DAC and beyond, and spare yourself a world of hassle.