Cassettes still rock!

Back when, i rarely used the Nakamichi deck to listen to cassettes--just to record for use in the car.  If sound quality degraded over time i just re-recorded the vinyl.  Now though, having lost so many vinyl albums in the flood, i have some cassettes that still rock--audiophile quality, no, but better than buying CD's of the same. Gotta agree with GK only i think the % of well recorded CD's is less than 15%.  Never jumped on the SACD train so those might be pretty good.  Pre-recorded cassettes were usually lousy because they used inferior tape but perfectly adequate in the car until auto makers got serious about road noise reduction.  Another issue with my cassettes:  the writing on the cases and tapes has faded so badly i don't know what's on them until i pop them in !

?  I guess i believed an earlier poster who said he had retired.  I just fired off an email to him.

Agree about RR--my RR LP transfers are not only still good but far better than any of my recorded cassettes--unfortunately i had more cassettes than RR tapes but the cassettes i recorded that are still acceptable are preferable to me than taking a chance on buying the CD--i initially began to replace all of my destroyed vinyl with CD--this was early-mid-90s and i don't think they had yet made many good quality CDs yet--i stopped buying them when i became discouraged with the sound--so yes, you've been smart/lucky--but once i discovered streaming a couple years ago i can do that first and then play the cassette and see which i like better.  And much of the time the stream is better, esp with MQA--Besides, with Willy Hermann gone my decks will probably crater soon and forever in this dry AZ air...

thanks for the tips on what to look for--back then i was just trying to replace mostly rock/folk albums and most of the CDs were awful (not all).  Interestingly the flood did not touch my classical music LPs--made me wonder if there was a message there.

I was thrilled to get an email from Willy this morning--i looked for the comment from someone else about him being "gone" but i couldn't find it--not sure if it was on this thread or a different one--anyway, Kevin, thanks for letting me know that was erroneous.  Willy serviced my Nakamichi deck about 10 years ago and it's still working beautifully.

No offense taken uber

I'm glad you made the comments as i was bummed when i read the post saying he had retired--and thrilled that he hasn't, although he told me he's got a 10 month backlog so if your 660zx needs work you better get in line now!

@mcondo --you inspired me to dig out some cassettes i hadn't heard since the  70s just to see how they sounded.  I don't remember what deck i recorded them on, but i was amazed how good the playback was on the Nakamichi for the first two albums i ever recorded--a mix of Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley--luckily (more than knowingly) recorded on high quality TDK tape.  Sure, the noise was there between tracks (I rarely used Dolby B or C) but once the music was on it was not noticeable.  Of course not a lot of musical instruments on these reggae albums but i never had replaced them after the flood and it was great to listen to them again for something different--Thanks for this thread

Didn't even read most of this thread past the first few posts--in the day i always recorded my vinyl one play--onto 7.5 R to R Akai deck and Nakamichi CR4 cassette deck, metal tape.  The cassettes are just so so now==the pre=recorded ones unlistenable--but the R to R tapes are still fantastic and have made up for my loss of most of my vinyl in a Houston warehouse flood many years ago--however, some of the cassettes have held up well and i still enjoy listening to them--no, they are not the best but the nostalgia is.  And i'm back to the vinyl which is the best--with most of my remaining albums having only been played once...