Hickamore,
Ah yes, I have all my earlier 10,000 Maniacs on cassette: The Wishing Chair, In My Tribe, and Blind Mans Zoo. From that period I also have most of my Cure, REM, Sugar Cubes, Lush, and a couple of Laurie Anderson’s (including her United States Live box set) library on cassette.
Wishing Chair and In My Tribe sound excellent. And I never replaced those on CD, did with Blind Mans Zoo, but I don’t think that album was mastered well on either format, but not too awful bad. |
I have a large collection of bootleg cassette tapes and a Nak Dragon to play them on.
A tape of a live concert directly fed from the mics to the deck,
even on a cassette, can be really something. It's a form of "master" recording, not a copy, like all LP's and almost all RtoR, so they have a quality of "aliveness" that is not there even on "live concert" LP's. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
The specs of cassettes are poor, of course, compared to LP's, RtoR or CD/SACD, and they deteriorate with time. They can still hold some fantastic music. |
Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Excellent words of wisdom! |
You guys are jogging my memory. Most of my cassettes are of me and my band playing mediocre if enthusiastic rock and roll. Now, if I only had a cassette player to play them on...
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are of me and my band playing mediocre if enthusiastic rock and roll Lol Sums up the cassette single of our band I found today( and played )quite admirably. What we lacked in talent we made up for in enthusiasm and volume! |
Awesome! I still have a 3-head Denon deck from the early '90s and my old mix tapes sound great!!
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The Aiwa ad f990 was a pretty close match sonically to the fabled nakamichi Dragon. Sold my 990 on ebay, and kept both my 770 and 660 though. Reason being Is the 990 still fetched top dollar. I have had some issues buying sealed pre recorded tapes, I’d say 1 out of every 10 were junk and would not play properly. Maxell and tdk I’ve found to be the two best tapes available. To buy these tapes still sealed, you pay a pretty penny for them. I would not say that the tapes played thru the aiwa or even a Nak are true hifi but there is something truly unique about the sound, warm and inviting, not sure how else to describe it. I love it. |
If you REALLY want to go crazy try looking at prices of genuine Nakamichi tapes on eBay.
Good for a laugh..... |
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.
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If you REALLY want to go crazy try looking at prices of genuine Nakamichi tapes on eBay.
I have several hundred sealed blank cassettes left over from one of the last stores I owned. A lot of various brands. I was on E-Bay just looking to see what some of them were selling for. I have a couple of cases of the Teac CRC-90 tapes that look like tiny reel to reel tapes. I auctioned off 2 tapes that were still sealed, but had small tears/rips in the wrappers. They sold for $130! People are crazy for some of these... |
mofi, sounds like you've got a new Mercedes or Lexus sitting in your closet. |
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Coincidence? I found Pink Floyd The Wall, Green Day Dookie and French version of Catch Bull at Four on cassette ten minutes ago. Sweet!
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"Coincidence? I found Pink Floyd The Wall, Green Day Dookie and French version of Catch Bull ..." Coincidence? I take care of Dookie from time to time. She is a neighbor’s little dog. Sweet! No bull. |
The walkman was able to provide music freedom for the first time, so good. The good home tape decks like Teac, Nak, Revox, were superb for making music for me to play on my car Nakamichi cassette player. They made a few models in the mid eighties that were high priced but very good sounding when paired with ads speakers! Oh the days! I just loved recording my music from albums I owned onto tape. My turntable NOW is way better than the model I recorded from back then, but I used a very good cartridge. |
Your experience makes me want to hear the old system in my Opel GT. TeeHee It did record from FM.
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I have about 1100 cassettes home recorded mostly from the mid-70s thru the early 90s. I play them on a Nakamichi CR7-A and BX 300, both rebuilt and serviced by Willy Hermann. Over the last 2 years, I have re-recorded on TDK MA, SA-X and HX-S tapes the beautiful Blue Note vinyl jazz reissues and they sound fantastic. These particular cassettes were originally purchased from the early 80s thru the early 90s. They have been stored well but it is stunning how great they sound after all these years. While I love showing off my vinyl on a nice system, I blow the audience away with the beautiful NAKs. Cassettes are far from dead.
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There is some enterprising person on eBay who sells a pack of those little felt square spacers that sometimes fall off after 30 years or so and must replaced. The little felt squares are adhesive backed which is a relief. 🤗 |
GK
I have had a number of the felt backing pads fall off due to adhesive aging.
Pretty simple to use a pair of tweezers and a dab of superglue and voila, the original is back in place never to come off again.
You just gently pull a loop of tape out to work on the area.
That is of course if you have not lost the original felt pad entirely, I have found that they are usually in the case when they fall off.
Good luck to all and long live the humble cassette!
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It makes a lot of sense that someone from U.K. would actually enjoy the fiddly exercise of putting the original felt squat back on. 🤗
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Its only fiddly if you are a total klutz.
Takes 2 minutes max.
Its therapeutic...… lmao!
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I applaud your fiddle prowess. 👏
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Anyway to return to the topic in hand.
Off to my LRS who is overloaded with cassettes, they were regular $3 each or 5 for $10 now he is offering 10 for $10 cash only.
Works for me.
Hopefully some good stuff amongst the dross.
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Do me a solid and pick up all Beastie Boys cassettes you might find.
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Think I have two of them in my cassette drawers right now GK.
Which ones are you needing?
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I was gifted a Technics RS-B100 three head cassette deck (1984-87) in primo condition. Anybody know the current value of this unit? I see some crazy prices online for them.
I am debating on whether to keep it or sell it. It’s been decades since I had a cassette deck and am not sure I would actually use it along my vinyl/cd/streaming options. But this thread is making me think twice! Please advise and thanks in advance! |
I totally agree! I have my old Nakamichi dragon - playing with McIntosh MAC6700 with Wilson Watt 8's- friends can't believe how good cassettes (35 yrs old) still sound! |
Sorry GK
Hardly anything good, no wonder $1 a piece.
In fact I had a hard time finding 10 I wanted but I did.
Not one Beastie Boys cassette to be seen though.
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yea nothing like the hiss of a cassette tape…give me a break... |
yea nothing like the hiss of a cassette tape…give me a break... Too funny Thanks for that though... |
I've spent all day with my cassettes! I won a huge auction on E-Bay for around 125 recorded on once, (well according to the seller, but all of them are in excellent condition, tapes & cases). Included were Maxell XLII90, XLII100, XLIIS90, XLIIS100, TDK SA90, SA-X90, SA-X100. I paid next to nothing for all of these. The tape gods were certainly smiling on me that day.
I have a commercial/professional tape degausser that came out of a recording studio, that does a fantastic job at cleaning these up.
I'm now on my third recording of the day. So far these have been perfect. Hopefully most will be the same.
Boy, I sure love this. Hands on and very rewarding. What a BLAST!!! |
Wonderful haul mofi!
Sometimes you can still score big on eBay.
Good job I did not see that auction... Lol
You would have had a bit more of a fight on your hands to win.😎
Enjoy! |
Anyone have (or used to have) a Harmon Kardon CD-491 deck? It was top of their line at the same time as Nak was selling the Dragon...it was <an obviously> less popular alternative, but had really great performance profile once dialed in. I was recently going to sell mine, I think I even listed it for a day or two...I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger, for some crazy reason. More than a few folks showed interest, I was a little surprised. Best, stay safe...Jim
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Anyone have (or used to have) a Harmon Kardon CD-491 deck?
I have a CD-391 deck. Bought it from the original owner along with a HK590i receiver for like $75 for both. Units were in mint condition and I use them in one of my record rooms. Excellent cassette deck. |
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... |
Well, they never rocked, at least in the sense of high audio quality. The typical dynamic range is about 8 bit (seriously), wow and flutter can be bad, they melt in hot sunshine and degrade with use. You may like them for sentimental reasons, but most cassettes sucked big time. They best metallic tapes with Dolby were respectable, but still not CD quality. |
Ack chew ally cassettes generally have a better dynamic range than many CDs if you want to get technical, you know, what with the overly aggressive dynamic range compression that began for CDs right around the end of the cassette era. Besides, tape is a natural medium, it breathes. |
Thank the lord they were not CD quality, I likely would not be bothering to listen to them.
Its got to be a special CD to hold my attention right now. Most are so overly compressed it aint funny!
Now a good remastered SACD or DVD-A is another story entirely!
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Eggs ackley! CD quality can be generally defined as thin, honky, bass-shy, compressed, generic, irritating, two dimensional, boomy, congealed, and like papier-mâché. |
A Nakamichi deck and Maxell MX, hard to beat really.
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Never really gave Maxell tapes a fair shot.
Once I tried TDK SA I stuck with them.
My zx7 is calibrated to that tape exactly.
I imagine probably as good though. |
@geoffkait
I can get technical, but can you do so? Do you know the definition of dynamic range? I don’t think so. It is obvious from your post that you cannot differentiate between the dynamic range of the song and the dynamic range of the medium.
And don’t get me started about tape being a “natural medium”—that is nonsensical audio jargon. |
Really. Anyone who was there in the 70s and 80s knows cassettes were always second fiddle to vinyl. There were many good quality cassette decks capable of making respectable but relatively noisy copies of good source material (as long as not too much dynamic range in the source) however most commercial cassette recordings were relatively poor quality. Not to mention delicate and not meant to stand the test of time.
The best larger format hifi VCRs in the 80s were much better. I still have some very nice recordings from an Akai hifi VCR I made back then and the sound quality holds up. I also still have cassettes I recorded in the 70s which sound no better than then if they will still even play without jamming. |
Never really gave Maxell tapes a fair shot.
Once I tried TDK SA I stuck with them.
I always preferred Maxell to TDK, although I have a bunch of TDK. Being a dealer, I think I sold almost every brand of tape, at one time or another. My Favorites: 3M BlackWatch Denon Fuji Maxell Nakamichi TDK That's Least Favorites: BASF (awful) DAK (double awful) Memorex Radio Shack/Realistic Recoton Scotch The Nakamichi tape was just hand picked TDK, (from the middle of the pancake reel. Supposed to be more uniform). It was fine, but IMHO, no better than the TDK equivalent. |
I agree that cassettes can sound wonderful. I have a collection of 35
cassettes, recorded on a Nak 600 deck (which was stolen by our movers! They knew what to steal!). Currently, I have a (two heads) Marantz Deck, with an all-electronic control (touch switches), headphone output, Dolby B/C, and a very quiet, smooth transport. I got very excited about
cassettes in my youth, when my father bought me a Sony Walkman during a trip to Switzerland. I am talking some 30 years ago, yet Sony already employed SMD (Surface Mounted Devices - read Chips) and the overall build quality was superb. I remember listening to the (equally superb) headphones during entire nights! BTW, anybody here can tell me what a new, blank TDK SA90 BLACK Limited Edition cassette can fetch? |
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