What cassettes do peaple like these days ....

I'll leave the tape formulations to the recording engineers, but my guess is that they have not changed so much in the last ten or fifteen years and you should try to find TDK or Maxell metal.

A well set up cassette deck using metal tape can do a surprisingly good job, but very importantly, you can't rely upon the stock alignment or bias settings -- you need to have the heads realigned and bias reset. Labs like Analogique in NYC do this and it makes a huge difference.

Uraniumcommittee: Perhaps if you would offer a rationale as opposed to a simple conclusion, you would be taken seriously (then again, your approach thus far will make anything to come a tough sell).