I listened to records then eventually CD's in the 70's then 80's. Back then I taped to gain portability or reduce wear on my records. I did not have the best tape equipment. Life started early with a simple Pioneer CT-F650 then a Denon DR-M2 then a Sony TC-K870ES before leaving audio for 20 years.
Now I have all sorts of sources including 75 cassette decks I have collected and restored. I truly did not know what a humble cassette tape could do until I got back into them starting 4 years ago. I have some of the best decks ever made by most manufacturers. I get a great deal of enjoyment from them. It saddens me so many make blanket statements about a format based on limited experience. I myself did truly not know until I experienced better. It was a revelation. I use cassette tapes a lot today... along with CD's, Records, SACD's and digital files. I even have a box of 8-tracks somewhere I have not listened to in 40 years. I realize I am probably an extreme case for cassettes just as others have invested more in vinyl, digital or reel tape front ends. Its all ok. I am enjoying the journey.
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From roughly the early 50's to the mid/late 60's, RtR tape sources delivered the highest fidelity possible for a home listener. The average home hifi system was of mediocre or worse quality for a long time. LPs were compromised to ensure playback on the average home record player. Most people aspired to a large console, with decidedly low quality components. It was only when the masses began to embrace higher quality home equipment did the average person begin to have the ability to create playback system that was better than RtR. Cassette offered convenience, but it was never a serious rival for the best one could have. It was inferior to LP and certainly to RtR. |
Head alignment was also critical which is why the "auto reverse" feature was often avoided by many. Nakamichi introduced an auto reverse machine that thay called a "uni-directional auto reverse". The playback head was fixed but the machine actually pulled the tape out of the deck, flipped it, and reinserted the tape. The top of the line Dragon deck from Nakamichi electronically aligned the heads. It was always important in top performers to have the record and playback heads independent. The listener could then, with the push of a button, compare the tape recording to the original input signal. |
To the OP’s question...I was not an “audiophile” as a teenager in the 70’s but became a big cassette fan that continues to this day. Almost all recording at that point was vinyl that was played on a Pioneer Supertuner in my car or on my home system. I didn’t have enough money to buy all vinyl in high school or college but benefited from taping LPs of my friends. Today I own a Nak CR7-A and a Nak BX-300, both beautifully rebuilt by Willy Hermann. Tapes recorded literally 40+ years ago and certainly the ones recorded in the late ‘80s thru today on metal tapes sound fabulous. Not quite as good as vinyl but awfully darn good. Case in point...I recently recorded 40+ of the Blue Note Jazz reissues (many at 45 RPM) that sound great on metal tapes that were new 30+ years ago. No way I would invest the $ to buy all the vinyl but still enjoy via recording my friend’s collection. With 1000+ cassettes and 3000+ LPs, I am very content.
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Replies to this query definitely confirm my age. Naturally the goal of recording anything is to as closely as possible reproduce the original source. High end cassette recorders my the likes of Nakamichi and Tandberg, when properly calibrated, did an excellent job in playback. Frequency response and bias settings for the desired tape (Metal or CrO2), when performed by an above average dealer with proper test equipment, yielded outstanding performance. Many users saw the exercise as a way to preserve their record collections and prolong stylus life. |
In the early 70s I had one of everything. R to R was used for recording new albums as well as long listening sessions so you did not have to get up all the time to change the record or cassette. I even had a 4 channel R to R, content was hard to find, but I loved the sound. 50 years later +/- I still remember the opening bass line from Whipping Post by he Allman Bro’s. Live at the Fillmore in 4 channel.
I miss those days of sharing music, everyone had a favorite band or artist. I loved having most of the recordings of many artists back in the day. We listened to music, TV was an after thought, hardly ever on.
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I had a pioneer system, A-80 amp. EQ, Tape deck with dolby b and c, DBX route selector, 3BX range expander, and DBX noise reduction. Also, a KLH active noise filter unit, that would quiet everything down when the signal was low and it would bypass when the music got cranking. This would pretty much make the tape hiss disappear . I still have the DBX units and KLH in storage.. |
There’s a Tool promo cassette listed on eBay as we speak for $8666.
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Listen through the hiss, grasshopper. Or use Dolby tapes. Problem solved! You know, like you listen through pops and clicks on vinyl. Which reminds me, what the heck happened to the tape hiss on CDs? |
What was heard during the tape deck era?
Invariably, some level of hiss. |
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bob540
@geoffkait, That link is for real?! Hundreds of dollars for a pre-recorded cassette? That is crazy!!! >>>>I’m not hot dogging you. 🌭 |
I taped AM stations on my reel-to-reel in the mid 1960's, waiting for that Stones or Beatles or Supremes song to show up on KFWB and KHJ. I'd always wait for the weekly Top 40 Countdown (or was it Top 30?) and press the pause button whenever there'd be a commercial...which, yes, was more than often.
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@geoffkait, That link is for real?! Hundreds of dollars for a pre-recorded cassette? That is crazy!!!
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To add, I always taped my records when I brought new ones home and had the big brown slotted suitcase full when I travelled, casette was King for awhile in the 70's. |
I actually recorded fm stations. I split my cable signal and ran a line into my tuner and got additional state side fm stations. So I would tape Seattle rock and then with my other tape deck I would record the tape I recorded editing out commercials and station announcements or pause tape, record LP song, pause, back to previous recorded tape, hit record. I would make my own various artist tapes to play in my truck, Walkman, and home stereo. A tedious and lengthy process, so was drinking alot of beer on a Saturday. |
Many of us didn't have audiophile quality. We just enjoyed the music without all the analyzing. Even when it was BTO fading out midsong so it could ker-chunk and fade back up on the in-car 8-track. Good times. |
The mid 80s reissue tapes like Zeppelin, Doors, Stones, Dylan, Beatles are great and they’re just ferrite tape, by then they had figured out the engineering. No tape hiss, amazing Sonics. Pure analog. Tape is a natural medium. It breathes. Check it out!! 🤗
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Just to put it in words that hopefully can explain my perspective a little.
I have to ask a couple of questions.
Do you own a top flight cassette deck in full working condition to factory specs?
Do you own a number of Chrome or Metal tapes that have been recorded on said cassette deck?
If you cannot answer yes to both then you just cannot understand or comprehend my viewpoint as you cannot hear what I hear.
And that is not meant as any insult or disrespect to anybody else here but I am not working of a possibly flawed 40 plus year old memory with my cassette tape experiences that I am posting. |
Cassettes of the 80s and 90s crush vinyl. Cassettes were never a target of the Loudness Wars conspiracy. In fact, many cassettes crush CD dynamic range too. Vinyl tends to be wimpy by comparison to cassettes, especially after vinyl got caught up in the Loudness Wars. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Without dynamics you got nothin’ - audiophile axiom |
Audiophiles listened to vinyl. Cassettes--no thanks. The MP3 of the 70's. Heard a few R2R decks that weren't bad, but still not vinyl. |
Then of course, there are the Nak pre recorded issues.... |
If you frequent the Nakamichi forums or even talk to Willy Herman direct you will find that while the Dragon was a superb piece of high tech gear it did have reliability issues and was not truly the best choice for an everyday driver so to speak.
That honour lay at the door of the zx7/9 machines.
I will NEVER part with my zx7 ever! |
bigwave1,
"I had a Nak Dragon until about 7 years ago. One of its claim to fame was that is would automatically align the tape heads to any cassette made from any machine so it would play as well as the machine it was made on on. No comparison to LPs, still had tape hiss."
You lucky individual! Wasn’t that supposed to be the summit of all things cassette based?
My NAD 6050c required the odd manual head alignment via a precision screwdriver, but it did sound awesome - in a lovely expansive totally analogue fashion that still seems to escape my uber precise CD player.
And as the song almost goes - the hiss never bothered me anyway (especially with Chrome tape).
If the Nakamichi Dragon was everything that everyone back then said it was, then surely it must have been fabulous. |
Nagra (still around and wonderful) Stellavox (hard to set up but good once it is) and Nak Dragon (broke a lot) but was pretty good deck.
OR, you could get a master tape if you knew someone and happened to have an Ampex recording deck at home...
Cheers! |
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Yes, 50 years ago, vinyl was king; some say it still is. But for me, playing records on my low-cost Garrard TT (Shure M91 ED or an Empire cart. I liked even more) through a Pioneer SX626 receiver, was not that great. Yes, I used the Discwasher, but that couldn’t keep up with the partying and carelessness that I was doing back then. The best sound I got was from the Sony 7” RTR I had. I don’t know if the Pioneer had a better tape section or it was the turntable/cart/debris, but the sound was definitely better from tape.
Another cool option with the Sony was recording music from the radio. Back then, there was a University of Dayton (OH)-owned station, WVUD. They played the popular hits but also sprinkled in some music not heard on the strictly commercial stations. The coolest was a program from 7-8 PM M-F called “Wax Museum”, when they would play an entire album for the audience to record. The program began with a tone, so you could set your recording level. Before the music would begin, that same tone would sound, alerting you to start recording; then before the commercials, the tone would sound again so you could stop recording. There were four roughly 12-13 minute segments for recording, and then you had the entire album. Sometimes VUD staff would edit the tunes so that one would fade into the other, which was cool when two songs really blended well. Alas, the university sold the station to a commercial interest and that was that. But for several years during the 1970’s, I had my tape ready to record albums. It was awesome while it lasted.
For those of you familiar with WLW AM 700 in Cincinnati, long-time talk host Mike McConnell (who also spent a few years in Chicago before returning to WLW) started his DJ-ing career at WVUD during the 1970’s. McConnell is currently the early morning DJ at WLW.
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Doin' that crazy hand-jive!! |
Talk to da hand Mr. Living in the Seventies! 🖐Everybody has to be somewhere.
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Yeah, sure. That makes a lotta sense, maps. You probably don’t even know what air is. Well, except for hot air 🥵 😬
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Mapman
Thats too funny as I had a similar experience in about 1977 once I had motorized wheels I discovered a hifi chain called Laskys in the big city of Nottingham.
That place blew my young mind and although I know most of it just low to mid fi Japanese stuff I spent so many hours there.
Eventually saved enough to buy a Trio turntable, Aiwa Cassette deck, Trio integrated amp And Mission speakers.
For a 17 year old back in those days it was quite a good setup. |
Gk you might be mistaking hiss (noise) for air (which is part of the music).
"Air" refers to most of what you hear in music above ~15-16khz.
But that’s OK. If you are also truly hearing Bob Dylan say that as you repeatedly insist, you may have other much bigger issues to deal with. Good health brother! |
Nowadays cassettes have all the air. See the irony? They are also the tone champs. I already mentioned dynamics, they’re the best at that too. What’s left? Not much. Whatever’s left you can have it, though. If you’re happy I’m happy. 😀 And as Bob Dylan sez at the end of all his cassettes, good luck to everyone. |
Yep Uber my first music maker was a Hitachi portable cassette recorder ~ 1972 or so. BEfore that a Panasonic transistor radio.
I graduated to a $200 Sanyo compact system with radio, phono AND cassette a year later. Woohoo I was in heaven. Until I started to visit the "high end" hifi shops in the area a few years later.. |
Basically it started life as a rival to the dictaphone system that is true.
i remember having this crabby little portable cassette recorder in oh 1974 or so.
I am sure it sounded awful and made terrible tapes but as a new teen just discovering rock music I was in heaven with it.
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This was an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_deck Cassette tape format was originally designed for voice recording applications, not hifi. Started with your typical portable cassette tape recorder. Then later adapted to tape decks for use in hifi systems. Follow-up technologies enabled cassettes better for hifi music applications. " " The "compact cassette" (a Philips trademark) [1] was introduced by the Philips Corporation at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin in 1963 [3][4] and marketed as a device purely intended for portable speech-only dictation machines.[ citation needed] The tape width was 1⁄8 inch (actually 0.15 inch, 3.81 mm) and tape speed was 1.875 inches (4.8 cm) per second, giving a decidedly non Hi-Fi frequency response and quite high noise levels. [5]" Frequency response of hifi cassettes was up to 15khz or so. Back in those days, I could hear to 20khz and easily noticed the difference (lack of air) with cassettes. Noise reduction technologies like Dolby B and C helped keep the tape hiss noise levels down. Nowadays, 15khz would work fine for most older ears like mine that no longer hear to 20khz. |
It’s really heartening to see we have SO many cassette tape experts in the house.
😎😎 |
Cassette tapes were NEVER audiophile period. I only made cassette tapes for mobile and that was simplified when CDs got cheaper AND easier to make. I challenge anyone to hear any SQ difference in a PeterCar at 70 mph. 8 track before that. A buddy had cassette in his van 1970, claimed it was better, I didn't care. Another buddy had a 8-track recorder, plenty of mixtapes around. At least I had a splicer from my R2R to key them going.
Nowadays cassette decks are good for archival recordings and movie props.The only "compatibility" issues with R2R was speed and track layout. A 4 channel 1/4 incher can play anything. It won't be quite as solid with a half track recording but a half track head is worthless trying to play a 2 sided quarter track tape, which are the majority of consumer recordings. You can always digitize and correct the speed.
Now to find a 4 channel USB interface to turn tracks into files before mine is broken for good.
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Mapman
I would have to say that not ALL tapes from the late 80,s and early 90,s were better so it is not a general statement of fact imho.
However there certainly are a lot of good examples and obviously the newer the tape then the newer the tech internals and less aged shelf life.
So it is hard to just say 90,s tapes are better than 70,s tapes due to the 15 to 20 year age difference for starters alone.
This format will always have its haters and thats fine, leaves more tapes for me! |
Whiner alert 🚨
Wake up and smell the roses 🌹 🌹 🌹
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Could be commercially produced cassettes got better in the 80's and 90's. Don't know. There was certainly a lot of room for improvement. I dumped the format in favor of hifi VHS by then. Then came digital recording.
The format is still inherently fragile though. A lot of quality improvement would be needed to make later tapes live longer than their predecessors. Especially if played often.
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I don't miss cassettes one whit. Some sounded pretty good but trouble with a capital T. Unless, of course, you let them bake for six months on the dashboard.
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Uh, you can’t even buy cassettes from the 70s. They’re all gone Except for a few original Ampex clamshells, etc. which are nothing to write home about SQ wise. The really good well-made cassettes came much later. So please don’t bore us with tales of woe from the 70s. It was when the humble cassette had to compete head to head with the CD in the 80s and 90s that cassettes became reliable and high quality. The Golden Age for cassettes was circa 1986-1994. Much closer to the sound of the master tape than a CD ever thought of being. But I digress. |
I worked at a Tech Hifi back in what I suppose was part of the "cassette era" (1978-1980).
We sold a lot of cassette decks along with the receivers, amps, tuners and turntables.
Nobody that I recall ever demoed a system using a cassette deck by choice to show off the sound. Cassette decks were demoed only when someone wanted to buy a cassette deck.
I do not recall anyone ever demoing a system with any pre-recorded cassette tape of the time. I don’t recall ever hearing a good one. Plus they were not made well and prone to jam.
We sold lots of good brands, Nakamichi, Tandberg, Akai, TEAC, Pioneer, KEnwood, Aiwa (these were very good and very popular back then), and others.
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I was in Japan in '76 and heard the NAK Dragon "GOLD" edition.
Don't remember the amps or other details except for the JBL 4350 monitors. Absolutely blew my head apart, never thought a cassette could sound that good. And, yes, the 'tables at the same location, Hiroshima,
blew the cassette away. Interesting experience, I spent a lot of time there. But, was really never a cassette fan, not even in the car. Couldn't
hear sheeit over the exhaust in the vette! 427 baby. |
And speaking of bleating repeatedly..... Baa! Baa! 🐑 |
