The death of cassettes

[NeilGabriel]

"The days of the humble cassette tape will soon be coming to a timely end with the announcement from British electrical retailer Currys that their existing stocks of blank cassettes will be sold but not replenished.

The retailer has also predicted that cassette decks will also disappear from the range in the next 18 months."

I assume that this audio format will not survive the way that vinyl has. I have to admit that I liked casseettes a lot and at one time, had put my entire record collection on tape....and now I don't even have a player connected. Thankfully, many of the albums ultimately appeared on CDs. RIP?
Anyone still relying on cassettes or maybe even reel to reel? I miss the old Pioneer RT-707 I once had.

[WilliamM2]

Cassettes died for me in 1984 or so. I have not missed them one bit.

[dorokusai]

Yea, no kidding....how's this a revelation :)

[NeilGabriel]

I think revelation was in the Bible....more of an observation. I think there are obvious reasons that some people stay with vinyl but there seems to be no remorse for cassettes/tape. Still, I noticed that the rtr that I sold 14 yrs ago for $75 is now selling for over $200 on ebay. I was just curious if anyone still used tape to any degree (maybe this is for the 50+ crowd).

[MSALLA]

I never liked cassette sq compared to Lp.

[dorokusai]

A revelation is simply a word to me, what's the Bible?

I picked up a couple very nice cassette decks ages ago(Nakamichi RX-505/Pioneer CT1250) and figured it would be cool to get into taping again...new silicon rollers, belts, tweaked & spec'd, blah blah....nope.

It was only fun to know how to service them but the manufactured audio results were just not for me.

[sucks2beme]

A revelation is simply a word to me, what's the Bible?

I picked up a couple very nice cassette decks ages ago(Nakamichi RX-505/Pioneer CT1250) and figured it would be cool to get into taping again...new silicon rollers, belts, tweaked & spec'd, blah blah....nope.

It was only fun to know how to service them but the manufactured audio results were just not for me.


They were only good for moving music over to the car.
8-track is dead too. So's DAT. Ride the light, baby!!!

[madmax]

I rebuilt a pioneer deck last year and bought a bunch of blank cassettes so I'm good to go for awhile! Really don't use them other than as an oddity.
madmax

[zombie boy 2000]

What I really think is worth lamenting is the death of the "mix tape". Nearly half the bands I listen to were given to me by a friend in the form of a mix tape. Many, many times I re-recorded select tracks and passed them on. I suppose tape trading is going the way of the dodo.

[bobman1235]

You can still make a mix CD, and it's a hell of a lot easier tahn trying to patch together mix tapes used to be.

I'd be amazed if "Currys" actually sells off their current stock. I don't know ANYONE who still uses cassettes on a regular basis - even my luddite father is completely converted to CDs.

[zombie boy 2000]

Yeah... but people tend to skip tracks on a Mix CD. There's an art to making a mix tape. The way one song blends into another. The sum being greater than the whole of its parts.
Besides... making a mix tape shouldn't be easy.

[reeltrouble1]

Reel to Reel still has a following.

RT1

[steveinaz]

The last cassette deck I owned, it was awesome:

[heiney9]

The last cassette deck I owned was a Nakamichi Dragon. That was in 1988-92. I used to tape my LP's the very first time I played them and then put them away and listen to cassettes.

The Dragon was a phenominal machine that even today it's hard to distinguish a metal bias tape from a cd if recorded properly. The only thing the Dragon would be good for today is as a museum piece to look at. Tape died a long time ago and even though I would be tickled pink to have a Dragon again I'd never use it, but I couild stare at it for hours :p

H9

[steveinaz]

H9
If you look on the right panel of the Teac Z, you'll see a bunch of pots. These were for optimizing the player with specific tapes; ie, Maxell, TDK, BASF, / Metal, FE, standard etc. You actually set bias/level using the pots and the meters for best reproduction.

The Dragon was an awesome machine.

[heiney9]

H9
If you look on the right panel of the Teac Z, you'll see a bunch of pots. These were for optimizing the player with specific tapes; ie, Maxell, TDK, BASF, / Metal, FE, standard etc. You actually set bias/level using the pots and the meters for best reproduction.

The Dragon was an awesome machine.

Yep the Dragon had 3 specific test tone sweeps for R & L level & bias calibration for all 3 types of tapes. The best thing about the Dragon was the automatic azimuth alignment. The head was motorized and no matter what tape from any other machine you put in their it would test and align the head to play each and every tape to it's optimum.

The only downside was because of the precise alignment of Nak heads the tapes made on them didn't always sound their best on other machines because of azimuth alignment issues. Nak never used a "sandwich" type head and thier gaps were extremely precise. In fact the whole mechanism was extremely precise. Nak made tapes always sounded the best on Nak machines, but all tapes sounded their best on the Dragon due the azimuth alignment.

The CR7A deck below the Dragon had a manual azimuth alignment adjustment. That was no slouch either. It had a real time counter where the Dragon never did.

H9