Cassette lovers; why?

[Bob Boyer]

Just airing some not unrelated thoughts ... Forget precise Dolby compatibilty of course - that's another subject, which just happens to bring me to the Music Cassette. How many in here have noticed that the PB of some of these tapes with 'Dolby' marked on is a hit-and-miss affair!? Yes, I'm aware that high frequencies are somewhat partially attenuated with time, but some of these manufactured 'Dolby' tapes are way off.

Somehow I don't think Dolby and high speed duplication are any kind of a match. I have a couple and yes, they're best played without Dolby and with the 70 ms eq.

 

[ButchJames]

Somehow I don't think Dolby and high speed duplication are any kind of a match. I have a couple and yes, they're best played without Dolby and with the 70 ms eq.

Which is exactly what I do.

BTW, my interest in R2R and cassette goes back to possibly the late 1960s, and cassette in particular from about 1973 when Dad bought me the Sanyo M2000 mono cassette player. Back then I would send off for brochures from Sony/TEAC/TDK etc - it fuelled my imagination and fascination with the format. That said, there is an amount low level standardisational (spelling?) chaos regarding tape machines, not surprising when we think about it as tape technologies evolved.

I still have my father's Sanyo M2000 and a few brochures, although I wish I had kept them all.

 

[Bob Boyer]

I went R2R first as a result of working radio from 1973 - 1978. Had to have something with 10" reels and that something at the time was a Pioneer RT-1011, the least expensive of that line. After all, I was making $80/week plus all the records I could eat and had to fund an MGB daily driver. That Pioneer was stolen (probably by the movers) when we moved down to work in Alabama, which led to my first cassette deck, a low - mid range Pioneer. Can't recall which one but it had piano key controls, not relays/solenoids, so not overly expensive. When TVA moved me back to Chattanooga, a friend in Decatur bought my entire system, which led to a new system with a Nakamichi BX-1. Excellent deck, better than the rest of the system. After that, I acquired a Tascam 133 for the A/V production business but dropped cassette and went back to reels (or no tape at all) from the mid-90s to 2017, when I got this deck.

 

[Makymak]

I don't think Philips created a standard for that (but I could be wrong)

If I remember well, Philips let the format free as long as the other companies didn't made any alterations. Of course the limits between alteration and improvement are quite vogue. And definitely there was a huge improvement through the years following.

Listening in the car to a TDK SA I recorded on sub-par equipment in 1985 or so, and it still sounds good.

I have some "lower" TDK Ds and Sony HFs and Denon DX1s and Fuji DRs recorded back in the '80s that my parents played them back maybe a thousand times each and still sound like they were recorded yesterday.

 

[derek92994]

Oh, I've seen many times people are throwing a stones on the other people and cursing a decks for stealing a threads but if we gonna play dirty - no problem, let's play dirty.

How's the weather today in your country?

Phoenix is not like that 'other' place, which is why I moved here!

 

[derek92994]

Forget precise Dolby compatibilty of course - that's another subject, which just happens to bring me to the Music Cassette. How many in here have noticed that the PB of some of these tapes with 'Dolby' marked on is a hit-and-miss affair!? Yes, I'm aware that high frequencies are somewhat partially attenuated with time, but some of these manufactured 'Dolby' tapes are way off.

I have found very few pre-recorded cassettes with dolby that sound accurate, probably because they have been recorded at high speed in a factory. Also the master tape they have been taken from wears out after doing many passes. Then you have head wear and alignment to factor in.

 

[derek92994]

Tapes were all I had at a young age. Started with a Pye CR-9 Shoebox recorder, and 2 Pre-Records, T-Rex greatest hits and Joan Jett.
Moved up to a Pye Ghetto Blaster shortly after, but didn't do any recording.
Started recording in 1990 with a Teac 4 in 1 system, fixed magnet erase head and no chrome capability. That thing was shocking but it was all I knew at the time.
Did have a Clarion double cassette deck, good build quality and better recording than the teac. I ended up selling it. Turned out to be a very rare deck.
Quality got much better when I bought a beaten up Yamaha K-600 deck, made tapes that sounded great in the Sony Walkmans.
First HX-Pro Deck, a Yamaha KX-530. Had plenty of other yamahas in between, all single capstan.
First 3 head dual capstan deck, a JVC TD-V661, that unit was and still is an awesome deck, capstan belt was replaced and that's it. If I want HX-PRO this is the deck I use.
Then Hit Nakamichi territory and never looked back. 480, BX-1's, BX-2's (these are now parts units). RX-303 that I just couldn't get right.
The Naks which were successfully restored and are in the main cabinet: 670ZX and 3x BX-300's. Plus a DR-3 used for playback only, put a head from a BX-2 in it to replace the original one that was worn out.
Don't feel the need to go any higher with Naks, the crystalloy heads in the BX-300s are brilliant, they record/play everything nicely. Naks go for a long time when restored and serviced.

I did go through a digital phase though, CDs, Discmans, Mp3s which were great for the convenience and mass collecting of albums, but ended up returning to vinyl and cassette for the analog sound quality. I do enjoy high resolution digital from time to time, as long as its lossless flac format, mp3s are used as a last resort. Streaming is used purely for convenience in the work vehicle. Modern cars don't even have cd players anymore, and bluetooth sucks.