A big Akai reel-to-reel in the room calmly playing carefully selected music on mixtapes always made me feel at home. The reel-to-reel is gone now, but not the music collection. The mixtapes live on as playlists for a lossless flac file collection. I still have my first music tape recordings from 1970s radio programmes. Their, well, very lossy quality is now faithfully converted to lossless flac. But the lack of sound quality is part of memory of those years when we as 1970s high school kids tinkering with tapes and cassettes could't even dream of the HiFi capabilities we have now.
I use my TEAC Z-7000 every day. The combination of mechanics and electronics has always fascinated me. The effort that had to be made in the late 70s to mid 80s to get a Hi-Fi (let alone Hi-End) sound out of this format was enormous! Cassette decks were therefore always the most expensive part of a multi-component stereo system. The basic problem was always that, no matter how good the recording was, it was still only a copy in the end and could therefore never sound as good as the (usually also analog) source. Today, however, things are different. With digital streaming services, the entire music world is open to us. However, not everyone likes the digital sound. There's something about analog that's 'better' than digital... whatever it may be. And it is precisely at this point, that the good old cassette is experiencing its second spring today. I only use the streaming source to record it to cassette. In a direct comparison between the digital original and my recording, I would prefer the recording 10 out of 10 times. Not because it's 'better'... just 'different'... nicer... warmer... more lively. It seems as if the cassette today cuts out exactly that part of the digital sound, that bothers me. But maybe it's just me and I'm just old and nostalgic ;)
I think it is because you've used cassettes so extensively during your life, that's what's "normal" to you is, the cassette is what sounds "right". A kid growing up on CD's or streaming only will find that's what's souding "right" at default. Then there' the hand-on approach to recording cassette tapes, there's a certain satisfaction in dialing everything and then getting the recording just right and the time involved. You have to work for it, but that also makes the satisfaction of reward higher.
As a owner of a Nakamichi Dragon...it sadly sits unused ...the pinnacle of cassette technology left to rot to speak...no one even makes type 4 tape anymore
I wouldn' go for very expensive like dragon. Casstette players need to be aligned each time to tape - often two sides of the same brand have small difference - it is condition to assure right level of sopranos. It may be stressing to turn it few times a day in so expensive gear, Without it It is easy to have casstte deck having tech data and ability 19 kHz on top but enjoy from tape only 4 kHz or less
Tried various formats for years, & noise reduction formats, such as Dolby, & dbx. All had advantages, disadvantages. Except! Metal Cassette Tape, "Full Metal Cassette Tape," sounded EXACTLY like the record, but was expensive!
I still own a Dragon as well. And just like you I don't use it anymore. Somehow in the years I used my Thorens turntable, my Quad amplifier the casette deck and my old DIY loudspeakers I appreciated my system more then my current system. While that is nothing to sneeze at and it sounds great, it just does not give me the same feeling. Though I still use the turntable to date.
The love of cassette decks explained in two sentences: They gave users the ability to create their own, hour and a half long playlists. They were very cool pieces of electronic and mechanical equipment that appealed to people's fascination with the hardware itself. I really miss them. Toward the end of their popularity they were able to produce way better than "good enough" sound for most people. I wish a digital successor had come along to replace them, but as we all know, the music industry was absolutely apoplectic about anyone being able to duplicate anything, so the pressure to eliminate recording functions prevented any of the obvious, technically straightforward, recordable options from becoming a standard.
Ehm... the digital successor _was_ created: the DCC. It had ecellent sound actually. But it was in a format battle with Sony's MiniDisc and then Napter and MP3 came along. There was also DAT and digital microcassettes, the latter recording in 32hz sample rate, but still very good, but both were too expensive for general audiences.
@@notsorandumusername yes. Excellent point. When I wrote that I knew about those things and my comment makes it seem like there was no alternative when in fact there were some, and pottery good ones too. Price was certainly a factor that limited adoption. Format wars also undermined the recordable options. I don't really know what I think for sure, but it also seems like there was a lot bigger push behind selling CDs than there ever was for anything recordable, and that makes sense from the seller's perspective because I can't imagine the profit potential from recordable systems would ever get close to that of a medium where you had to go to publishers for content. Good point. Thanks for responding.
I still have a Sony TC-D5M and a pair of Sennheiser MD 441-U microphones that I used back in the '80s to record concerts. One band I recorded was The Minutemen, and after D Boon died in a car crash, the band released a posthumous live album; one of the tracks is from one of my tapes.
Cassettes used 1/8th inch tape. Sony tried to market a 1/4" format called Elcaset, but it flopped. One big hurdle facing anyone trying to build a high quality deck today, is that Dolby hasn't manufactured or licensed their Dolby B and C Noise Reduction chips for many years.
Greatly engineered cassette decks wouldn't need any noise reduction system. Ignoring that, there is a dolby C clone which teac is using in their decks and dolby B can be freely used since the patent is too old. Either way if you are saying that we can't make new good decks because we don't have new nr systems then why not making one yourself smh...
Actually the best sounding cassette decks were Tandberg, not Nakamichi; although Nakamichis were nice. Interesting thing about Nakamich is that some of their cassette decks like the LX series were euphonic in the midrange, similar to Mofi lps of the same era. I remember comparing a bottom of the line Nak BX 100 to one of their much more expensive LX series decks, and the cheap deck had a much flatter and fuller midrange. You could tell the signal to noise ratio wasn't as good though. The Tandberg 3014, considered the Nak Dragon Slayer and true king of mass produced cassette decks, I think just about always gets prices nearing $2,000 on ebay auctions. Tandberg made one of the best sounding reel to reel decks also around the same time; the TD20 SA. Truly one of the best sounding ever. A few guys on the forums who had the upper tier Tandberg cassette decks like the 3014 or TCD440, say the sound is close enough to their Tandberg reel to reel deck, that they use the cassette deck much more often. After listening to cds (on a very great player) for many months, and then hooking up one of the top Tandberg cassette decks, made me realize that there still is something special about the timbre of analog. I was playing factory prerecorded cassettes at the time. The clarity wasn't 100% as clear as cd, and of course the dynamics weren't near it, but something about that timbre of the instruments. So smooth, right and genuine. Most people would be absolutely stunned how good factory prerecorded cassettes can sound on a state of the art cassette deck. At about 4 times slower speed than reel to reel and much thinner tape width, some of them can fool you into thinking you are listening to a good reel deck. And unlike factory prerecorded reel tapes, which you rarely see in thrift stores, flea markets etc., cassettes are still floating around for 50 cents to a few dollars. The price of factory prerecorded cassettes are going up. A few companies out of China are now manufacturing equip. that play back cassettes. The vintage cream of the crop still rule though, if you can find them in good condition.
I Love Cassettes and the cassette Medium. I have a Technics Cassette deck and it works perfect. Every now and then I still make a mix tape for the fun of it
Another great invention from Philips, The Netherlands. Those cassettes always had a lot of hiss to it in my experience. But they were practical, without it the Walkman was not possible and that changed the way we listen to music for ever.
Paul. if you do ever think about building one make sure it comes with a free PS Audio pencil for rewinding the tape once it has decided to make a break for it .
I still have a Nakamichi deck - it doesn’t get used much nowadays but when it was calibrated to TDK SA-X tapes, its quality and dynamic range could knock vinyl for six.! I still occasionally listen to old cassette tapes on a cheap player as it enhances the nostalgia factor ten fold as it matches the sound of an album that I heard back in the day when I first heard it. That’s the big problem with audiophile ‘perfection’ - it leaves nothing to be nostalgic about.
I still have my Technics RS-TR232 HX Pro that works and sounds very well.. obviously it's not like streaming, CD quality or vinyl but we still enjoy it immensely.. especially at Christmas with all the old tapes my Mom Still has.. Another plug for Paul because I just purchased a P12 power regenerator and even the tape machine is mucho mejora in sound. If you can afford any PS Audio regenerator you should DEFINITELY HAVE ONE!! Hearing is BELIEVING!! Literally Night and DAY and I have Polk Loudspeakers.. They NEVER had life until now. Old School or New it's ALL about the pure enjoyment of "LISTENING 💯 Thanks to Paul, Chris H, James H and our good friend Joey F.. Great People.. Great Service 👍✌️
Prior to digital, cassette decks were the only way to create a playlist, and the only way to choose your music while driving. I own a Nakamichi CR-7A, which works great. It was a tough purchase for me, working part-time. But living with my parents, at the time, made it possible. I would have rather have purchased the Nakamichi Dragon. But it was ~30% more expensive. One of the amazing features of the CR-7A and the Dragon is being able to adjust the head's azimuth. You can see the heads move. It is very little, and yet makes a huge difference in sound quality. It allows you to play tapes from other decks, and have your heads line up with that other deck's heads. The CR-7A also has auto-reverse, and some other great features. The one thing I did not know at the time, was how important interconnects were. I used complete junk interconnects, not realizing how much they diminished the sound quality. I could not afford top-tier interconnects, even if I had known. But had I had known the importance of interconnects, I would have purchased something decent, that would at least not harm the sound quality, significantly. I wish that I had room in my rack for my tape deck. Alas, it sits in storage. But I have tested it recently, and it works.
one of the blind tests I have made was a Leonard Cohen Album, I made that one for my brother, A CD, Streaming, Vinyl and a straight copy from the vinyl to a Type 2 cassette. I think he could figure out the vinyl to start with. Anyway, the results were, Vinyl won it hands down, next was the Cassette, CD and finally streaming last. All sounded good, the surprise was the Cassette.
I still have my late dad's old Ferograph reel to reel machine .. it's big , heavy and has valves inside ... it runs at 15ips or 7.5 ips and it still sounds great !! If I record a vinyl on to it and play it back I can't tell the difference... it's THAT good ! I did a thorough recap and valve replacement on it btw ... and the heads have hardly ANY wear either ...
i had a dual cassette deck (the german turntable company)- i would record the first play of new vinyl, and then just play the tape, in order to preserve the vinyl. ar3a, ar amplifier, various turntables/cartridges. worked very well for me and mine for at least 20 years.
I would not agre that all Lps deteriorate with time. I listen to some editions made in 1960 ties, mostly they are classic symphony with choir and their sounding unbeatable - my colege having all digital stated that choir is for him impossible to reproduce in full . LP Biscaya by James Last Orchestra made in 1968 is stunning everybody and It is clear that such entertaining music had to be played often from thatexactly LP within over 60 years.
It may be better to write "Dual" instead of "dual" because it's a brand name where you always write a capital first letter. And you won't confuse it with dual cassette decks (not from Dual but with two drives) which were also popular for some time. 😉
I picked up a Marantz duel cassette deck a couple years ago. When I'm at the record store, if they have any cassettes, if something pops up.... I'll grab it. I'm pleased with the sound I get from it with my system.
Still have all my cassettes from the good old days along with my first tape deck. I acquired a nakamichi 580 that is built like a tank and when it was finally dialed in sounds fantastic.
I still own a Harmon/Kardon CD 101 cassettes deck, that I bought new in 1982. I still use it once in a while when I feel nostalgic, and it sounds pretty damn good!
I think HX pro was the headroom extension system. Dolby and DBS noise reduction systems. The dbx expansion compression system was amazing but unless it was properly set up, a noise pumping effect could be heard. I still own and use 2 cassette decks and with the right tape and recording levels set properly, it sometimes would be hard pressed to distinguish it from the original.
Cassettes were my go-to medium; made mix tapes (never called them that, though) from selected record tracks, taped off of the radio and the occasional simulcast where you watched a concert on TV and a radio station would play the stereo audio to go along with it. Went through all brands until I hit Nakamichi and that was that.
Cassette decks in the 80's where what DACs are now in terms of cool. I still like them very much. They do color the sound but in a way that is very nice. I had a Dokorder reel to reel deck and the tapes recorded from an LP on that thing sounded better to me (yes it is a sound engine but what a sound engine it is!!!). PS, funny that Paul feels he has to explain what a Compact Cassette is...
Still love and use my four cassette decks, even had the two better Sony decks repaired/refurbished last year. I still have about 800 cassettes that sound fine. No Internet streaming required. High bias tapes, Dolby B and S along with HX Pro all combined to make cassettes the outstanding music medium they became. At the end of the 2010s you could get a great deck for $500. Pity they no longer make high bias or metal tapes. I bought about 60 90-minute Maxell UR tapes last year, just to make sure I could still record my vinyl albums. Yeah, maybe it is just for "fun" but nothing wrong in having fun. I recall the quality of recordings done from CD to Metal tapes with Dolby S were so good that it was difficult to tell the difference between the CD and the tape.
I still have my Sony cassette deck from the 90's, which still sounds great. I love tapes, I used to love making up the best of for my favourite rock groups and then playing them on the go on my Sony Walkman which I still have and is still working perfectly.
Back in the days we would record our favorite song from the radio broadcast on Cassette tape. some times you would even end up getting the commentator voice recorded as well 😂
I have a NAD 616 Cassette Deck. I don't use it much but I could never get rid of it. This was the first new piece of gear I bought when I was 13 with Xmas money.
Remember waiting through the radio commercials with your finger on the record button because the DJ told you your favorite song was going to be played after the break? Thank God those days are over!!!
I have been a die-hard cassette fan for most of my life. I have a number of tapes to go through for rare songs that never made the transition to digital. And I now have a good JVC DD-7 to do it with.
While cleaning out the basement, pitching old relics still down there, I came across hundreds of cassette tapes. Couldn't come to throwing away many of them. Some store bought some recorded. I guess I will dust off my old Denon dual cassette player and have a go!
It takes me back to the days where I used to make mix tapes. I always bought CrO2 or metal oxide tapes (TDK or Maxell, which ever was cheaper), always cleaned the pinch rollers and tape heads on my high end tape player, made sure the recording levels were just right, used Dolby B but also used Dolby C noise reduction when it came out, etc. Even had an external DBX unit for some recordings when I wanted the best noise reduction possible but that was never perfect. And I did a lot of recordings from my vinyl at the time. Even when I listen to those tapes today, I’m amazed in how well they turned out. I miss those days.
I love my Yamaha 390.have loads of Radio 1 dance mixs from airly 90s crome and metal mostly TDX.Those moment's in time can't be replaced and with the tape bias can sound pretty good.
I bought a new stereo in 1983, including a cassette deck. I bought a cheap turntable, at the advice of the salesman, with an expensive Grado cartridge. I still bought vinyl, but recorded them to cassette, using high grade tape. The turntable died recently, but I still have all the tapes and the records have only been played twice.
Aiwa 3 Head deck with Metal tape from vinyl from a really good Cartridge sounds pretty dang good. Still have many radio concerts of the day stored on that media that still sound great 30 years later.
Have 2 Nakamichi decks and use them every day. Record content from a Sirius/XM tuner. When commercials come on i press the fast forward button and within seconds i'm back to the show.😊
I was known as Dr. Maxell in my territory as a Maxell rep in the '70's because I would do the travelling cassette deck calibration tour to all the stereo shops in my territory. Most decks came biased for TDK which used a slightly lower bias level. Manufacturers used this calibration because it made TDK work it's best and the Maxell was OK with the lower bias. But for max Maxell performance the higher bias would cause TDK to roll off on the highs. Maxell always beat TDK regardless. But even more so when the deck was properly biased! Some trivia? Maxell had 5 different features on the leader alone... I can list if desired! It was always part of the pitch. Because of the salt air, TDK was known to flake and lose oxide coating along the Ocean states. Like one clinic I did in Charleston, SC timed for the return of a submarine and it's crew. It was featured as a Wet T'Shirt competition as well. All Maxell tank tops I provided and was a judge. And I can not discuss the parties in limos with Gene LaBrie (the president and CEO) at CES Vega!
I'm loving my pristine, 100% refurbished TEAC A-3340S. Other than that, my DAC/Music Server and CDs. Got rid of my cassette and and vinyl stuff. The A-3340S is a superb nostalgic analog source.❤😅
My first system in 1972 was driven by a Sony cassette deck. The sound was not great, but the fun factor was making your own collection. I would borrow LPs and copy them building up my collection on a budget. In hindsight we were violating copyright and stealing from artists income. In some ways that is also the allure to a digital collection. OTOH it always bugged me to go pay for media only to get it home and not like the content. Today I can sample online and if I like it buy it. So much better.
My 1978 Ford Econoline had a cassette deck in it and I recall a long road trip blasting ZZ Top's 'Antenna' . . . I ran out of money and traded it to the gas desk clerk for my last tank of gas.
Cassettes contain eighth-inch tape, nor quarter-inch, and when done properly, using high-quality tape on a deck with Dolby S or DBX noise reduction, they can sound better than vinyl, and nearly as good as a CD.
KInda cool..... and very frustrating. Finding someone(good) to service a deck these days is like buying a lottery ticket. I would love it if some one could produce a good deck with modern heads
I had my JVC TD-V711 Super digifine cassette deck serviced last tear with new belts, rollers, demagnitized, etc. Haden't played it in years, but wanted it serviced before shops stopped working on them. Btw speaking of Scott, I really enjoyed the videos he did at his house and have been hoping to see more of them.
That is a fantastic tape deck. I have one myself. Besides 3 heads and dual capstans it is also direkt drive. Mine is from 1988 (I bought it new then) and it still works like new.
I'd say the same for a number of genres like hip-hop too of that era. Being of the era of buying cassettes and then 'upgrading' to CD there were a lot of poorly mastered early CD's of albums that I'd prefer the sound off the tape.
@@benwu7980you are right, I think it might have been the same with tapes. I seem to remember a lot of the cds we eventually got sounded either shouty or boosted in the treble in comparison to the tapes
@@harackmw Brings back a whole lot of good memories of music and kit, since I only started switched to cd circa '92/'93 and that was either still with cdRom drive or some portable 3 in one. Would not have been till '94 that I started getting paychecks and almost immediately bought a Marantz CD63se, possibly the best value to performance separate I've ever bought. I can concede that some of why I may have liked some tapes more, was that increased treble on cd's, but it may just have been akin to muscle memory, having re-listened to them much.
@@benwu7980Don't feel bad, now in my 40s I am still dealing with brain burn in from that era. I can't handle treble focused gear, especially higher end systems geared for detail and some headphones; it isn't musical to me, it isn't laid back, it isn't enjoyable, despite the fact that, yes, I hear things in the recordings I never heard before. No lie, this past summer my Dad's 2001 gmc was fixed up, tape deck and all, and my brother popped in some Judas Priest and it was 1995 again.
@@harackmw Oh, I don't feel 'bad' about it exactly nearing 50. Cd mastering and audio system has gotten a lot better over the intervening years, and I may have a bit of the 'rose-tinted glasses' effect going on with memory. So many of my favorite albums are from back then though, so when say about his gmc and cassettes of Judas Priest, I have to ask if was turbo'd gmc..or was not a Turbo Lover...
I still use it frequently, it's a great pleasure to select the songs, order them to best occupy both sides, calibrate the tape, etc. etc. and the sound isn't bad at all
Oddly enough, I am nearly finished servicing a smallish BSR (yes!) MC10 cassette deck. It has a full-logic solenoid (not cam wheel) transport. Never saw one like it before. In spite of quite visible head wear it still sounds pretty decent. The customer expressed a desire to do some live recording. I think it will serve that purpose well, but of course no one should expect to produce top-quality results with the thing.
I still have a TEAC V8030S, a Sony TCK-A3ES, and a Nakamichi (not the Dragon). That Sony deck is the best cassette recorder I have ever heard. It made some great tapes for my cars, the most recent of which that still had a cassette player was a 2004 Infiniti G35 that I kept until last year. That car had both a CD changer and a cassette player. When the CD changer died, I switched back to cassettes and really enjoyed recording great sounding mix tapes. The car lived a long life, but all things must end eventually. Now my cassette recorders all sit in sad silence... but my CD recorder still gets some use. 2011 Cadillac SRX with an actual CD player, yeah baby!
I use simple mechanic Telefunken and after carefull aligning I record music from FM stereo without noticeable alteration. For preventing head wear I use for recording second identical . They were cheap😀. MaIn problem is not tape recorder but condition of tape - often are used. I do not use two systems of NR which it has because it would be nonsens
I’m 30 and cassettes/7” R2R still rule in my place. Got my grandmas Montgomery Ward going into a Kenwood noise gate into a $10 Audio Control EQ and it easily sounds far better than digital.
Actually a cassette is 1/8 inch and not 1/4 inch , secondly you can really get great results with a type II ou trype IV tape and I don't really recommend a type III because they're not easily findable and not compatible with a lot of tapedecks , even the best ones. HX pro is the headroom extansion and it works great ! Cassette is a niche , but it's so fun making your own recordings while knowing it will have some imperfections , there are always variables even when you got control of the bias ... THE PERFECT UNPERFECT ANALOG MEDIUM !
I wil allways love my casettes they are recorded in 80.ths and early 90.ths..stay in a big carton box.. Many told me when cd. S come.. Ohhhh.. The music wil get destroyed after some years on these tapes... Guess what.. 40..year later music on these tapes sounds the same... And even better in my onkyo. Deck.. You can adjust the heads to max perfektion for your recordings.. The casettes belongs to my youth... Lots of memorys are attached to these... And one more thing.. Thanks to the cassettes.... The developement forces on.. The past have same value as modern have for the future.. Nothing beats the feeling when you come home to your boy room and open up the new vinyl record.. Put on the record.... Open the case... It was like a book.. Great stuff... Today We have spotify and tidal.. Nothing to hold in the hand.. Its a crazy developement.. Some words and thougs from sweden.. 🙏🧙♂️🕺
I certainly don't blame Paul for his sincere disinterest in tape decks, cassette or otherwise. I parked two superb items, vintage players of note, in the cellar where they now belong with the rest of the relics I regarded as now useless. I noticed he mention tape types ll & lll, but no mention of type lV, which was metal particle far, far superior to the others. He mentions Dolby like we didn't go through Dolby B, Dolby C & Dolby S shifts. & then those of us who knew purchased a DBX noise reduction system, then found them lacking because they encoded the finished tape rendering them basically useless without tha use of a DBX to play them back. Two heads or three? Individual precision drive motors, I could list a whole bunch. They wore out not being used, they had drive belts that never, ever aged well. Nope, glad it's gone...
Who else finds hilarity in the fact engineers would design decks worth thousands of dollars, like the formentioned Nakamichi Dragon, then power takeoff the drive motors with expensive rubber bands that wore-out even if you didn't use the thing. (Streched out until it slipped) Pah!
Throughout all my childhood, I always used cassettes and I’ve never liked them. Wow and flutter. Chewed up tape, hiss noise etc.. it all annoyed me. Then I got my hands on a CD… I was in sonic heaven.
The Philips DCC was cool. Could play both (analog or digital) and record digital. But i love my Akai GX from the '80s. The tape i used was the TDK SA(X) 90. And are still in production for abnormal prices.
I had a Nakamichi 680ZX for 40 years. It was a wonderful piece of engineering. But it ended up just collecting dust from lack of use. I traded it in to PSAudio toward the M1200’s.
Cassette and reel to reel tapes in good condition played on vintage decks that have been maintained like clean tape path, demagnetized and heads aligned have a sound that captures the ambience, depth and raw energy of a studio or concert hall. Dolby NR muffles the sound and I always turn it off. But they do not have remotes and you cannot constantly flick to the next song with your finger like you do with digital audio gear.
Some of the later decks would actually listen for the blank space between tracks, and auto rewind to start from the beginning of the track. This worked pretty well, but was limited if you did not insert pauses in your mixes.
@@alanmodimages I have one like that in B&O set and it works good with brand recorded cassettes. Easy to jump to next track. It's own recording is arranged so that it's silencing some seconds at every start to mantain silence breaks. If I want to select track from pilot by exact number I need to start from begining of tape. Anyway due to automatic recording level I avoid recording with that one.
@@alanmodimages What I love with analog audio reproduction is that it gives you the feeling of being part of the process like in cleaning, adjusting and maintaining. Using one of those vintage Pioneer, Akai etc reel to reel decks makes you feel like a recording engineer. And the sound is what music is all about. For me
My 35 year old Akai Reel to Reel is awesome however, many of my tapes, some from over forty years ago, have begun degaussing. Original masters from erstwhile well know MCs of the Disco era have long since been transferred to digital formats. Had an eight track player in my first new car in 1978 and that sound from a pre-recorded tape was something else. Still listening to tapes and vinyl as collection includes very rare recordings that have been out of production since my hay-day. Would love to see a proper 'boom box,' but the demand for a high quality portable tape player is pretty low.
And that's a pity. If only one manufacturer would make a good cassette mechanism with good specs, maybe they'd make a modest comeback, but ultimately, they are done, passed on to history and superseded by cheaper technology (USB flash drives). I love my four decks and will keep using them as long as they last or they may outlast me.
Paul; 1/8" tape, and you mean Dolby HX Pro :). You seem to have missed out on how good they became in the mid 80's to late 90's though. If the writer thinks an upmarket Akai sounds good (and I do really appreciate Akai cassette decks, I think the GX-F31 is one of the best budget decks out there, alongside the GX-32), then he is only halfway. I do think cassettes have the potential to sound as good as a vinyl record, when used correctly. You don't even have to spend insane amounts. A Nakamichi CR3 is already as good as a really good 4-track reel to reel machine. Only when you go 2-track high speed you really gain on cassette. How they did it on such a narrow tape with such a low speed is beyond me, but they did it! As for type II and III; There's Type I tapes that outperform most Type II and IV (not III, that was only a very briefly existing thing) tapes with ease. Preferring Type II or IV over Type I is a bit like preferring an MC cartridge over an MM cartridge.
Some years ago, my wife and I travelled to Morocco and Tunisia and found cassettes were the predominant media there, widely traded on market stalls. I suspect that there's some remote part of the developing world that still uses cassettes. Also, although widespread, the issue of piracy is reduced with cassettes as every re-recording builds up tape hiss and lowers audio quality. Eventually, the recording becomes unlistenable. BTW...cassette tape was/is one-eight of an inch wide, not a quarter (that was the eight-track cartridge).
I'm not nostalgic for cassettes either. It was the primary way to be able to record and make mixtapes, but it never sounded as good as what it was recorded from. The store-bought albums on cassettes were far lower quality than the vinyl record version. Recording an album from vinyl to a good Type II cassette (like TDK SA, TDK SA-X, Maxell UDLX-II, etc.) would sound far better than the store-bought cassette albums that were on low quality Type I tapes usually, but it always noticeably fell short in bass accuracy or high end frequency response on every deck I had as a teenager. At age 18 I got a VHS HiFi VCR (Mitsubishi HS-421UR, a good old machine with recording level controls) and even at the 6 hour EP speed, audio recorded in audio-only mode to a standard grade VHS tape sounded noticeably better than audio cassette to me.
i grew up with cassettes, but upgraded to mp3 since 1998..high quality v0 mp3. i also mix and cut my mp3 into playlists.. so my 32gb tfcard can hold 30k mixed songs and melodies on the go everywhere
Had a Technics deck. We would record to cassette the LP and preserve the LP. Problem was that the lows and highs rolled off in the cassette. Later, I found out that I could tweek the bias and get the highs right but by that time the head was worn out. Heck it was 3 db down at 10khz and dropped after that. I concluded than that if one could get flat response to only 12 khz that would be good enough for me. By that time CDs came out and no need to buy LPs or cassettes.
Using cassettes for recording projects(at a school) and struggling with noise floor on 4 track cassette, it was a revelation to switch to minidisc - track access/erase etc - and I wish I had gone for that for my home studio at the time instead of expensive, unreliable DAT tape - despite extra resolution. Other tape memories are extracting mashed lengths from the car player! It's dead! (imo!)
@@hugobloemers4425 I prooven to myself enough is just a good brand deck in right tech condition, no wear or little wear head and having low impedance source for recording. Usualy I met in i sources output 47 kOhm ( I have even 100 kOhm) . It should be avoided because of heavy fall in sopranos and thus after when listening wish to equalize it back together with added ground hiss (noise). It is all about knowledge and depending not only on instructiona.
@@hugobloemers4425 for the recording we had a Nakamichi - for the purpose minidisc was far better - track access etc. As for 4 track cassette - digital blows it out of the water. Also heard an audio friends Nakamichi into his Linn system. In my experience even a Nak had nothing to offer on the arrival of digital recording and playback, though I'm sure a good tape outperformed those early CD players in some respects.
I still have just one cassette - a country music compilation (pre-recorded not home made) and a decent quality (old) Philips boombox to play it on. it's quite hard finding tapes now EBay chancers are asking stupid prices.
@ 1:34, Cassette tape isn't one quarter inch wide, that would be RTR, consumer tape. Cassettes are .15 inch wide. The advent of Dolby C made them more listenable. I too owned a Nak, a BX-300 and with TDK MA 90's it still couldn't come close to my Revox B 77 at 7.5 ips. Note the microprocessor that controlled all tape transport functions failed with NO replacement when Nakamichi ended as a business.
I did this for a while, it worked fine on my old VHS Hi-Fi VCR, but the bulkiness of VHS tapes just made it impractical to keep doing. They just took up too much room compared to cassettes or CDs. It was great for recording radio shows on a timer and being able to record 2 or 4 hours, then edit out commercials and re-record them to cassettes to listen to.
When I had a cassette deck the sound of prerecorded tape was terrible but home-recorded tapes from say a direct recording from a tuner BBC live sessions John Peel etc were much better
Paul, if you ever make a cassette deck you probably also need to start manufacturing cassettes to ensure sufficient quality. And then there is the problem of Dolby Labs no longer licensing noise reduction systems. Maybe use dbx? Although personally I'd prefer PS Audio to make a high-end discman. PS. That thing to extend high frequency response might have been HX Pro.
Theres only so much you can squeeze out of magnetic tape. The high frequency overlay at the maximum flux density and feed rate of the media just isn't high enough to preserve high resolution audio. The outdated opamps and transistors don't help. You *can* update the amplifier stages with modern Opamps though, and it does go a long way. Even the OPA1678 sounded better than the pre-5532 chips in the majority of period players. I still do like the sound though. Theres' an eagerness to it imo. If i had to choose between 128kbps mp3 and a decent Type II cassette I'd definitely go with the tape
I still love the thick and warm sound from cassettes. Love it the most, actually.
A big Akai reel-to-reel in the room calmly playing carefully selected music on mixtapes always made me feel at home. The reel-to-reel is gone now, but not the music collection. The mixtapes live on as playlists for a lossless flac file collection. I still have my first music tape recordings from 1970s radio programmes. Their, well, very lossy quality is now faithfully converted to lossless flac. But the lack of sound quality is part of memory of those years when we as 1970s high school kids tinkering with tapes and cassettes could't even dream of the HiFi capabilities we have now.
I use my TEAC Z-7000 every day. The combination of mechanics and electronics has always fascinated me. The effort that had to be made in the late 70s to mid 80s to get a Hi-Fi (let alone Hi-End) sound out of this format was enormous! Cassette decks were therefore always the most expensive part of a multi-component stereo system. The basic problem was always that, no matter how good the recording was, it was still only a copy in the end and could therefore never sound as good as the (usually also analog) source.
Today, however, things are different. With digital streaming services, the entire music world is open to us. However, not everyone likes the digital sound. There's something about analog that's 'better' than digital... whatever it may be. And it is precisely at this point, that the good old cassette is experiencing its second spring today.
I only use the streaming source to record it to cassette. In a direct comparison between the digital original and my recording, I would prefer the recording 10 out of 10 times. Not because it's 'better'... just 'different'... nicer... warmer... more lively. It seems as if the cassette today cuts out exactly that part of the digital sound, that bothers me.
But maybe it's just me and I'm just old and nostalgic ;)
I think it is because you've used cassettes so extensively during your life, that's what's "normal" to you is, the cassette is what sounds "right". A kid growing up on CD's or streaming only will find that's what's souding "right" at default. Then there' the hand-on approach to recording cassette tapes, there's a certain satisfaction in dialing everything and then getting the recording just right and the time involved. You have to work for it, but that also makes the satisfaction of reward higher.
As a owner of a Nakamichi Dragon...it sadly sits unused ...the pinnacle of cassette technology left to rot to speak...no one even makes type 4 tape anymore
I wouldn' go for very expensive like dragon. Casstette players need to be aligned each time to tape - often two sides of the same brand have small difference - it is condition to assure right level of sopranos. It may be stressing to turn it few times a day in so expensive gear, Without it It is easy to have casstte deck having tech data and ability 19 kHz on top but enjoy from tape only 4 kHz or less
Tried various formats for years, & noise reduction formats, such as Dolby, & dbx. All had advantages, disadvantages. Except! Metal Cassette Tape, "Full Metal Cassette Tape," sounded EXACTLY like the record, but was expensive!
Dragons are in high demand - even if non-functional, good cosmetics will bring a nice chunk of change.
@@richardsoffice9176 TDK MA-XG were pretty much my goto for recording onto back in those days.
I still own a Dragon as well. And just like you I don't use it anymore. Somehow in the years I used my Thorens turntable, my Quad amplifier the casette deck and my old DIY loudspeakers I appreciated my system more then my current system. While that is nothing to sneeze at and it sounds great, it just does not give me the same feeling. Though I still use the turntable to date.
The love of cassette decks explained in two sentences:
They gave users the ability to create their own, hour and a half long playlists.
They were very cool pieces of electronic and mechanical equipment that appealed to people's fascination with the hardware itself.
I really miss them. Toward the end of their popularity they were able to produce way better than "good enough" sound for most people. I wish a digital successor had come along to replace them, but as we all know, the music industry was absolutely apoplectic about anyone being able to duplicate anything, so the pressure to eliminate recording functions prevented any of the obvious, technically straightforward, recordable options from becoming a standard.
Ehm... the digital successor _was_ created: the DCC. It had ecellent sound actually. But it was in a format battle with Sony's MiniDisc and then Napter and MP3 came along. There was also DAT and digital microcassettes, the latter recording in 32hz sample rate, but still very good, but both were too expensive for general audiences.
@@notsorandumusername yes. Excellent point. When I wrote that I knew about those things and my comment makes it seem like there was no alternative when in fact there were some, and pottery good ones too.
Price was certainly a factor that limited adoption. Format wars also undermined the recordable options. I don't really know what I think for sure, but it also seems like there was a lot bigger push behind selling CDs than there ever was for anything recordable, and that makes sense from the seller's perspective because I can't imagine the profit potential from recordable systems would ever get close to that of a medium where you had to go to publishers for content.
Good point. Thanks for responding.
I still have a Sony TC-D5M and a pair of Sennheiser MD 441-U microphones that I used back in the '80s to record concerts. One band I recorded was The Minutemen, and after D Boon died in a car crash, the band released a posthumous live album; one of the tracks is from one of my tapes.
Cassettes used 1/8th inch tape. Sony tried to market a 1/4" format called Elcaset, but it flopped.
One big hurdle facing anyone trying to build a high quality deck today, is that Dolby hasn't manufactured or licensed their Dolby B and C Noise Reduction chips for many years.
Greatly engineered cassette decks wouldn't need any noise reduction system. Ignoring that, there is a dolby C clone which teac is using in their decks and dolby B can be freely used since the patent is too old. Either way if you are saying that we can't make new good decks because we don't have new nr systems then why not making one yourself smh...
Actually the best sounding cassette decks were Tandberg, not Nakamichi; although Nakamichis were nice. Interesting thing about Nakamich is that some of their cassette decks like the LX series were euphonic in the midrange, similar to Mofi lps of the same era. I remember comparing a bottom of the line Nak BX 100 to one of their much more expensive LX series decks, and the cheap deck had a much flatter and fuller midrange. You could tell the signal to noise ratio wasn't as good though. The Tandberg 3014, considered the Nak Dragon Slayer and true king of mass produced cassette decks, I think just about always gets prices nearing $2,000 on ebay auctions. Tandberg made one of the best sounding reel to reel decks also around the same time; the TD20 SA. Truly one of the best sounding ever. A few guys on the forums who had the upper tier Tandberg cassette decks like the 3014 or TCD440, say the sound is close enough to their Tandberg reel to reel deck, that they use the cassette deck much more often.
After listening to cds (on a very great player) for many months, and then hooking up one of the top Tandberg cassette decks, made me realize that there still is something special about the timbre of analog. I was playing factory prerecorded cassettes at the time. The clarity wasn't 100% as clear as cd, and of course the dynamics weren't near it, but something about that timbre of the instruments. So smooth, right and genuine. Most people would be absolutely stunned how good factory prerecorded cassettes can sound on a state of the art cassette deck. At about 4 times slower speed than reel to reel and much thinner tape width, some of them can fool you into thinking you are listening to a good reel deck. And unlike factory prerecorded reel tapes, which you rarely see in thrift stores, flea markets etc., cassettes are still floating around for 50 cents to a few dollars. The price of factory prerecorded cassettes are going up. A few companies out of China are now manufacturing equip. that play back cassettes. The vintage cream of the crop still rule though, if you can find them in good condition.
A bigger issue than that is nobody would build their own tape transport these days and the available off the shelf ones are very, very bad.
I Love Cassettes and the cassette Medium. I have a Technics Cassette deck and it works perfect. Every now and then I still make a mix tape for the fun of it
Another great invention from Philips, The Netherlands. Those cassettes always had a lot of hiss to it in my experience. But they were practical, without it the Walkman was not possible and that changed the way we listen to music for ever.
Paul. if you do ever think about building one make sure it comes with a free PS Audio pencil for rewinding the tape once it has decided to make a break for it .
Or a bic pen
Would have to be a PS Audio pen. Pencils are too thin to wind cassettes effectively.
@@michaelturner4457 I was matching the two technologies, a pen is far too advanced.
If the deck is good, there's no need for it, as that never happens.
@@westelaudio943 Yup most of the time it occurred because the user wasn't keeping the heads, pinch roller and capstan clean!
I chuckled through the whole video on Paul having to explain what a cassette is. Made me feel so old. BTW, I still love my Nakamichi LX3.
I still have a Nakamichi deck - it doesn’t get used much nowadays but when it was calibrated to TDK SA-X tapes, its quality and dynamic range could knock vinyl for six.! I still occasionally listen to old cassette tapes on a cheap player as it enhances the nostalgia factor ten fold as it matches the sound of an album that I heard back in the day when I first heard it. That’s the big problem with audiophile ‘perfection’ - it leaves nothing to be nostalgic about.
I still have my Technics RS-TR232 HX Pro that works and sounds very well.. obviously it's not like streaming, CD quality or vinyl but we still enjoy it immensely.. especially at Christmas with all the old tapes my Mom Still has.. Another plug for Paul because I just purchased a P12 power regenerator and even the tape machine is mucho mejora in sound. If you can afford any PS Audio regenerator you should DEFINITELY HAVE ONE!! Hearing is BELIEVING!! Literally Night and DAY and I have Polk Loudspeakers.. They NEVER had life until now. Old School or New it's ALL about the pure enjoyment of "LISTENING 💯 Thanks to Paul, Chris H, James H and our good friend Joey F.. Great People.. Great Service 👍✌️
Prior to digital, cassette decks were the only way to create a playlist, and the only way to choose your music while driving.
I own a Nakamichi CR-7A, which works great. It was a tough purchase for me, working part-time. But living with my parents, at the time, made it possible.
I would have rather have purchased the Nakamichi Dragon. But it was ~30% more expensive.
One of the amazing features of the CR-7A and the Dragon is being able to adjust the head's azimuth. You can see the heads move. It is very little, and yet makes a huge difference in sound quality.
It allows you to play tapes from other decks, and have your heads line up with that other deck's heads.
The CR-7A also has auto-reverse, and some other great features.
The one thing I did not know at the time, was how important interconnects were. I used complete junk interconnects, not realizing how much they diminished the sound quality. I could not afford top-tier interconnects, even if I had known. But had I had known the importance of interconnects, I would have purchased something decent, that would at least not harm the sound quality, significantly.
I wish that I had room in my rack for my tape deck. Alas, it sits in storage. But I have tested it recently, and it works.
one of the blind tests I have made was a Leonard Cohen Album, I made that one for my brother, A CD, Streaming, Vinyl and a straight copy from the vinyl to a Type 2 cassette. I think he could figure out the vinyl to start with. Anyway, the results were, Vinyl won it hands down, next was the Cassette, CD and finally streaming last. All sounded good, the surprise was the Cassette.
I still have my late dad's old Ferograph reel to reel machine .. it's big , heavy and has valves inside ... it runs at 15ips or 7.5 ips and it still sounds great !! If I record a vinyl on to it and play it back I can't tell the difference... it's THAT good ! I did a thorough recap and valve replacement on it btw ... and the heads have hardly ANY wear either ...
i had a dual cassette deck (the german turntable company)- i would record the first play of new vinyl, and then just play the tape, in order to preserve the vinyl. ar3a, ar amplifier, various turntables/cartridges. worked very well for me and mine for at least 20 years.
I would not agre that all Lps deteriorate with time. I listen to some editions made in 1960 ties, mostly they are classic symphony with choir and their sounding unbeatable - my colege having all digital stated that choir is for him impossible to reproduce in full . LP Biscaya by James Last Orchestra made in 1968 is stunning everybody and It is clear that such entertaining music had to be played often from thatexactly LP within over 60 years.
It may be better to write "Dual" instead of "dual" because it's a brand name where you always write a capital first letter. And you won't confuse it with dual cassette decks (not from Dual but with two drives) which were also popular for some time. 😉
My 1983 sharp gf9500 getto had a logic deck transport. Looks good in the fact that it still plays well
I picked up a Marantz duel cassette deck a couple years ago. When I'm at the record store, if they have any cassettes, if something pops up.... I'll grab it. I'm pleased with the sound I get from it with my system.
Still have all my cassettes from the good old days along with my first tape deck. I acquired a nakamichi 580 that is built like a tank and when it was finally dialed in sounds fantastic.
I still own a Harmon/Kardon CD 101 cassettes deck, that I bought new in 1982.
I still use it once in a while when I feel nostalgic, and it sounds pretty damn good!
I think HX pro was the headroom extension system. Dolby and DBS noise reduction systems. The dbx expansion compression system was amazing but unless it was properly set up, a noise pumping effect could be heard. I still own and use 2 cassette decks and with the right tape and recording levels set properly, it sometimes would be hard pressed to distinguish it from the original.
Cassettes were my go-to medium; made mix tapes (never called them that, though) from selected record tracks, taped off of the radio and the occasional simulcast where you watched a concert on TV and a radio station would play the stereo audio to go along with it. Went through all brands until I hit Nakamichi and that was that.
Cassette decks in the 80's where what DACs are now in terms of cool. I still like them very much. They do color the sound but in a way that is very nice. I had a Dokorder reel to reel deck and the tapes recorded from an LP on that thing sounded better to me (yes it is a sound engine but what a sound engine it is!!!).
PS, funny that Paul feels he has to explain what a Compact Cassette is...
Fact that You observed it is not he good reason to say in general that cassetets decks color sound
Still love and use my four cassette decks, even had the two better Sony decks repaired/refurbished last year. I still have about 800 cassettes that sound fine. No Internet streaming required. High bias tapes, Dolby B and S along with HX Pro all combined to make cassettes the outstanding music medium they became. At the end of the 2010s you could get a great deck for $500. Pity they no longer make high bias or metal tapes. I bought about 60 90-minute Maxell UR tapes last year, just to make sure I could still record my vinyl albums. Yeah, maybe it is just for "fun" but nothing wrong in having fun. I recall the quality of recordings done from CD to Metal tapes with Dolby S were so good that it was difficult to tell the difference between the CD and the tape.
I still have my Sony cassette deck from the 90's, which still sounds great. I love tapes, I used to love making up the best of for my favourite rock groups and then playing them on the go on my Sony Walkman which I still have and is still working perfectly.
Back in the days we would record our favorite song from the radio broadcast on Cassette tape. some times you would even end up getting the commentator voice recorded as well 😂
I used a dbx outboard noise reduction with my Teac Z-7000 back in the mid 80's. Ripped some very good tapes from Japanese 180 gram vinyl. It was fun.
I still have a heap of tapes. Taped our selves when we were kids. I cant let go of them.
I have a NAD 616 Cassette Deck. I don't use it much but I could never get rid of it. This was the first new piece of gear I bought when I was 13 with Xmas money.
Remember waiting through the radio commercials with your finger on the record button because the DJ told you your favorite song was going to be played after the break? Thank God those days are over!!!
I have been a die-hard cassette fan for most of my life. I have a number of tapes to go through for rare songs that never made the transition to digital. And I now have a good JVC DD-7 to do it with.
Some of the last ones like the Technics direct drives with dbx and TDK MA-X metal tapes were impressive for the day.
While cleaning out the basement, pitching old relics still down there, I came across hundreds of cassette tapes. Couldn't come to throwing away many of them. Some store bought some recorded. I guess I will dust off my old Denon dual cassette player and have a go!
It takes me back to the days where I used to make mix tapes. I always bought CrO2 or metal oxide tapes (TDK or Maxell, which ever was cheaper), always cleaned the pinch rollers and tape heads on my high end tape player, made sure the recording levels were just right, used Dolby B but also used Dolby C noise reduction when it came out, etc. Even had an external DBX unit for some recordings when I wanted the best noise reduction possible but that was never perfect.
And I did a lot of recordings from my vinyl at the time. Even when I listen to those tapes today, I’m amazed in how well they turned out. I miss those days.
I love my Yamaha 390.have loads of Radio 1 dance mixs from airly 90s crome and metal mostly TDX.Those moment's in time can't be replaced and with the tape bias can sound pretty good.
Man I miss making mix tapes!!! May have to do that again seeing that I still have a decent Denon double cassette deck.
I bought a new stereo in 1983, including a cassette deck. I bought a cheap turntable, at the advice of the salesman, with an expensive Grado cartridge. I still bought vinyl, but recorded them to cassette, using high grade tape. The turntable died recently, but I still have all the tapes and the records have only been played twice.
Aiwa 3 Head deck with Metal tape from vinyl from a really good Cartridge sounds pretty dang good. Still have many radio concerts of the day stored on that media that still sound great 30 years later.
I like the sound of basicTascam 122 cassette deck. It just sounds better than some other brands I had before with good Maxell UD gold tapes.
Nice. I also had a Nakamichi. A 581.
Have 2 Nakamichi decks and use them every day. Record content from a Sirius/XM tuner. When commercials come on i press the fast forward button and within seconds i'm back to the show.😊
As a owner of 10 cassette decks, I can tell you, you are not nuts.
I was known as Dr. Maxell in my territory as a Maxell rep in the '70's because I would do the travelling cassette deck calibration tour to all the stereo shops in my territory. Most decks came biased for TDK which used a slightly lower bias level. Manufacturers used this calibration because it made TDK work it's best and the Maxell was OK with the lower bias. But for max Maxell performance the higher bias would cause TDK to roll off on the highs.
Maxell always beat TDK regardless. But even more so when the deck was properly biased!
Some trivia? Maxell had 5 different features on the leader alone... I can list if desired! It was always part of the pitch. Because of the salt air, TDK was known to flake and lose oxide coating along the Ocean states. Like one clinic I did in Charleston, SC timed for the return of a submarine and it's crew. It was featured as a Wet T'Shirt competition as well. All Maxell tank tops I provided and was a judge. And I can not discuss the parties in limos with Gene LaBrie (the president and CEO) at CES Vega!
I'm loving my pristine, 100% refurbished TEAC A-3340S. Other than that, my DAC/Music Server and CDs. Got rid of my cassette and and vinyl stuff. The A-3340S is a superb nostalgic analog source.❤😅
My first system in 1972 was driven by a Sony cassette deck. The sound was not great, but the fun factor was making your own collection. I would borrow LPs and copy them building up my collection on a budget. In hindsight we were violating copyright and stealing from artists income. In some ways that is also the allure to a digital collection. OTOH it always bugged me to go pay for media only to get it home and not like the content. Today I can sample online and if I like it buy it. So much better.
My 1978 Ford Econoline had a cassette deck in it and I recall a long road trip blasting ZZ Top's 'Antenna' . . . I ran out of money and traded it to the gas desk clerk for my last tank of gas.
Cassettes contain eighth-inch tape, nor quarter-inch, and when done properly, using high-quality tape on a deck with Dolby S or DBX noise reduction, they can sound better than vinyl, and nearly as good as a CD.
KInda cool..... and very frustrating. Finding someone(good) to service a deck these days is like buying a lottery ticket. I would love it if some one could produce a good deck with modern heads
I owned the Nakamichi Dragon. It hardly got any use but the aftermarket values are through the roof!
I had my JVC TD-V711 Super digifine cassette deck serviced last tear with new belts, rollers, demagnitized, etc. Haden't played it in years, but wanted it serviced before shops stopped working on them. Btw speaking of Scott, I really enjoyed the videos he did at his house and have been hoping to see more of them.
That is a fantastic tape deck. I have one myself. Besides 3 heads and dual capstans it is also direkt drive. Mine is from 1988 (I bought it new then) and it still works like new.
Dolby HX pro. High extention pro.
80s metal/rock sounds awesome on cassettes; Get some shades, pop in a cassette, and cruise main-street like its the 80s bro~
I'd say the same for a number of genres like hip-hop too of that era. Being of the era of buying cassettes and then 'upgrading' to CD there were a lot of poorly mastered early CD's of albums that I'd prefer the sound off the tape.
@@benwu7980you are right, I think it might have been the same with tapes. I seem to remember a lot of the cds we eventually got sounded either shouty or boosted in the treble in comparison to the tapes
@@harackmw Brings back a whole lot of good memories of music and kit, since I only started switched to cd circa '92/'93 and that was either still with cdRom drive or some portable 3 in one. Would not have been till '94 that I started getting paychecks and almost immediately bought a Marantz CD63se, possibly the best value to performance separate I've ever bought.
I can concede that some of why I may have liked some tapes more, was that increased treble on cd's, but it may just have been akin to muscle memory, having re-listened to them much.
@@benwu7980Don't feel bad, now in my 40s I am still dealing with brain burn in from that era. I can't handle treble focused gear, especially higher end systems geared for detail and some headphones; it isn't musical to me, it isn't laid back, it isn't enjoyable, despite the fact that, yes, I hear things in the recordings I never heard before. No lie, this past summer my Dad's 2001 gmc was fixed up, tape deck and all, and my brother popped in some Judas Priest and it was 1995 again.
@@harackmw Oh, I don't feel 'bad' about it exactly nearing 50. Cd mastering and audio system has gotten a lot better over the intervening years, and I may have a bit of the 'rose-tinted glasses' effect going on with memory. So many of my favorite albums are from back then though, so when say about his gmc and cassettes of Judas Priest, I have to ask if was turbo'd gmc..or was not a Turbo Lover...
My Mercedes Benz E-Class 2001 still have a factory build cassette player . Also , of course CD - player which I use most of the times .
I still use it frequently, it's a great pleasure to select the songs, order them to best occupy both sides, calibrate the tape, etc. etc.
and the sound isn't bad at all
Oddly enough, I am nearly finished servicing a smallish BSR (yes!) MC10 cassette deck.
It has a full-logic solenoid (not cam wheel) transport. Never saw one like it before.
In spite of quite visible head wear it still sounds pretty decent.
The customer expressed a desire to do some live recording. I think it will serve that purpose well,
but of course no one should expect to produce top-quality results with the thing.
I still have a TEAC V8030S, a Sony TCK-A3ES, and a Nakamichi (not the Dragon). That Sony deck is the best cassette recorder I have ever heard. It made some great tapes for my cars, the most recent of which that still had a cassette player was a 2004 Infiniti G35 that I kept until last year. That car had both a CD changer and a cassette player. When the CD changer died, I switched back to cassettes and really enjoyed recording great sounding mix tapes. The car lived a long life, but all things must end eventually. Now my cassette recorders all sit in sad silence... but my CD recorder still gets some use. 2011 Cadillac SRX with an actual CD player, yeah baby!
I use simple mechanic Telefunken and after carefull aligning I record music from FM stereo without noticeable alteration. For preventing head wear I use for recording second identical . They were cheap😀. MaIn problem is not tape recorder but condition of tape - often are used. I do not use two systems of NR which it has because it would be nonsens
I’m 30 and cassettes/7” R2R still rule in my place. Got my grandmas Montgomery Ward going into a Kenwood noise gate into a $10 Audio Control EQ and it easily sounds far better than digital.
Actually a cassette is 1/8 inch and not 1/4 inch , secondly you can really get great results with a type II ou trype IV tape and I don't really recommend a type III because they're not easily findable and not compatible with a lot of tapedecks , even the best ones.
HX pro is the headroom extansion and it works great !
Cassette is a niche , but it's so fun making your own recordings while knowing it will have some imperfections , there are always variables even when you got control of the bias ... THE PERFECT UNPERFECT ANALOG MEDIUM !
Paul you really should make cassette decks 😊
I have used my Yamaha double cassette deck as a preamp from a cell phone (6s) then into an amp, and give that Spotify music some boost.
I wil allways love my casettes they are recorded in 80.ths and early 90.ths..stay in a big carton box.. Many told me when cd. S come.. Ohhhh.. The music wil get destroyed after some years on these tapes... Guess what.. 40..year later music on these tapes sounds the same... And even better in my onkyo. Deck.. You can adjust the heads to max perfektion for your recordings.. The casettes belongs to my youth... Lots of memorys are attached to these... And one more thing.. Thanks to the cassettes.... The developement forces on.. The past have same value as modern have for the future.. Nothing beats the feeling when you come home to your boy room and open up the new vinyl record.. Put on the record.... Open the case... It was like a book.. Great stuff... Today We have spotify and tidal.. Nothing to hold in the hand.. Its a crazy developement.. Some words and thougs from sweden.. 🙏🧙♂️🕺
I certainly don't blame Paul for his sincere disinterest in tape decks, cassette or otherwise. I parked two superb items, vintage players of note, in the cellar where they now belong with the rest of the relics I regarded as now useless. I noticed he mention tape types ll & lll, but no mention of type lV, which was metal particle far, far superior to the others. He mentions Dolby like we didn't go through Dolby B, Dolby C & Dolby S shifts. & then those of us who knew purchased a DBX noise reduction system, then found them lacking because they encoded the finished tape rendering them basically useless without tha use of a DBX to play them back. Two heads or three? Individual precision drive motors, I could list a whole bunch. They wore out not being used, they had drive belts that never, ever aged well. Nope, glad it's gone...
Who else finds hilarity in the fact engineers would design decks worth thousands of dollars, like the formentioned Nakamichi Dragon, then power takeoff the drive motors with expensive rubber bands that wore-out even if you didn't use the thing. (Streched out until it slipped) Pah!
Having sold Nakamichi decks at the end of the 70’s, and despite owning a 670ZX, the 1000ZXL was the GOAT, with the dual speed 680ZX second.
At first, I was wondering why Paul is explaining what a cassette is. Then I was like, oh damn, I'm old!
Throughout all my childhood, I always used cassettes and I’ve never liked them. Wow and flutter. Chewed up tape, hiss noise etc.. it all annoyed me. Then I got my hands on a CD… I was in sonic heaven.
The Philips DCC was cool. Could play both (analog or digital) and record digital. But i love my Akai GX from the '80s. The tape i used was the TDK SA(X) 90. And are still in production for abnormal prices.
I had a Nakamichi 680ZX for 40 years. It was a wonderful piece of engineering.
But it ended up just collecting dust from lack of use.
I traded it in to PSAudio toward the M1200’s.
Cassette and reel to reel tapes in good condition played on vintage decks that have been maintained like clean tape path, demagnetized and heads aligned have a sound that captures the ambience, depth and raw energy of a studio or concert hall. Dolby NR muffles the sound and I always turn it off. But they do not have remotes and you cannot constantly flick to the next song with your finger like you do with digital audio gear.
I have R2R with remote - it is stop tyo put on the floor oerated by foot. I made it myself just yestarday and it has long cable 🙃
Some of the later decks would actually listen for the blank space between tracks, and auto rewind to start from the beginning of the track. This worked pretty well, but was limited if you did not insert pauses in your mixes.
@@alanmodimages I have one like that in B&O set and it works good with brand recorded cassettes. Easy to jump to next track. It's own recording is arranged so that it's silencing some seconds at every start to mantain silence breaks. If I want to select track from pilot by exact number I need to start from begining of tape. Anyway due to automatic recording level I avoid recording with that one.
@@alanmodimages What I love with analog audio reproduction is that it gives you the feeling of being part of the process like in cleaning, adjusting and maintaining. Using one of those vintage Pioneer, Akai etc reel to reel decks makes you feel like a recording engineer. And the sound is what music is all about. For me
The original "sharing a playlist"
My 35 year old Akai Reel to Reel is awesome however, many of my tapes, some from over forty years ago, have begun degaussing. Original masters from erstwhile well know MCs of the Disco era have long since been transferred to digital formats. Had an eight track player in my first new car in 1978 and that sound from a pre-recorded tape was something else. Still listening to tapes and vinyl as collection includes very rare recordings that have been out of production since my hay-day. Would love to see a proper 'boom box,' but the demand for a high quality portable tape player is pretty low.
Mix tapes were great for long car rides
Couodn't imagine PS Audio making a cassette deck, after all there's only that cheap chinesium tanashin clone mech that everyone uses.
And that's a pity. If only one manufacturer would make a good cassette mechanism with good specs, maybe they'd make a modest comeback, but ultimately, they are done, passed on to history and superseded by cheaper technology (USB flash drives). I love my four decks and will keep using them as long as they last or they may outlast me.
OMG, you just made me feel old by the need to explain what a cassette tape is…😂😢
Paul; 1/8" tape, and you mean Dolby HX Pro :). You seem to have missed out on how good they became in the mid 80's to late 90's though.
If the writer thinks an upmarket Akai sounds good (and I do really appreciate Akai cassette decks, I think the GX-F31 is one of the best budget decks out there, alongside the GX-32), then he is only halfway. I do think cassettes have the potential to sound as good as a vinyl record, when used correctly. You don't even have to spend insane amounts. A Nakamichi CR3 is already as good as a really good 4-track reel to reel machine. Only when you go 2-track high speed you really gain on cassette. How they did it on such a narrow tape with such a low speed is beyond me, but they did it!
As for type II and III; There's Type I tapes that outperform most Type II and IV (not III, that was only a very briefly existing thing) tapes with ease. Preferring Type II or IV over Type I is a bit like preferring an MC cartridge over an MM cartridge.
Some years ago, my wife and I travelled to Morocco and Tunisia and found cassettes were the predominant media there, widely traded on market stalls. I suspect that there's some remote part of the developing world that still uses cassettes. Also, although widespread, the issue of piracy is reduced with cassettes as every re-recording builds up tape hiss and lowers audio quality. Eventually, the recording becomes unlistenable. BTW...cassette tape was/is one-eight of an inch wide, not a quarter (that was the eight-track cartridge).
Picked up a teac 860 the other day
I was able to make killer cassettes with the Nakamichi dragon
Using a special Super master cassettes that were discontinued, and very hard to find.
I still like cassette right now I use a sharp RT140 would like to have a Yamaha K720 or pioneer CTS88R
I'm not nostalgic for cassettes either. It was the primary way to be able to record and make mixtapes, but it never sounded as good as what it was recorded from. The store-bought albums on cassettes were far lower quality than the vinyl record version. Recording an album from vinyl to a good Type II cassette (like TDK SA, TDK SA-X, Maxell UDLX-II, etc.) would sound far better than the store-bought cassette albums that were on low quality Type I tapes usually, but it always noticeably fell short in bass accuracy or high end frequency response on every deck I had as a teenager. At age 18 I got a VHS HiFi VCR (Mitsubishi HS-421UR, a good old machine with recording level controls) and even at the 6 hour EP speed, audio recorded in audio-only mode to a standard grade VHS tape sounded noticeably better than audio cassette to me.
i grew up with cassettes, but upgraded to mp3 since 1998..high quality v0 mp3. i also mix and cut my mp3 into playlists..
so my 32gb tfcard can hold 30k mixed songs and melodies on the go everywhere
Still use dad's three Nakamichis.
Had a Technics deck. We would record to cassette the LP and preserve the LP. Problem was that the lows and highs rolled off in the cassette. Later, I found out that I could tweek the bias and get the highs right but by that time the head was worn out. Heck it was 3 db down at 10khz and dropped after that. I concluded than that if one could get flat response to only 12 khz that would be good enough for me. By that time CDs came out and no need to buy LPs or cassettes.
I love the hiss of cassettes
Scott make a cassette deck please
You can do it now with CD-Recorders
Using cassettes for recording projects(at a school) and struggling with noise floor on 4 track cassette, it was a revelation to switch to minidisc - track access/erase etc - and I wish I had gone for that for my home studio at the time instead of expensive, unreliable DAT tape - despite extra resolution. Other tape memories are extracting mashed lengths from the car player! It's dead! (imo!)
It seems you never had a high end compact cassette experience.
@@hugobloemers4425 I prooven to myself enough is just a good brand deck in right tech condition, no wear or little wear head and having low impedance source for recording. Usualy I met in i sources output 47 kOhm ( I have even 100 kOhm) . It should be avoided because of heavy fall in sopranos and thus after when listening wish to equalize it back together with added ground hiss (noise). It is all about knowledge and depending not only on instructiona.
@@hugobloemers4425 for the recording we had a Nakamichi - for the purpose minidisc was far better - track access etc. As for 4 track cassette - digital blows it out of the water. Also heard an audio friends Nakamichi into his Linn system. In my experience even a Nak had nothing to offer on the arrival of digital recording and playback, though I'm sure a good tape outperformed those early CD players in some respects.
Ah, Minidisc never caught on much here in the States. It came along at just the wrong time I guess.
I use my casset deck weekly in-between vinyl and cd but its hard to say if the market is viable.
I still have just one cassette - a country music compilation (pre-recorded not home made) and a decent quality (old) Philips boombox to play it on. it's quite hard finding tapes now EBay chancers are asking stupid prices.
@ 1:34, Cassette tape isn't one quarter inch wide, that would be RTR, consumer tape. Cassettes are .15 inch wide. The advent of Dolby C made them more listenable. I too owned a Nak, a BX-300 and with TDK MA 90's it still couldn't come close to my Revox B 77 at 7.5 ips. Note the microprocessor that controlled all tape transport functions failed with NO replacement when Nakamichi ended as a business.
Theres a sect of audiophiles that are recording audio on VHS tape. They say it sounds very good and compare it to reel to reel🤷♂️
I did this for a while, it worked fine on my old VHS Hi-Fi VCR, but the bulkiness of VHS tapes just made it impractical to keep doing. They just took up too much room compared to cassettes or CDs. It was great for recording radio shows on a timer and being able to record 2 or 4 hours, then edit out commercials and re-record them to cassettes to listen to.
I had a Nakamichi 3A(?) three head tape deck. It sounds alright, CD quality and not keen on cassettes at all. Nap is gathering dust somewhere.
When I had a cassette deck the sound of prerecorded tape was terrible but home-recorded tapes from say a direct recording from a tuner BBC live sessions John Peel etc were much better
PS Audio should think about making reel to reel machines..
Paul, if you ever make a cassette deck you probably also need to start manufacturing cassettes to ensure sufficient quality. And then there is the problem of Dolby Labs no longer licensing noise reduction systems. Maybe use dbx?
Although personally I'd prefer PS Audio to make a high-end discman.
PS. That thing to extend high frequency response might have been HX Pro.
Theres only so much you can squeeze out of magnetic tape. The high frequency overlay at the maximum flux density and feed rate of the media just isn't high enough to preserve high resolution audio. The outdated opamps and transistors don't help. You *can* update the amplifier stages with modern Opamps though, and it does go a long way. Even the OPA1678 sounded better than the pre-5532 chips in the majority of period players.
I still do like the sound though. Theres' an eagerness to it imo. If i had to choose between 128kbps mp3 and a decent Type II cassette I'd definitely go with the tape
the manufactured tapes probably weren't "great", but a quality "deck" with good tapes can sound very good. I mix my own tapes
Can the CASSETTE recording source from DSD?
Bring back the 8-track.
Performance wise it is like comparing model T ford to a mustang😂
I knnnnneeewww you would have owned a Nakamichi!