My son bought a cassette deck!

[TheBatsEar]

My son is now 30 and he actually bought a used Technics cassette deck!

Do we get a pic? Of the deck, not your son.

 

[Joe Smith]

I still have ~10 decks, use regularly, and my 33 year old son has one of my old Technics decks that he uses a LOT. He's a musician in a local band and gets a fair number of cassettes from other local/regional bands. Most of them are releasing on cassette rather than vinyl, due to costs.

I have a select library of about 250 pre-recorded tapes and 400 self-recorded tapes that I listen to. I think a lot of us who grew up in the cassette era have a lot of nostalgia for the format. Not sure what the future is, as there really are not any good new decks being made now and my fleet (as everyone's) is aging. It is amazing, over at tapeheads.net, to see some of the rebuild and restoration work that goes on. That's beyond my desire, either financial or time-wise, but to each one's own. I enjoy my lower end Nak's but my favorite decks to actually tape on now are the two Marantz PMD-502 rackmount style units I bought a few years ago. Hope to get another nice decade of use out of them.

Alas, never could justify getting into reel to reel but I spent a lot of time drooling as a kid in the 70s over them. I was amused my Amir's review of the old Sony unit from 1958, the year I was born. They built little tanks back then, didn't they?

 

[ThatM1key]

If it's something horrible, i didn't have it in mind. Just snek for snake and fat for oil.

I don't dare google stuff when people to tell me to google stuff.
I have been "goatse"d and "two girls one cup"'ed to many times.

You haven't seen meat spin yet?

 

[Katji]

No, no, google just assumed snake oil, included fat references.

 

[tomtoo]

The first song i ever recordet on tape.

I realy can remember, i was so happy about my new

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/282711817787_/Kassettenrecorder-ITT-Schaub-Lorenz-SL-59-70er-Jahre.jpg

Ok, i think i was 12.

 

[DVDdoug]

demagnetize the heads (every single time!) "pack" the tape by fast forwarding the entire side, then rewinding so the deck sets the tension and removes slack,

I never did that, but I'd pull-out the excess tape and re-splice it.

And, I wrote a program on my Commodore computer to match the playing times on side-A & side-B. It tried all possible combinations of the songs and it took all night to run! (IIRC it tried all possible sequences too, so it wasn't an efficient algorithm but it worked!)

I NEVER bought a pre-recorded tape, I only digitized albums (vinyl) and made mix tapes. At some point I got a mixer and two turntables so I could crossfade the mix tapes.

 

[bkdc]

does this mean we will see a spike in #2 pencil sales?

 

[ThatM1key]

I never did that, but I'd pull-out the excess tape and re-splice it.

And, I wrote a program on my Commodore computer to match the playing times on side-A & side-B. It tried all possible combinations of the songs and it took all night to run! (IIRC it tried all possible sequences too, so it wasn't an efficient algorithm but it worked!)

I NEVER bought a pre-recorded tape, I only digitized albums (vinyl) and made mix tapes. At some point I got a mixer and two turntables so I could crossfade the mix tapes.

I'm pretty much the opposite. I like getting pre-recorded tape, I got tub + a few briefcases worth of tapes. I did make a few mix tapes but I'm not much of a recording person.

Rumor has it that since Type 2 cassettes are being made again, will get proper tape decks again. I wouldn't mind paying $200 for a new Pioneer ct-w606dr but I wouldn't pay $500 to $600 for a new Teac/Tascam that's made like a ION USB Tape Deck.

 

[TheBatsEar]

Rumor has it that since Type 2 cassettes are being made again, will get proper tape decks again. I wouldn't mind paying $200 for a new Pioneer ct-w606dr but I wouldn't pay $500 to $600 for a new Teac/Tascam that's made like a ION USB Tape Deck.

Unlikely that you will ever get new and good tape decks, the mechanisms built now are bottom of the barrel. There is no market to reengineer good tape mechanisms, knowledge and tooling is lost forever.

Record players have a larger market and lower complexity, and yet we have only subpar plastic automatics.

Best you buy a used deck. Prices are still low, you can get high end decks for 200€ or so, if you are patient. If you are happy with middle class, 100€ or less.

Got a Yamaha KX-670 for 20€.

 

[ThatM1key]

Unlikely that you will ever get new and good tape decks, the mechanisms built now are bottom of the barrel. There is no market to reengineer good tape mechanisms, knowledge and tooling is lost forever.

Record players have a larger market and lower complexity, and yet we have only ****** plastic automatics.

Best you buy a used deck. Prices are still low, you can get high end decks for 200€ or so, if you are patient. If you are happy with middle class, 100€ or less.

Got a Yamaha KX-670 for 20€.

I gotten a Pioneer CT-W205R for $15, although I used auto-reserve a-lot when I was middle school. A few years ago I gotten a Pioneer CT-W606DR for $65, although again, this time the belts were pretty worn.

 

[Cbdb2]

Factory recorder tapes were the worst sounding format since the 78. Usually the cheapest tape hispeed transfered, high freqs were mush, poor dynamics. If you were recording your self with good tape the sound was much better but you still got losses. Try making a couple of copies of copies. It doesn't take many generations to ruin the music. And digital is still easier to share. (as in musicians sharing there music.) I don't get it, even less than vinyl.

 

[TheBatsEar]

digital is still easier to share

I'm listening to a prerecorded Peter Gabriel tape right now, purely out of spite.
Nothing you can do, Digiboy.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

Wait 'til it chews the tape up

 

[TheBatsEar]

Wait 'til it chews the tape up

Jokes on you, i have a special pencil to roll the tape back in.

 

[EJ3]

Unlikely that you will ever get new and good tape decks, the mechanisms built now are bottom of the barrel. There is no market to reengineer good tape mechanisms, knowledge and tooling is lost forever.

Record players have a larger market and lower complexity, and yet we have only subpar plastic automatics.

Best you buy a used deck. Prices are still low, you can get high end decks for 200€ or so, if you are patient. If you are happy with middle class, 100€ or less.

Got a Yamaha KX-670 for 20€.

Also, I have heard that that DOLBY doesn't want to deal with letting new, modern cassette decks use any of the various Noise Reduction systems that they had back in the day. That is an issue, as I have tried playing some new production tapes on both of my upper middle tier cassette decks (yes, they have new belts, rollers, etc) but without the Dolby processing they don't sound so good.

 

[ThatM1key]

We need another ANRS

 

[wjp007]

Growing up in the 80's my HiFi buddy and I would trek down to Tower Records in Honolulu (a one hour bus ride each direction by the way) and spend at least a couple of hours selecting LP's. Then back home we would dub the other's LP onto tape and therefore both obtain more material. It was a ritual. Clean the virgin LP (Disc Washer brush!), clean and demagnetize the heads (every single time!) "pack" the tape by fast forwarding the entire side, then rewinding so the deck sets the tension and removes slack, then finding the highest peak level on the LP to use to set recording levels.

Seems absurd now but back then it was a commitment to doing something right, enjoying the music was almost secondary. We were into the gear and the process and striving to produce recordings that sounded very good on our modest, teenager budget systems.

My buddies allowance was bigger than mine so he could afford to use TDK MA Metal tape while I had to settle with SA Chrome!
Even then we were audio snobs and never deigned to play these precious dubs on lowly boom boxes or car stereos. We made additional dubs using Normal or Chrome tape for those plebeian applications. I one upped him on the gear front though by having a 3 Head deck with adjustable bias (TEAC V-2RX). He had a base model 2 head deck.
We both dreamed of one day owning some model of Nakamichi.

Frankly I see cassette tape coming back today purely as a marketing gimmick. Something to differentiate oneself on the shelf.

Mee to! All I could afford was the TDK SA Chrome. Man I dreamt of getting the Nakamichi Dragon. I didn't understand what all the buttons and dials it had did, but did it look cool. When I got to the point of being able to afford one, CDs had taken over, and honestly I never looked back, although I do miss those days of having a tall rack full of equipment. I built a custom rack for my setup - Preamp, Power amp, surround processor, surround amp, tuner, cassette deck, 300 cd changer, dvd player, laser disc player, and SVHS VCR. It looked awesome.

Now I do most of my listening with a PC, Topping DAC and Topping PA5 ;}

 

[ThatM1key]

Mee to! All I could afford was the TDK SA Chrome. Man I dreamt of getting the Nakamichi Dragon. I didn't understand what all the buttons and dials it had did, but did it look cool. When I got to the point of being able to afford one, CDs had taken over, and honestly I never looked back, although I do miss those days of having a tall rack full of equipment. I built a custom rack for my setup - Preamp, Power amp, surround processor, surround amp, tuner, cassette deck, 300 cd changer, dvd player, laser disc player, and SVHS VCR. It looked awesome.

Now I do most of my listening with a PC, Topping DAC and Topping PA5 ;}

When I was in Kindergarten, my music teacher had this system. It was all Sony, the electronics, the cabinet and speakers. See all those buttons was amazing. If I wanted that these days, I would just rather get a Pioneer or Kenwood setup because Sony stuff is still priced high.

 

[mhardy6647]

does this mean we will see a spike in #2 pencil sales?

 

[Bluzvet]

I find it very strange Even stranger than folk wanting to start over with most vinyl. While I liked making mix tapes back in the day when all you had was such for vinyl for portability....and you could use the tapes in your walkman, your car, give 'em to your friends, etc...got rid of cassettes early on in the digital era as did most. At first I made mixed cds, tho Lots easier ways to go about it now without the relatively poor performance of the older media let alone convenience factors.

No interest in Billie Eilish or The Weeknd myself but if they can make a few bucks selling their stuff on vinyl or tape I suppose the more power to 'em. I never liked pre-recorded cassettes much back in the day either, tho.

Hope he has fun with it. I listen to cassettes I made on my Nakamichi deck all the time. I own one prerecorded tape and hate the sound of it. Never purchased another again. But if he is happy with the sound after buying one that is all that matters.