Article about cassette tapes

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Brownlow

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With the 'flight to digital' that we've experienced over the last 15 - 25 years, many realised that digital was not all that it purported to be. I have a Sony TCKE600s cassette deck, which was not 100% tuned up, but decent enough. I recorded on a new TDK SA (yep, not the Japanese variety). The tape was played back on a Sharp GF-9595. The result was excellent.

Many of us are aware of the limitations of tape, but the results can really blow you away if you got decent equipment and good tape. Many guys who have those top notch decks don't hear much, if any, tape hiss. It is still a viable medium for me (all over again - yay!). The sad bit is the escalating prices of NOS blank cassettes, but if you want the quality.........


Cheers


Brownlow
 
jaetee

jaetee

Member (SA)
Brownlow said:
With the 'flight to digital' that we've experienced over the last 15 - 25 years, many realised that digital was not all that it purported to be. I have a Sony TCKE600s cassette deck, which was not 100% tuned up, but decent enough. I recorded on a new TDK SA (yep, not the Japanese variety). The tape was played back on a Sharp GF-9595. The result was excellent.

Many of us are aware of the limitations of tape, but the results can really blow you away if you got decent equipment and good tape. Many guys who have those top notch decks don't hear much, if any, tape hiss. It is still a viable medium for me (all over again - yay!). The sad bit is the escalating prices of NOS blank cassettes, but if you want the quality.........

Cheers

Brownlow
Click to expand...

I agree.

There is lots of cool info in that article and some things I agree with (like the ADD comments, LOL) but there are also a side to cassettes that I think are missing from this article.

Recording your own tapes is definitely the best way to go.

Personally, I do not like tapes "for the hiss..." It's painfully obvious that author ever heard a good tape on a good system in his life. And as I've read many of these "Tape Comeback" articles, the authors never really describe what a tape recording is really capable of when it comes to sound quality. They tend to focus on that 3 seconds between songs that they can hear tape hiss (or during quiet passages) listening to a prerecorded tape on a mediocre, at best, tape player, hooked up to whatever crappy system they probably have. Or how the tape got tangled in their player.... blah blah.... and read the comments people leave... OMG...

I'd love to pull one of these guys into my DJ booth area and subject them to a TDK MA-R recorded on my Nak RX-505 and make their eyes bulge with surprise....

But, to be fair, that is not why tapes are making a comeback. It's to be "cool." I'm not buying the "cheaper than CD" argument... Considering the price of blank CD-R's I don't get the comment that a tape is cheaper to manufacture and distribute than a CD? Will someone please explain that to me?

And the Technics RS-616 deck referred to at the beginning of the article is nothing special, yet they made it sound like it was the end-all of cassette decks.

Still, it's good to see tapes getting press...
 
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marctronixx

Member (SA)
good post jaetee,

i had a nak RX-505 and a Revox PR99MK II. both units were excellent machines..

ooh when i ran the revox at 15 IPS!!!!!!!! forget about it!!!!!! :D

i used TDK MA-XG 60 minute and did not prefer to use 90 minutes due to the thin tape stock.

everything old is new again.. i see younger individuals wearing converse and such and doing dance moves that were take offs from moves back in the 80s and i finally get what my older folks used to say when i was a young cuss about things coming back around.

i will forever love analog since that was all i knew. the harmonics produced from analog material beats any digitally recorded material any day. this is also why some old school film directors still swear by film.. the latitude in film stock can be pushed albeit with some grain to get some good images.. with digital, its great then blown out white frame.. not much you can do to reduce those bits of 1111111's..

its funny ( i work in the movie picture industry) when the director yells "Camera" i still say "speed" even if im using a digital flash based or HDD based image camera.. i mean once you hit start on these cats, they are immediately at speed.. whereas with a mechanical film camera you need several frames to pass to get the ol' motor up to "crystal sync" and therefore at the rated speed...

but i digress...

long live tape! :breakdance:
 
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