[ilovesocks]

Today on a whim I took the Onkyo tape player from our component system in the living room and hooked the line-out into my Audiophile and played a mix tape I made ten years ago through my HF-1's. WOW Nostalgia hit hard. The first song was Naughty By Nature's "Feel Me Flow." There's something about the dry, slightly crackly sound of a cassette that sounds nice with old-school hip-hop. I now understand vinyl enthusiasts a little more. Not that I didn't before; I've just felt a bit of what it's like to be in their shoes.

Of course, there were moments where I could hear the pitch wavering so much it was just silly, but all in all it's quite an experience!

Just thought I'd share it.

 

[THeX]

I remember the Absolute Sound had an article where Mark Levinson, Harry Pearson, Doug Sax and Jonathan Valin discussing the qualities of the current and previous sound formats including:

Analog Tape, Vinyl, SACD and DVD-Audio.

It was an interesting read and I was astonished the views pointed out, particularly the merits that tape holds.

Still the pitch wavering does affect the experience and I can't listen to clarinet music on tape.

 

[Jahn]

Some folks still love their Reel-to-Reels to death, as evidenced by the vintage prices of R-T-Rs on eBay. And cassette tape junkies still have the jones for Nakamichi Dragons, have no doubt. I grew up in the era of the High-Bias 90min mix tape, and the movie High Fidelity really hit it on the head. Remember sacrificing SQ to use the 120 min normal bias Maxells?

But I wouldn't trade the SQ and length and convenience of DAPs and computers as source now if you begged me to. I've had my share of rewinding twisted tapes by hand. It's a brave new world.

 

[Salt Peanuts]

I really miss cassette tapes, if only for the fact that I grew up with them. I still have bunch of them I'd love to listen to, but can't, since I don't have a cassette tape player anymore. I've been resisting the urget to pick one up on eBay for a while now.

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn Remember sacrificing SQ to use the 120 min normal bias Maxells?

I still have about 30 120 min Maxell UR normal bias cassettes I made of NPR radio dramas from over 10 years ago. The tapes were made on my Sony TC-670K 3-head cassette desck, which I still have. All the tapes still work and still sound reasonably good.

While recording on CD-R, MD, and hard drive is more convenient and better sounding, I do miss all the tinkering involved with cassette tape recording....wand-type demagnitizer, Allsop cassette head cleaner (which is still available), extra long Q-tips for manual cleaning of rollers, bias adjustments, and of course, the instant monitoring capability only available on a 3-head cassette deck.

Have you guys/gals check the prices of Sony's "Metal Master" or "Super Metal Master" blank cassettes on ebay??

 

[replytoken]

Does this mean I should do an IC on my old Onkyo tape deck?