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Cassette revival

There is certainly an underground scene for crazy-limited edition cassettes in the DIY folk and indie scene, e.g. Folklore. Interesting stuff IMO.
 
I have got a JVC KD-A55 I need to pickup!

Cant wait........

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Julf said:
...so far I haven't ... seen too many people justifying it based on audio quality...
Click to expand...

SQ has nothing to do with this particular revival, it's all about doing something different and finding a niche to fill. Some of the music is excellent and quite often, they come with a download, so you don't even need a cassette deck!

I have a couple of hundred cassettes and two Nakamichi's to play them on.

I have noticed that hardly any of them have the Dolby logo, so either they're not recorded using the Dolby Noise Reduction System or they're just not labelled as such; did the Dolby licence expire?

For playback, it's just suck it and see whether or not they sound best with Dolby switched in or out.
 
Cassette tapes are still used as media for submitting audio by a bunch of international organisations, but all they need is speech quality. I have a bunch of Sony TC-FX50 decks under restoration...
 
I haven't played if for a few years so must dig it out and lsiten to some of the cassettes I recorded of John Peel, Tommy Vance etc from the 80's.
 
I think rock music often sounds better on tape. Something to do with the compression I suppose.

Cassettes are also my first choice for music in the car. They're pretty convenient and with a decent nak or alpine deck, sq is plenty good enough. Skipping CDs and Bluetooth dropping out do my head in.

I don't really listen to cassette at home but it still has a place.
 
I've got quite a few cassettes of electronic music bought from Bandcamp artists. It's cool to collect them, but my old Yamaha deck is rather tired. Wouldn't know what to replace it with or what to pay thee days.
 
I was given a tape from about 2000, I loved the music on it but sold the car with a tape player!
Bought a nice Yamaha I think player from a car boot sale, shocking quality ( the tape not the player), played it so I could identify the artists then threw it away, its just not for me.
Son is 18 and has a 2002 Polo with a iPod to tape adaptor, his friends are just shocked at the poor quality and do ask whats a cassette!
 
I have a Nakamichi CR2 (mine) and a 480 (second hand) that I never use but that I keep running. Both have typical Nak diseases in that prolonged inactivity is detrimental.

Coincidentally last week the CR succumbed for the second time to dead-control-motor-syndrome, so I had to fix it. Luckily worrying the relevant wormwheel did the job. Otherwise disassembling the transport down to the motor itself and cleaning the brushes would have been a half-day job. At least.

I also keep a second CR2 as donor machine, bought from ebay Germany, arrived with many small defects but at least a working transport. I fixed most defects back then, but suspecting a lot of head wear I never looked at it again. A bit in the mood last week I decided to see how far re-alignment would bring it (using Peebles' clones of Nak tapes).

Well, after a couple of hours of to-and-froing with a fresh metal tape, I got to

20 to 18000 Hz +2/-3dB ***at 0dB***

That is something Nak's original specs in 1988 did not even claim!
Due to wear there is a bit of channel asymmetry. Also the curves are not as flat as Nak
publishes, with a plateau rising from 3kHz. But still ...

I should look at the alignment of my original CR2 now. That one was never used that much, so its head must be rather fresher.
 
TOTL cassette players are expensive nowadays. Good Naks demand good money.

Otherwise, you should be able to get a decent deck for very little money. Beware of the condition. This is not a CD player, they have many more moving parts. Condition makes a big impact on sound quality so you should hear it first.
 
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