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Rise of vinyl, okay, but rise of cassettes? So it seems.

Mike Reed

Mike Reed

pfm Member
Read in my paper about the continuing rise in cassette sales. It didn't mention cassette recorders/players though, which are surely not made any longer. Didn't know that cassettes were either, t.b.h.

To my mind, it's a lot easier to source and even refurbish a record deck than a complex cassette recorder/player with its perishable belts and stuff. I guess this is the younger generation reviving cassettes, unlike vinyl, which I believe attracts all ages.

Maybe it's just the Walkman type players which are coming into vogue rather than proper recorder/players but I wonder how many of those are still functional.
 
I believe some young musicians/groups favour the cassette's analogue character and have done for some years.
 
My suspicion is it has now peaked. Certainly a very big thing a couple of years ago and still a great way for small bands to make low-volume collectables themselves to sell via Bandcamp etc. I think cassette deck prices are gradually starting to fall again, they were crazy high a couple of years back. Good sealed NOS blank cassette tapes are worth good money too, e.g. ‘70s-90s TDK, Maxell, Sony etc. Some very upmarket (alloy body) TDK metal cassettes being worth >£100 a tape!

There are to my knowledge no good new cassette decks being made at all. The cheap Chinese junk is just that and almost exclusively mono and based around one bad transport assembly. Techmoan has covered this on his YouTube channel several times.

PS Edit: just checked some eBay sold listings and certain decks are still high, e.g. Sony Walkman Pro (£200-600), nicer Naks etc. A year or two ago it felt like every cassette deck was overvalued. I’d argue R2R is too with obviously pro-thrashed, tatty and poorly stored stuff going for LOLprice on occasion.
 
I have just used a Sony Cassette Walkman to catch up on a radio programme recorded yesterday.
A cassette is always left in the recorder ‘just in case.’
Yes, I know I can catch up using ‘BBC Sounds’, and I do sometimes.
 
I was in touch with BBC Sound Archives recently and they have various prof. cassette decks.
They told me people still submit recordings on cassettes.
Long lost radio shows, etc.
 
I was glad to see the back of this awful medium but I've just got roped into it... My daughters BF wants one so guess who's going to have to do a gratis full service, new belts etc... I tried to persuade him that the only decks worth having are WAY more expensive than he wants to pay (£60) but looks like he's going for it anyway... I don't think SQ really comes into it for him...
 
Martyn Miles said:
I was in touch with BBC Sound Archives recently and they have various prof. cassette decks.
They told me people still submit recordings on cassettes.
Long lost radio shows, etc.
Click to expand...

that’s just sensible for the likes of the BBC.
 
Frankly cassette has all the problems of cd - nothing much to look at/stroke. And none of the benefits.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
..this awful medium...
Click to expand...
At least (if used to make recordings of live broadcasts) it did not suffer from the random noises that made any music with significant dynamic range intolerable from that truly awful medium, 1970s oil-crisis LP.

I was well served prior to the digital age by many cassettes of music taped from radio which was never made available in a commercial recording. Radio drama, too...
 
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I wouldn’t say it was ‘an awful medium’, but Arkless does tend to overdo his response sometimes.
Having said that, I agree with him on many subjects discussed on PFM.
I’d better not mention one of them, or it could start another new ‘xxxxx’ thread...
 
Tascam are about to release a brand new Type-II cassette formulation optimised for use in their PortaStudio. It will be available in the US only though.

 
“Abhorrently awful” is a bit much! It is what it is and as with everything in life if you pay proper money and know what you were doing you can get very good results. I’d bet money of a fair few here (myself included) struggling/failing to tell which is source and monitor on the better 3 head Naks with a good properly biased tape.

For me it is just another music medium. I’d not choose to use it now, but being the age I am and having led the life I have I own a collection of old demo tapes etc that exist on no other format. As such I can justify having a cassette deck. I never did the ‘mixtape’ thing, though I understand the nostalgia for them if that was what introduced folk to a lot of music. I just used cassette for band demos as I couldn’t afford an open reel recorder.

I’ve actually got way too many cassette decks as I do rather like them as objects. There is a lot of clever engineering in the better ones. The only one I have hooked-up is a Walkman Pro as it takes up so little space:

49908202263_f6f5715967_b.jpg


Haters gonna hate! There’s a thread in the classic room detailing a full strip-down, belt & idler-replacement and de-gunking the sticky seized grease which was actually the main issue (link). Seems to work fine now with very stable pitch etc, but I do think these are somewhat overrated. They are absolutely not the Nak competitors the ‘80s magazine hype suggested. Very cool and iconic little machines though.
 
If you have a TOTR 3 head 3 motor Nak, Tandberg etc then they are just about acceptable with good quality tapes.

Yer average budget deck that sold like hot cakes were unacceptable for anything beyond making tapes for the car or to play back at parties on a boom box even when brand new!

If anyone does have a working deck for about £60 then I'd be interested, for daughters BF as above.
 
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