Audiophile Pre-recorded Cassette Tapes 

ATTENTION! In the video I talk of 70ms and 120ms Bias, I intended EQUALIZATION. The bias is also different during the recording process but those two values, as several correctly pointed out, indicate EQ. Sorry about that!

Pre-recorded chrome tapes did contain true high-bias tape inside, such as chrome or cobalt, even though they used the small detection holes and 120 us equalization. This was done so that they could be played on inexpensive tape decks without a Type II position without sounding excessively bright and could also be put in the same cassette shells as standard ferric tapes. Sometimes pre-recorded cassettes made no mention of containing chrome or cobalt tape, but you can still tell they do because the tape is black, instead of the brown color of standard ferric tape.

Drink every time you hear the word typology.

In my opinion, pre-recorded cassettes peaked in sound quality in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Some of my best sounding tapes, which includes “Rage Against the Machine”, Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous”, Talking Heads’ “Sand in the Vaseline”, Eagles’ “Hotel California” and The Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers”, among others were all issued during that time period. I do own a more recent tape (The soundtrack to Bohemian Rhapsody), but it doesn’t sound as good and was clearly made as a novelty for hipsters. However, I do own some cassettes from the early to mid 80’s that also sound good, primarily from WEA and A&M (particularly their chrome tapes). Alongside all of the 90’s tapes I mentioned before, some other good ones that I have include “The Best of Emerson, Lake and Palmer”, Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (I think this one sounds the best), Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, SuperTramp’s “Crime of the Century” and The Police’s “Synchronicity” (The latter of which encouraged pre-recorded cassette manufacturers to up their game), among others.

Excellent sound, today i listen to digital. But i still love cassettes, cause i had great fun recording music on them in past and trying to get best sound possible.

I've always enjoyed the sound of my Dolby HX Pro tapes quite a bit.

Glad you swept that bit of 'fusewire' away at 3:06, I thought it was my screen that had a curly stray on it! Great content, love these videos. Thanks.

They used Chrome tape in Type I shell because when you play back a Chrome tape with Type I equalization the high frequency's are boosted and sound better even on cheaper deck's and players, at least in my experience... :)

Thanks for all the great videos about cassettes! I am back in the cassette game with a fully restored Sansui D-570 and I am on a mission to find great souding pre-recorded cassettes!! Keep up the good work ... I really like your channel!

I have many Chromium Dioxide tapes. They sound amazing!

Great video - I learnt something today, I'd been playing my pre-recorded chrome tapes with the high-position setting on my tape deck. After listening to your video and checking the inlay in the cassette box I switched to normal-position and the tapes sounded much brighter! Thanks!

Great video. I remember seeing Nakamichi tape decks in the 80's but even the low end models were out of my price range at the time. I had some of the XDR tapes back in the day. Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers was one I remember.

finally here I found someone mention about the lubrication issue on XDR cassette, for so long I thought I was the only one who suffered from those slow -playing, bad playback experience on most of the EMI XDR issues. Can't wait for the solution to this problem

So passionate I love it. Your crazy just like me. You really have to know everything about recordings don't you? You probably know more then recording engineers of today!

Good stuff! Thanks for giving the tour. I have enjoyed your videos. Its great to see what you like.

Nice video. Record companies started improving the quality of pre-recorded tapes around 1983-4 to battle all the home taping and record borrowing going on. I read somewhere record companies used 120us normal bias settings for duplicating chrome tape because it sounded better with the super high speeds duplicators used. XDR tapes sounded good when new, but Capitol used cheap gray normal bias tape, and I hated those flimsy dimpled shells too.

I use TDK MA-XG 90 cassettes on my Dragon and they are the best. I also use TDK SA and SA-X 60 for lesser fidelity sources. Thanks for the info, take care.

7:30 it was CrO2, but the equalizer was set, that it has to be played in Ferro mode. So it hasn't the maximum quality, but is better comatible.

BIG thanks for explanation of HX Pro. I have Pioneer with that system, and had been not sure how it's working. With oscilloscope, I've checked the bias on 15 kHz. It was ....ready? Yes, it was 40 Volts, peak to peak. As I was reducing the frequency, the bias is changing downwards. Now I concluded , thanks to you, that HX Pro do this. I still want to recover my compander, and to send you the same recording played without and with it.

I have a few xdr tapes, excellent tapes, I enjoyed this video ,Salute!

I discovered about 35 or more years ago that chrome tapes sounded better recorded in normal bios. This probably explains why there are chrome tapes in normal casings, I presume the pre-recorded tape manufacturers have come tp realize this as well.

I ordered some pre-recorded cassettes from ECM last October. Not only are they really interesting and good looking (black tapes, paper labels and chrome!) but they sound phenomenal.

Great vid. And nice SEIKO! Watches and tapes, ancient technology doesn't get any more fun than that ((:

22:46 Never seen a warning that said "Your casette player might be too shit to play this tape".

Haha, in just the first few seconds of the video - the "squeak" of opening a cassette case, that took me back to my days as a "devoted" cassette enthusiast (before I discovered CD and MD).

No matter what type, i enjoy all music!

Excellent channel! :) Looking forward to your tutorial for cassette lubrication, as I recently picked up a bunch of prerecorded cassettes, a few of which suffer from the dried lubricants issue.

Thank you for your channel!

I had a Columbia cassette tape that made a screeching noise and would make the speakers sound like they cracked the high bias tapes while good if you record over something you will hear it in the back ground when you re record over it

Beautiful tape deck 👍😎

Yesterday I got Queens The Works on an XDR Tape! Can’t wait to play it!

Good stuff there.. A couple of my favorites (and best sounding) are the "Nightfly" and "Kamakiriad" D. Fagen solos.. Quite unexpected sould quality from cassette, even for referecing systrems.. Great work, thanks

I remember Sheffield Labs marketing a range of Vinyl records called "Direct Cut Disks" I hope you will get round to those in one of your videos. I believe the concept was to cut a disk or album directly in the studio and to produce a limited number of records from the recording.

The highest quality cassette I’ve ever heard was the XDR version of Traveling Wilburys Volume 1

great video as I am getting back into cassette

Yes! I found !!!! @ 16:09 The white paper says: "Only the highest quality, purest chromium dioxide tape is utilized, guaranteeing...bla, bla, bla..." Thanks for the video.

Mid 80~90’s many Japanese cassette tapes has XDR and sound very good, also you can see some Dolby C NR pre recorded tape. (with no XDR)

9:30 3 decades ago I was in first grade and had zero idea about this (also pretty much anything about tapes) but I remember this very problem with blank SKC LX (!) tapes. The ones with black shells and gray stickers. My cheapo portable dual deck with a handle just stopped roughly four fiftha before the end of the spool. FFing and rewinding helped ... Rarely. Bought a 5-pack of Lloytron XHE tapes once while on a trip. Same thing, perhaps even worse. Luckily they weren't available in our hometown.

Then there are also DBX recordings. I had to make these mostly myself due to lack of availability! I still have a Sanyo ULTRX UR-70 tape deck made for the car that has DBX built in to the system! Believe it or not I still have it new in the box, never installed it! Got it back in 1986! The Sheffleld Lab cassettes and CDs were mastered off a reference tape that was recorded alongside, during the mastering/cutting process of Shefffied's making of their live Direct Cut vinyl LPs. I've got all the Harry James direct cut LPs and I can honesty say that when I play these LPs, it sounds like Harry James is playing live in my room with his band. They even sound better than the cds and cassettes they later released of these live direct cut recordings.

I remember the Mo-Fi Cassettes back in the early 80's. At that time, the Cassette had over-taken the 8-Track Cartridge and higher-end car Mfg's were including some really good sound systems. My '83 Coupe d'Ville had the Bose system. Thing was, as good as the Mo-Fi Cassettes were, they still suffered from all the problems of Cassette tapes...they just didn't sound all that good and if you just bought a Mo-Fi LP and made your own copy onto really HQ CRo2 Tape...you could still get better sound. I had a few Mo-Fi titles to show off my car. Thing is, no sooner had the Mo-Fi Cassette come out, here came the Compact Disc which Mo-Fi quickly got onboard with...and the Mo-Fi Cassette was pretty much dead.

There are some late Time Life cassettes (around 1999) that I believe used a similar recording process if not the same process as XDR tapes; however, does not state it on the j card or tape. They have the same ever so familiar beeping sounds at the beginning and end of the tape, and generally sound very close to that of a CD in my opinion, unlike many of the other pre-recorded tapes I've gathered over the past few months.

As far as I know, the automatic tape type "recognition" holes at the top of the shell plays no role in the reproduction process. They're aimed to prepare recording in automated machines. Biasing is just for proper hysteresis recording, depending on what tape formulation is used. No matter what tape type is used; once it's recorded it will be played back with the dynamic range and freq response it was recorded (supposed the playback system can reach them, that is). Maybe, tbe exception (but I'm not sure) can be type IV (metal) tapes if the machine isn't prepared for this formulation. Because its very strong magnetization, it could cause overload in the playback head and/or circuitry.

The Nautilus cassette you showed at the end of the video with the "warning" about the dynamic range exceeding your system's capabilities, Telarc CD's used to carry a very similar warning on theirs. The back of the CD would say something like, "CAUTION: See page 10 of the booklet before playing." Then the booklet would say something similar to the Nautilus warning. It's true if you really cranked up the volume very, very loud, you might blow out your drivers, but it's also a bit of clever advertising to get you to buy the product.

Very good

Ghost has been releasing some REMARKABLY DECENT type one recordings of their albums on Loma Vista records and I hope they will invest in some type 2 releases in the future

Its the tape, but also the player. I listen on a GE walkman which has both capstans turning and auto reverse, and if anything happens with the tape, it reverses over and over, and I know I have to open it up and Wax-The-papers so they roll right... Tape machine I record on is HX-PRO, which I really love..

I have found that most tapes with hx-pro doesn’t lose the top end when playing back with dolby, so mostly if it has hx-pro that is a good sign it’s going to sound good. XDR also helps with the sound, but not that much

Nice video i love tapes { blank ones mostly } and pre-recorded ones when they have high quality :-)

I want to record some music on tapes, that I have just bought (mostly BASF and SONY HF - Type 1). Unfortunately I cannot record anything special from my music library except from Internet (RU-vid). Frankly speaking, there are some rare recordings put on RU-vid (from Vinyl, or types), I mean those are demos / first pressing of rock/metal bands and some jazz music (that has been recorded analogue and issued on LP only - no re-release). I have at home 4-6 cassette decks (3 heads, 2 capstans) of Pioneer, Yamaha, Kenwood. Now I wonder which format is better to do recording - the CD-R Audio, or cassette tape Normal Type 1 - I know that music was compressed when it was put on RU-vid even it is vinyl rip (play on), but I would like to hear a little of different feeling from tape, than only MP3 or streaming audio. What you could suggest to me? It is worthy to do recording on analogue tape from digital source (music is also compressed like Spotify and so on…

And I just thought I was wearing out the XDR tapes, which sound great for the format. Do you like the tone series they use before the first track starts on those tapes?

I am getting back into cassettes as my analog music source since I got a vintage K1000 Yamaha unit made in the early 1980s. I have no desire to buy a turntable and buy overpriced delicate LPs. I did manage to get a batch of 25 type ii chrome tapes for recording. There is also a plethora of old new stock tapes and used tapes on the market..., PS: I grew up with 8-track music.

Very interesting video. Thanks a lot. I saw the blue note tapes at 2,30 min. Do you recommand them?

The Animaniacs audio cassette tapes used Dolby HX-Pro, SR & Digalog back in the 1990s.

Nice Dragon. What is your pinion (if you have any) on Nakamichi RX series of cassette decks? Thank you,

Great video, but I think you are mistaken with your information on tape types. The tape is clearly black in color indicating a type ii or chrome tape. Notches are necessary for recording only if I am not mistaken, but there is a drastic color difference between type i and type ii.

I wonder if you would be interested in make a video on how to record properly showing proper needle or spectrum level technics by using a cassette deck and a reel to reel from any digital source and perhaps show the differences when the source is mp3 vs flac and show how it sounds ..thanks

Maybe a silly question... I have several cassettes from the early 90's like Metallica's "Black album" from 1991 that says that it is chromium dioxide at 120microseconds, surely it is an iron oxide (III) tape enriched with cobalt. But my question is to know when playing it on my Sony Walkman or deck, if you have to put it in normal or chrome position? Thanks for your help!!!

Can you please do a video on the topology of the streaming services?

Wow... this is funny! I just changed the the RCA patch cables on my Onkyo Integra TA-RW909 cassette deck from Monster interlink to Mogami cables. I was listening to a cassette when i saw your video and I though what a coincidence because I haven’t played my deck in a long time. I was listening to some vinyl I recorded onto a TDK SA90 high bias IECII/TypeII not the best but I do have better cassettes. I have some cassettes a friend of mine recorded for me on his Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck many years ago and they still sound great. Great Video Sir!

Been there, back in the day- *never* going back to cassette tapes !

know that the tapes they used by sonymusic/cbs is basf chroomtape you can see it on the tape, they also used for some tapes columbiarecirds or agfa ferro, i know this because i had worked by the factory in haarlem on the cassette department of sony, greatings hille stolp, sometimes we produced also for polygram(phillips) and that was always basf chrome

Sounds so... analog! Thanks

Tapes are back and me too!

I have a mobile fidelity copy of dark side of the moon Mfsl c-017, got it in a cassette storage box with 15 other tapes for $20

after watching, i got nostalgic for 80's & 90's, when i was able to step over hours in a record shop... / But i still believe the cassettes was unfair for some good sound-makers...

I have a lion king soundtrack on tape with dolby b and hx Pro but it's on ferric tape. It still sounds good though

I like how that Dragon winds the tape right up to the tape's beginning ...so it plays right away...cool. So what are the Dragons going for at this time...$2000 usa

The Dolby S system has advantages over the B and C. do you know where the prerecorded Dolby S are available ? I mention this because you've mentioned quite a few processes including hx pro.

FYI - That is NOT anything to do with a lubricant! In case you are unaware, there are many Cassette Tapes from the mid to late 1970's and early 80's that will not play and "severely slow down, screech & squeal" and are unplayable. This is because they used a certain inferior binder in the tape oxide that absorbed moisture over the years (which it is not supposed to do) and now renders the tapes completely unplayable.. This also causes the named "Sticky Tape Shedding Syndrome".

I didn't quite understand how you can spot the difference between a type 1 cassette with just a chrome layer and a real type 2 cassette ? Does the casing indicate that ? Obviously a low bias would indicate that if given on the casing.

I think Deutsche Grammophon cassettes were always very good quality (both in mechanics and sound quality). I've never had a bad one.

Who else looks for high quality pre recorded tapes to record on? I can find pre recorded tapes for 10 cents a piece at most thrift stores, mostly imo crap music like gospel, religious, soundscapes, or no name artist that are barely used or still new in packaging. A lot of these tapes are chrome and some use BASF tape. I make my own j cards and tape coverings as well. Way cheaper then sourcing NOS blanks cassettes online. I also from time to time find good quality blank cassettes but most have been abused.

What is your opinion of Digalog or WEA cassettes?

the tapes that have no lubricant are they anything to do with 3M and AMPEX ?

BMG/WEA out of Canada had superior cassette quality than the US sourced ones…..at least in the mid 80’s. Chrome tape often and good fidelity.

Cool, for those in the USA

is XDR to compensate for comprssion during recording?

Some reason cassette tape is Ear Candy to me

A fabulous cassette deck, a fabulous cassette, & a fabulous video, but I done find the pre recorded cassettes to be very poor quality even the Chrome ones, well done👍

i have 10+ chrome prerecorded casettes without type II notches. so if i wanna record on them,should i use 120 or 70 bias? Maybe its my bad english,but this guy didnt explain properly about chrome tapes without extra notches...

Man, I gotta get a cassette deck! I want an older one! The newer ones are terrible and don't have Dolby or bias control!

I have a Beatles '67-'70 and RHCP Californication tapes that has a very black tape and sounds great i swear that is a Chrome tape, but the label never says.

I remember when there were some decent high quality cassette tapes. The problem arise from all the cheap knock off recordings. The 20 tapes for a penny mail order fliers. They often were reproduced on poor quality tape which would have high hissing, back ground noise, and good forbid, clicking. Kmart and other stores would sell these cheaper version along with some that they had holes or slots drilled in the case to make the price cheaper. Along with the quality. Many lacked anything on the inside sleeves. No pics, lyrics, etc.... Then with people recording on to poor blanks that made the sound quality worse. Specially, recording on 60, 90, 120, or even 180 minute tapes. I gave up on cassette and vinyl for a while during the 80s due to mass production of cheaper quality tapes and vinyl. Today, I'm collecting my vinyl again, but on better quality reproduction. If cassette start doing the same, I may reconsider, but most likely they will mass produce cheap players like they do with vinyl. SMH 😒

I sold. My nakamichi Dragon many years ago. I got £500 way back then. It was in mint condition. I still regret selling it to this day. The only other one I would have today would be the nakamichi 1000zxl. Have you ever seen one in person?

Whats the best place online to buy cassettes in Europe?....also....as highly valued master recordings in music history were recorded on tape in the studios back in the day........wouldnt tape to cassette tape be a more logical way of getting the best fidelity?

0:15 aww moment

The group "Extreme" is recorded on A&M records and use's BASF tape that is chrome....it has the notch's on top..and of course smells of crayons, the dead give away...It says inside the label " This cassette is manufactured with BASF professional II chrome tape and should be played on a normal setting and not a chrome setting for optimal sound reproduction"

take a shot every time he says "typology".

I must agree with TechMoan: Red Book digital masters made better-sounding cassettes than 2-3 more generations of analog tape. Likewise I don't mind LPs cut from 24/192 PCM because they preserve 99.9% of the original sound.

Just because the tape is packaged in a "normal" cassette shell does not mean it wasn't recorded in high bias, as a chrome tape would require. Since bias is a frequency added only during the recording process to allow higher frequency transversals, the notches do not have to be present for proper playback. There is a slight difference in equalization between what is preferred for chrome and what you would use on a ferric tape, but a compromise can be struck there since it is the bias that is most important for frequency response. Don't believe me, check what HX Pro does and is. It is a bias modifier that looks at the incoming frequency dominance and then skews the bias, lower for lower frequencies and higher if the dominance is higher frequencies. This "extension" requires nothing from the playback equipment to play it properly, as it is a modification to the recording bias. Since the mass production equipment records the tape outside of and before the tape is packaged in the cassette shell, it doesn't matter one whip if it has the holes for chrome or not.That being said, metal tape is a different beastie. I am not sure any pre-recorded metal tapes were ever mass produced but if they were they would have required some changes to the heads and recording amps in the duplicating jigs to compensate. Metal saturates differently and produces a different level at the tape head. That being said it is still possible to play back a metal tape on a standard setting, just with overmodulation on the output. This is due to a signal level difference though not because of the bias, which again is only applied during recording.

Pre- recorded tapes have never achieved the audio quality of those I make of vinyl or even streaming on my TEAC deck and using a normal bias TDK. Maybe I just got some bad factory tapes….? I’m going to stick to making my own and recording them hot.👍👍👍

when you said Jazz are better recording than rock,metal or pop . Its a generalisation . The band Opeth for exemple have excellent recording tape, vinyl and cd's . and its a metal , prog band from sweeden

"Watch out for jazz tapes... if you like jazz of course" ^^ I´d rather listen to rock/pop music in 32kbits mono MP3 than jazz in highest fidelity ;) Prerecorded tapes have the downside that often I dont like 50% of the tracks on them. Because of this I always record my own tapes.

you said not to get a deck with auto reverse? nice deck tho.

lubrification?

All tapes need to be switched to Normal Bias when they are played ...Arista Pre Recorded Tapes used Chrome BASF Tape and Arista explained why using the 70 EQ at playback was not the best for playback...EQ High Bias switches are for recording only andthey decease treble at playback ....Dolby only works properly on better made decks ..Cheaper decks sound better with the Dolby switched off ...

I would never consider a pre-recorded cassette Audiophile, actually they sound fair to average. Recording on a high quality cassette deck on a Chrome( Type II) or Metal (Type IV) is the way to go. I have some of these Chromium pre-recorded cassettes and eventhough they sound a little better that other average pre-recorded cassettes, they don't match my cassettes recorded at home!

Just to set the record straight: You are confusing bias and equalization, which are completely different things. There are two playback standards for cassette tapes: 120μS and 70μS. By convention, normal bias tapes are equalized for 120μS playback while high-bias and metal tapes are equalized for 70μS. While most decks don't allow you to mix and match (some like certain Nakamichi and Revox do!), the professional duplicators often used 120μS for their high-bias tapes to insure maximum compatibility with car and portable machines and also to allow for greater high-frequency headroom. 70μS EQ adds a 4.5dB boost to the highs during recording and cuts the same amount on playback, relative to 120μS. Bias is adjusted independently to achieve the lowest distortion characteristics. Additionally, High Bias tapes recorded with 120μS should not be considered inferior to those conforming to the 70 μS “standard. ” They are in fact “true” high-bias tapes and fully playback compatible because the manufacturer puts the correct notches in the top to make the deck play back at the correct EQ setting. Bias, of course, plays no role in playback.

Take one of those MA-R cassettes and record one of the 45rpm Mobile Fidelity records to it. There is no digital equivalent. Also the Acoustic Sounds "Dream with Dean" album can only be beat by a copy of the master tape.

I dont really think type II EQ is better than type I, type 2 was originally made so that bad decks can get some highs (or so Ive heard). Of course there are great very quiet Type II tapes, but the EQ i dont really like