Tascam, ATR & NAC brand new Type II cassettes: Test & comparison. Any good? 

ERRATA CORRIGE: I wrote that the NAC Type II cassette is $40.70 but that is the price of a 10 pack, so each cassette is actully $4.70. Sorry about that!

I’ve experimented with the TASCAM Studio 424 tape for a couple weeks now. With a clean, demagged 424 MKII, record/playback at 3-3/4 ips, I’ve found: 1) Recording direct, channel Off, DBX on, there are pops (static?) on playback of the dead track. 2) Recording a pure sine wave input, DBX on, the hiss noise floor is high, and there are pops. 3) Recording DBX Off, anything except a dead track is noisy with tape hiss. 4) Recording an acoustic electric guitar, DBX On, results in a perfect reproduction on playback. I can’t even detect the tape is running before the instrument starts playing. Startling how clear and noiseless it is. 5) Recording with a low-z microphone, DBX On, also results in exact reproduction on playback. No hiss or pops even in the quiet pauses. Use that for what it’s worth, but the TASCAM claim that the 424 Master was optimized for 424 portastudios is at least conditionally true.

The tape stock is all made by National audio company in United States. The tascam hubs are 3d printed by music box and also loaded into c-0 manufactured by music box. The only other companies that produce usable cassette tape are panguang and rtm and neither produce type II.

Man, many years ago when I was recording cassettes for my car system, I *ABSOLUTELY* bought TDK-SAX cassettes WHENEVER I saw them! I remember just before they phased them out, I scored like 20 of the l'l buggers and I thought I was in Heaven 😁

I picked up a used 1986 TDK AD-X90 type 1 cassette for $1 from a Thrift shop and recorded on it. Sounded amazing. Cassettes were the best in the 1980's and 1990's. I record mainly on type 1's, esp 1980's TDK AD or later TDK D and Maxell UR's and they do a great job. I have recorded on some older type 2's like the TDK SA and Maxell UD-II and they were great indeed, certainly less hissy than the type 1's. But nearly all cassette albums released were released on type 1's which are compatible with everything.

oh my goodness i'm just seeing this video. I'm in the middle of editing a type ii cassette shootout with 7 NOS tapes and the the NAC thrown in there. I was so disappointed in the new cassette and am "happy" to see that I wasn't crazy. Thank you for this. Kind of a bummer. I also appreciate the modern companies trying to get new tapes out there, but they need to hear our voices and hopefully can change... wayyyy too expensive for an inferior product. If the product was great, the modern price may be justified.

Very interesting video. I have to agree with you that even the cheapest Type 1 tapes, from old stock, but good brands (for instance TDK - D) would sound far superior to these new Type II tapes. The amount of hiss and distortion on these is totally terrible. (I found that Tascam had more hiss than the ATR, btw). The studio master had some less distortion, making it 'semi useable' but also had the highest self-noise. The Sony UX-S totally destroyed these tapes with low-hiss and clear distortion free audio. You're much better off buying old stock, I'm afraid. It's a shame!

I want to stay positive and give NAC props for their efforts to spearhead a manufacturing revival here in the ‘States of types 1 & 2 tapes. That said I *really* hope they are staying humble and paying attention to videos and reviews like these. I own multiple Portastudios and will add that without noise reduction, they were passible, but with DBX the pumping artifacts made the cobalt formula unusable. I have to say props to NAC for not price-gouging like Tascam and ATR - shame on you both. Great video. Here’s hoping RTM gets into the game and shows everyone how it’s done 🤞🏻.

Sony type 4 metal was the best sounding tape available. However Sony sabotaged the line by manufacturing a dropout in the tapes. I purchased over a hundred cassettes, and every single Cassette had this one dropout spot. Sony never admitted to the dropout, but much later it came out it was done to prevent perfect bootleg copies.

Wow. Looks like your using a Nakamichi Dragon. They were and still are the best cassette deck tech. I had the earlier LX 3 which was great. But the Dragon is the best for recording and playback. It would be epic if they started making them again!

Never the less great video.. And because of your video.. lol I listened to one of my old tapes last night.. And i forgot how beautiful the good old audio cassettes sounded like. Pure stereo joy!!! 😀

Ferrycobalt cassette tape formulae were introduced in the 1970's as a royalty free alternative to DuPont's cromium formulae. The results were so good, that some of the best Type II from the 1980's were in fact ferricobalt - like all from TDK or the BASF "Chromium Extra" (the 'extra' was cobalt), probably even most of the Sony's (with the 'super' in 'superchrome' indicating the cobalt). Ferricobalt could be used for excellent Type I cassettes and some mixtures apperantly even reached the spec level of Type IV... There's one cassette in the 1990's that even had a ferricobalt tripple coating: TDK SA-XS. *That's* the level that can be reached with cobalt! *That's* what the companies should aim for. For *that* I probably would spend between 20-30 Dollar/Euros per blank cassette...

Can't wait for type 5 ❤

This video and your style and review were phenomenal. Im so glad I found your channel. Thanks for being honest on the cassette quality. I wonder if Tascam and ATR are appealing to the modern music producer who doesn't mind a bit of hiss - so perhaps they cut corners. For example, I use a Tascam 122 MK2 as part of my music production process. I send digital recordings from my computer to cassettes and then roll the signal right off the tape and send it back into the computer. It adds intentional warmth, wow and flutter depending on the settings, and I actually prefer there to be imperfections and pitch instability. This is how most people using the portastudio are thinking of using cassettes these days. The exact opposite of the Dragon experience. If there's hiss, I can use a filter to eliminate some of it (either using the dolby settings on the deck or using software plugins). Now, this does not excuse cheap production methods, and im frustrated they are cutting corners, but it might explain why they can get away with it...excellent product design and branding paired with USA craftsmanship. the noise sucks, but again most of us use filters to take care of that in post.

Tx for this video. It is even more valuable to hear if products are not worth their money.

I love the Denon HD8S metal (IEC type II position) tapes. Very good for treble rich music (high SOL10k), and they were very cheap here in Denmark. Slightly more noise than most other type II's, but with the high SOL, you can record at a high level, even with treble rich music. I got 300+ of them from the 80's/90's.

It is true that companies have become crazy about prices to achieve great sales because the cassette is not available in the market. $40 for a blank cassette is insane, and on the other hand, I'd buy new vinyl for $40. Thanks for the clarification.

10:20 SONY 13:34 TASCAM 16:54 STUDIO MASTER 20:09 ATR I agree. I bought the ATR and TASCAM and found them to be incredibly noisy. I will continue to find NOS and used type ii for quality recording. What I will do is switch out the tape from these R2R cassettes so I have a cool looking shell but with quality tape inside. Also, the TASCAM was catching on itself because the reel is too small for the tape itself. Bad design !!

thanks Guido for the useful info!

I use old TDK SA90s and Maxell XL-IIs and they are just too hard to beat. The fact is these new makers have to relearn the art and it is going to take time. They are not massive corporations like Maxell, TDK or Sony who have the R&D to make it happen overnight.

I bought 100 Evangelist spouting religious tapes, complete with a brief case, from a charity shop for the princely sum of 10 quid! They all had the recording tabs in place and were a mixture of TDK, Maxell and Agfa type 1 brands. Bloody brilliant!😄

Thank you so much for your outstanding videos!

Imm glad you explained how you lowered the db on later attempts. I was confused why you were only touching 0db on each one haha

Great video as always

Very interesting topic- ( by the way that album seems worth purchasing ). Those tapes seem a lot of money for what they are - I have been fortunate to pick up lots decent tapes for little money in charity shops recently do dropping £30 - £40 on a Tascam tape for example is a no-no. * On the flip side though, it is good to know there is more interest in tapes these days. Will be interesting to see if decent decks will be made again ( in the meantime will hang onto the decks I have).

Awesome thanks for the video, I just bought a nice BX 300 , 3 head, Awesome sound, very happy with it,

That pricing is ridiculous. Thank goodness I still have some TDK CrO2 tapes from the golden age of cassette tape.

Nice Philips in the back!!

You do excellent work.

Nice video again, good news. The only issue is that you loose certain level of sound signal after recording on cassette decks. On reel to reel decks this is not very noticeable…

Thank you for this honest review. I am sure you can still find NOS type2 cassettes at far lower prices, in fact I bought 20 new tapes of Sony UXS tapes from Italy at 7 euro per piece, shipping included….

Nice reel to reel in the back ,I have one since 2 days, its the best according to a German test of 1980

I have a couple ATR cassettes including the 'gold series' but haven't gotten around to testing it yet but the ATR master tape for reel to reel is the best sounding tape I've ever used....and I've used a lot over the years.

I just bought a Certon (High Density) HD60, Scotch Dynarange 60, and Radio Shack Type I Low Noise Standard Ferric Formulation C-60s. My unit is a Fisher Studio Standard CR-133. Does a pretty good job. Glad I have a car with a tape deck! It freaks people out.

Craig Stark would be proud of you for calling these out for what they are: expensive novelties that those of us used to tapes like SA-X will not be impressed with.

Love your honesty brother. I'm disappointed just because you were let down as I was so excited to see when you first heard about the Tascam.

Don't ever be sorry. We follow you for your sincerity. Unlike other HI-FI 'enthusiasts' who only want us to click their affiliate links.

Thank you for this review of new cassette tapes. I also heard clearly the difference in hiss level, the old Sony tape was much quieter. I think I also heard sibilants on P. Barbers voice every now and then on these new cassettes. I bought a couple of new type 1 cassettes from Thomann, EQ Professional C 90. Produced in the UK, manufactured 2022. Also expensive and rather ugly apperence. The recordings on my Nak. Dragon came out very well though, crisp and clear and not far from the sound of the vinyl LPs I recorded from. But still, to expensive for now to be interesting. Let´s hope for nicer and cheaper ones in near future.

I’ve hit the NAC tape pretty hard in my Tascam 246 and Tascam 238 and was pretty happy with the results. I haven’t had the opportunity to compare some different vintage tape types recordings A/Bing in Pro Tools yet from my Tascam multi trackers, but the sound of the new tape was decent compared to the source recordings in Pro Tools. I will say the recordings I made without DBX noise reduction were noisy, but the Tascams were always a bit noisy without noise reduction.

I've used TDK MA-60 in a Nakamichi CR4-A. I pounded that tape, up to +3 or higher. Incredible formulation.

Great video👍

Gracias amigo por el video, un saludo desde Uruguay .

The Dragon is the ultimate beast. Thanks for testing the ....!

Completely agree with you at least on the NAC Type II. i have a box of 10 and seriously can't win with recording on any of them in either a sony 3 head or nak. They just distort like crazy no matter what the record level is or bias adjustment or position in the tape. My used mid 1980s Maxwell Type 1 UR cassettes re-recorded on today are significantly cleaner and consistent and my late 80's TDK type IIs just destroy them. Even my crap new Maxell URs bought in 2022 while lacking a frequency response at least are consistent. Really too bad.

Es la primera vez que veo tu canal y me simpatizo mucho la cantidad de detalle, pues estaba viendo el video y descargue los archivos para escucharlos en paralelo a la presentación, a mis 52 años crecí con la música análoga y con las cintas de audio, pues ahora descargue los archivos y los abrí en Adobe Audition (tarjeta de sonido externa y audífonos Sanheissen) con gran sorpresa y satisfacción Sony y desconcierto escuche los siguientes archivos y analice su espectro con decepción, me hice mi opinión y placenteramente no estaba lejos de la tuya, concuerdo con la gran cantidad de ruido (siseo) y distorsión de los nuevos casetes.....en fin, habrán pasado unos 25 años desde los mejores Sony UX?.....pues no entiendo que ha pasado para que nos quieran vender algo así Mis Saludos.

I always used Maxell XLII. I just saw a brand new seven pack on eBay for $163 USD. That’s just insane. I used to get a box of ten for $25 USD. I hope Type II tapes. Come back into production and some high quality decks. Used prices are simply insane and garbage recorders from China are fetching over a hundred dollars.

Thx for the honest opinion.

Thank you for the review , you save a lot of bad experience with “promising” cassettes. What about those 30 year old TDK , Sony and others , do they worth the investment ? And are they still fresh and working ? Thanks for your great important channel 👏 (btw I could hear the superiority of the Tascam cassette in your review)

Hi Love the video, Thanks

Sad indeed... Imo they are just taking advantage of the growing "analog" interests... And rushing junk to the market for sales...!!! If this continues, look for high quality new old stock to go up in price again... Time to stock up... By the way, just picked up a nice Pioneer deck with dbx in excellent condition... And I'm getting great results with Sony hf and Maxell ur tapes... Recorded at +3db...!!! My first dive into dbx recording and it's amazing how close they sound to the original...

Real evidence that I need to store my sealed XLII-S collection carefully to the future. 😅 I also have few SA, SA-XS, MA, UX-S (but Mexico made, not Italian which is the best), UX, CDing2 etc.

Ciao Guido, I’m trying to dig into your tapes-related videos, but I think I’m missing the point (so maybe there are some I haven’t seen yet?). Back in the ‘80s when I was a kid, there were 3 main use cases that made cassettes great, at least in my opinion. First one was portability (Walkman, cars, …), which is not really an issue today, when all you need is your mobile phone. Second one was the possibility to create your own “compilations”, which again is what today we can do with custom playlists with no problem. Third, but most important for me at that time, was the possibility to “borrow” music from others and record it. I had no money back then to buy all the music I loved, so tapes were my “go to” solution and my tape deck was the most important piece on my dad’s hi-fi system. What is the use case for tapes nowadays? Besides nostalgia, does it make any sense to buy a tape (and even not good quality, as you just pointed out) that costs more than the record you could save on it? Yeah I understand, recording a live performance can be a different use case…but hi-fi and audiophile OCD is totally about reproduction, not recording… Happy to get your point of view here.

All the tape is made by NAC, it may have different quality assurance so the better may being sold as different product dependant on where it was cut from the roll but its the same stuff. Nac bought their equipment from a closed down manufacturer of the magnetic strips of credit cards, and it took them a couple of years to make somthing that was useable in home recorders their main market is making pre-recorded tapes and the first feric tape they made was geared and work for that from day 1 which it why it took some years before the home recordable stuff worked after they tweaked the formulation.

Home Recording on 4 track cassette(yuk) in my youth I found decent chrome tapes by TDK or my fave 'Thats' the best - I tried metal, but push the signal a tiny bit and it distorted in a digital sounding way with the sound breaking up completely. Level was everything, the 'game' being a constant battle with hiss. Anything bounced was ideally the sort of low level detail that should go on at the end, though high freq's were also massacred by bouncing. Taught me a thing or two.... Minidisc Multitrack would have been heaven, though that came a bit later.

If the these sell well, hopefully they will resume type 4 tape too

As a musician, I'm soooooo glad I bought a ton of extra Maxell MX, Sony Metal XR and TDK MA cassettes back in the day. Many of which are still unopened. I've even got a 10 brick pack of TDK SA Type II's still unopened. (Remember Tower Records?) Unfortunately my Tascam Portastudio 424 broke down, causing me to go all digital on PC in 2001 (which was not fun times on a Windows 98 not SE, Celeron 800 with Cakewalk Pro Audio) leaving me with so many blank tapes. I think the Type IV's at most were $4.50 and the Type II's were about $2.00 each. I can't image paying $40.00 for a 10 pack of Type II cassettes today. And why did the packaging art on the cassettes regress to something that looks out of the 60's-70's?

Great music!

Thanks for the tests, that was well done. I'm wondering how you were able to use the Patricia Barber track without getting dinged by RU-vid? I'd like to use some particular tracks for my own video tests but they flag me even when I have the musician's permission.

As far as I've quickly researched, NRS makes Chrome tapes. Do you know about them by any chance?

I think your correction saying that the NAC's go for $4 each tape, and the results of that and the ATR tape are similar, if not identical, but ATR charges nearly 20 dollars for one tape, shows very clearly they are overcharging for a product that likely cost's them $2 to make.

And I just got the nac tapes 10 pack I guess I will go back to the Recording of the masters fox c 90 tapes

yeah i Guess they are doing these tapes type II like a test but for that price ? that's crazy so i hope these brands bring better and cheaper for the masses because no way they are gonna be sucessful with these but good to see they at least created something

I worked as a slitter from 1968 to 1970 at a company called Certron . I wonder if their still around

Nice video. A German test had the same result. A real shame: why such a product? Hope the makers improve the tape! Regards from Berlin!

Ah, well, we just have to get along with vintage tapes until the time comes. And lets hope for that. On a separate note, Guido, may I ask you kindly, please, to provide the time in the video where the demo stops. I am not interested to listen three times to music that is not my thing on the speakers of my laptop. And I am quite happy to just take your word for the sonic differences.

Could a type 1 signal be recorded on these? Maybe they might operate better as superferric-equivlents or such? Also, nice demonstration of the tapes; really captured all of them at varying degrees of loudness.

Hey, you don't have a Patreon account! I came here specifically because I wanted to be one of them 😊 The ONLY one where I give to a Patreon account is Thomas and Stereo. But, I really like yours too! 👍

Has anybody noticed that the tape in the C799 isn't wrapped around the guide posts in the shell like the Tascam and the ATR?

Boost the treble when recording and cut it when mastering; the hiss disappears when you cut treble- bringing it back to where it should've been.

Hi Guido. Tony from Cassette Comeback confirms your findings. These cassettes are very poor compared to the excellent ones we had in the past from Sony, Maxell and TDK to name but a few.

YEOW - yeah those sounded pretty bad - lots of hiss and distortion. The Sony tape did a great job but that's a given. My recent tape release was on Fox RTM911 tape, duplicated in real time from 24bit masters, mastered specifically for cassette reproduction. The Fox stuff sounds pretty good. It would not be economical to do a run on these high-priced tapes (and also have mediocre results). PS: I absolutely loved the Patricia Barber track you used and will go and check out the whole album!

I heard dropouts on the Tascam tape. I have a question, what's the difference between the cobalt and chrome, does the cobalt break down easier? I agree with you, that it's good that they are listening to people in making new tapes, but they also need to pay attention to what we are saying about the quality. Thanks for the video.

I saw the NAC company in Ytube before. I didn't see the specific designer team in their show. Cassettes seems to be produced in routine of machines. I think no one is for designing better J cards, shape of cassette and also managing for preparing formula of tapes.

Wow... Can a cassette sound this good, i don't remember that.. Time to rediscover Mc👍 but this cassetteplayer are is a high End one. I have a Technics from the 90's, do you think that will do the jobb?

It's been a year since your video, have you done follow up to see if the tape has been up graded for better performance.

Fantastico il Nakamichi Dragon! Ma quando apri un canale nella nostra meravigliosa lingua madre?

Can you do a Type 1 shoot out? That may be interesting considering the price point.

A few things: Glad you pointed out you did not test with a TASCAM 424. Is it fair to bash a product advertised to be matched with a unit you did not test? With your dragon, did you record at normal tape speed? TASCAM 424 records at 2X speed in normal 4-track recording. Perhaps the tape formula is designed to perform best in a 424 at its recording speed. Thanks for the time making and sharing the video!

Dear Sir , my question is: What is the difference between tape drive heads that can play metal tapes and heads that cannot play metal tapes? Some machines need to manually select the tape type. When a metal tape is selected to play, what will happen to the magnetic head? Very much looking forward to and thank you for your reply.

Thank God I have a dollar store and I get maxwell ur60 tapes type 1 for 1.50 a tape. Not type ll I miss those but the maxells perform well as you know

Thanks for making this Video on the type 2. I have a question though and maybe someone can guide me. I have recently started recording on cassette type 1's mainly the Maxel UR's and using Dolby C as this is the best that My Denon tape deck can do, however when playing back the tapes I seem to prefer playback without using the Dolby C compression as it takes away some of the ambiance and Flow of the recordings even though the tape hiss is much less. Thus my question is if i am using Dolby C on playback as i should since i used it on recording, how do I add back that ambiance? is it just a question of Turning up the trebble frequencies? I have a 5 band ADC Equalizer but i still find that it is not the same or do i need to use a better adjustable EQ such as a 13 or 24 band?

Hei, tape man expert, could you explain (maybe in a video) how different tapes get their names? I see all 3 in this video are C-60, but the C is not for Chrome. Type 1 tapes are also labelled as C-number. Others are SF, SA(X), D, U, etc, metal almost always starts with M, but this convention appears to be the rule for metal type IV only, and then there's Axia PS-Metal, so .... not always! Do the letters mean anything? Is it something we can decode? Or is it just completely random, decided by the company that distributed the tape. What is a SA or SA-X? Why is it only TDK that use that, but every company used C and D prefixes? Google failed me in finding the answers to these questions.

Well, I don’t necessarily regret buying a couple Type II Tascam tapes because I was primarily supporting the “cause”. In any case, I’ll try to salvage my “investment” and record something on it with Dolby S.

Please Can you compare the New Type I ? TDK D90 vs Maxwell UR 90 (cheapest) vs Sony HF vs Fox vs others? looks like the New Type II cobalt-based cassettes are not worth buying?

I am so glad you did this review.. thank you so much for this.. I was wondering about these cassettes .. excellent review.. this saved me money not to buy these cassettes..

For some reason they had to replace it, but a few years ago NAC had a really good type 1 tape called the Audio Pro 90. I'm disappointed because I didn't buy more of them while I could. Then they released an inferior tape that they called a super ferric. It was a mediocre tape at best. It's sad to see these type 2s doing so poorly. But I'm glad they're trying. I may give Nacs tapes another try since I hear they're changing the formula a little bit. The audio pro reminds me of classic 80s Memorex or Radio shack supertape.

Shame the tapes gone were master pieces

I think that Maxell XL-S II is the best, but I liked Tascam.

Thanks. I’ll take your words on the cassettes. RU-vid and my iPad are not the means for me to judge.

I think I'll stick to TDK- SA's and the equivalent Maxel, That's, Sony etc :D

🤗 GUIDO…WE HOPE YOUR DOING WELL 😍😍😍

I think it'd be good if they made a machine that took the cassettes but could take 7 inch reel-to-reel as well, no reason why this couldn't be done. there is a German company who make the reel-to-reel tapes can't remember the name now, they could actually make the actual tape for the cassettes maybe they do? there was a Korean I think that used to make tape for manufacturers don't know if it's still going. very hissy you need to get yourself a dbx type 1 type 2 dynamic compressor it will eliminate hiss and increase the dynamic range by 40db giving it about 120db same as cd format. tape sound a lot better. not expensive to pick up or use a plug-in. have to make sure you got 50ohns triple or quad shielded cable that will reduce hiss as well, microphone interconnect cable.

hi man you are right the new tape is alot better new Type 1 is better i had some of that new new Type 1 from tapeline i run at 3 3/4 ips wow it's very good

The UXS was definitely the least noisy. The most noisy was the third cassette. Heard in my mobile. Go figure!

why did'nt you use your technics deck with dbx noise reduction?

The more dark the tape the better the quality..it was in the 80's and 90's like that and i suppose it still is..

I found that the ATR tape had the lowest hiss of the three, comparable to the Sony, and the Tascam was second in terms of hiss. I was very disappointed by the amount of dropouts in the Tascam and the NAC. The ATR wasn't so bad in that sense, but the cymbals on the ATR sounded like mush. The high end definition on the NAC and Tascam were much better, but this is a bit of a moot point considering the high end distortions on all three. For the price of the ATR, I would expect performance equal to or greater than a TDK SA. I noticed that the price listed for the NAC is for a 10 pack according to their website, meaning you can buy 10 NAC tapes for the price of two ATRs, but I wouldn't buy any and, for the time being anyway, would focus on new and vintage type 1s and vintage type 2s. One note though, the fact that the Tascam is designed around the portastudio implies that the tape is designed to be run at 3 3/4 IPS, double the regular cassette speed, and thus the shortcomings likely wouldn't be as pronounced. I hope they can get the bugs worked out for the next batch! I especially have high hopes for ATR as far as future improvement goes.

When I record on old Type-1 TDK ..,Sony or Maxell..on my Nakamichi ZX-7..the sound-quality is almost like on a Type-2 .

So no good tape saturation, I heard the drop outs in low frequency right away. Crap shoot, what a bummer.

Maxell XLII. Now someone bring back Sony Clear Voice portable tape recorder