THEY ARE WRONG ABOUT CASSETTES 

One of the things that people might not realize today is that cassettes and players, although pretty poor when they started,had improved greatly by the time they were about to be discontinued; if you purchased high-quality tapes and high-quality machines and made your own recordings "properly," you could end up with a very formidable sounding audio source for decades to come.

If it wasn’t for cassettes, we would never had the most Iconic music Image of all time ... The Maxell Guy.

Anyone remember peeling the wrapper off a new cassette and then smelling the ink on the fold-out J card? One ZZ Top J card ink smelled like grape.

Analog tape can be an enjoyable EXPERIENCE with the proper ingredients. Making a good analog recording is a thing of skill, pride and attention to detail. Plus the end result is a unique creation - a physical and sonic one. Years past, I found the exploration of the attributes of different tape formulations to be fun process. At its best, analog recording matériel was a merger of excellent electrical, mechanical, chemical and industrial engineering practices. It was a quest and gradual growth towards better sound and performance, not an immediate perfect cookie-cutter gratification.

An audiophile can just mean you try to get the best sound that you can from whatever equipment you have, that's the type that I am. Anyone who loves music is technically an audiophile. There's a bathroom on the right.

I'm an TRUE audiophile, and that's why I only use my 8 track to cassette adapter with a cassette adapter to 3.5mm for all listening choices for my music enjoyment.

One of the things I loved about growing up with all of the sources of Analog audio, was that they all started out pretty bad, and then improved over time. You started with a horrible "record player" with a ceramic "needle" and then moved up to a real turntable with a cartridge. They you have to debate belts over direct driver, or quartz locked drives, etc. With cassettes, you started with a kids player, then a deck with Dolby B, then better blanks (loved the Maxell UDXL-II), then Metal tape, and Dolby C. Everything was evolving at that time. People like Nakamichi took cassettes to incredible levels with their 3 head decks and adjustable azimuth. When CD"s came out, and everything became Digital, it was like everything was perfect. There was no where to go. This was as good as it was going to get. No question that all of these forms of physical media have a huge nostalgia factor for those of us of a certain age. Both your channel and Randy's, have really encouraged me to get back into my two-channel systems, and I have had a great time rediscovering vinyl and vintage systems again.

Its closer to the org mastertape than vinyl ever will be. Make tape, not vinyl😂

"'Scuze me, while I kiss this guy!"

Cassette pros: Saying "Mix tape" is cooler than "Playlist" or "Mix CD". You can't put a CD or a .DSD file in an old Teddy Ruxpin to watch it sing Black Sabbath. The local punk bands in the late 80s/early 90s didn't have a Soundcloud so they made demo tapes. They were almost universally crappy production-wise but those cats put some feeling into those tapes. Cassette tapes help keep pencil makers in business.

Lenny, You know I am an Old Guy. When we bought new LPs the first thing we did was record them on to a cassette and then put the album away. We only listened to the tapes so we wouldn't damage the records. If cassettes are so bad then why did companies like Harman-Kardon and Nakamichi spend so much time and money developing world class recorders? I am with you. Some audiophiles need to keep their mouths shut.

Somebody posted a comment on Randy’s video, and they nailed it. I’m paraphrasing, but he said if you care more about the gear than the music, then you are essentially a electrician. Let’s be honest, many “audiophiles” are wankers with a holier then thou attitude and are more interested in telling you, “you’re doing it wrong”. I’m in my mid 50s, and grew up with Cassettes and still love them and buy them. I’ve got a very nice home theatre set up, with a lot of legacy audio gear hooked in and most everything sounds great, and at the least, very good. Not everything has to be at 24/192. It’s the same reason that in the last week, I’ve watched a couple of 4k discs on a 85” screen, and also watched a couple of vhs tapes on a CRT 68” Tv. My mancave doesn’t discriminate against formats. PS - I’ve got a Pioneer H-R100 8 track that sounds beautiful. If the 8 tracks are looked after, and/or had the pads and foam replaced, they sound great.

Any analog media has a huge influence of device design and maintenance. Bad mantained and design cassette decks sound horrorible, as well as vinyl, 8tr, whatever... But the "Internet Audiophiles" never listened a tape beign recorded on Naka/Akai/Revox...

I sold all my tapes in a yard sale years ago. Between my wife and I we had hundreds of tapes. I kind of regret it now. I dont consider myself a Audiophile, I just listen to my music and drool over all the cool gear I can't afford, lol.

The only reason I stopped using cassette tapes as a kid & why I haven't picked them back up again since, is that the tape would always get stuck & chewed in the walkman or tape player of my portable radio. I'd then have to sit there with a pencil or the tip of my finger and manually wind it back in and that's if the tape didn't break, pulling the tangled mess out of the player heads. I'd love the idea of a physical medium that compact, that could store lossless quality (at least 24/96) albums, probably more than vinyl, if I wasn't totally done with the idea of breaking tape & having to wind tapes, that didn't break, manually. If it weren't for that then forget Kallax, I'd have an entire room of cassette storage and thousands of cassettes. On the "audiophile" subject, I have mild tinnitus, I listen to rock and metal way too loudly and some of my music is live music RU-vid rips that I converted to WAV or FLAC before downloading, but still garbage quality by lossless digital music standard. I'm also tinkering with the idea of buying a couple of cheap used drum kits and turning them into DIY floorstanding speakers by placing those DIY exciter transducers and bass-shaker transducers you see on the inside of vending machines and racing/flight sim rigs on the inside, on the back of the drum skin (the smaller the drum, the higher the frequency it will play). It might sound good. It might sound garbage. It won't sound as good as proper floorstanding speakers. I'm not expecting it to. It's just an experiment. ...I'm a music lover, not an audiophile.

Having a cassette player in your rack gave you one more piece of gear with VU meters or LEDs that made your system even cooler!

I grew up on cassettes and loved the versatility of them back then. The mixtapes were made exactly the way I wanted them. The sound quality was okay, but back then there was really nothing else that people my age had to compare it with. I still have a select few of homemade mixtapes and store-bought tapes. Sometimes when I listen to them it does take me back.

There was a period where I had a nice CD player setup in the house - but only a cassette deck in the car. I recorded the CD's to high quality cassettes for listening in the car. The sound was so good - yes there was the tape noise etc. but nothing sounded like that - some sort of magic happened in the transfer that really appealed to my ears. I've heard people call it "tape compression" or something, but whatever it was - I loved the result. I would actually sometimes prefer to listen to the cassettes in the house even though the cd's where right there.

I started with 8track in my 72 Vega. Then cassette came out big improvement. Always loved vinyl but pops and clicks and pain in ass. In the car cassette were not bad at all! Was all in on DAT and sound quality in my opinion was as good as any format and I've had them all. When NEC came out with hifi vcr, I bought 2 of their 1200$ and ran that for years.😊

I wish I did, but I don't have a functioning tape deck. Of my 2 tape decks, none of them work, one of them missing the mechaninism ENTIRELY, the other has broken belts, that are caked onto the drive pulleys, pls give me advice for removal if you have it, I would love to get my only Sony audio component working again.

Yes I still do listen to Cassettes of all different tape formulations . . . using both Dolby & DBX noise reduction . . . oldest mix tape I have I made during the summer of 1977 on a top loading Panasonic deck with adjustable recording levels . . . both still play . . . and so will I. 😉🔊🔊😎

I have all the cassettes I have purchased over the years less those that were lost or stolen. I have over 250 cassettes and I play them on my home system, in the factory cassette deck on my 2002 Harley, in the 72 Challenger, and through my 35+ year-old Sony Walkman. I have access to every media format available, and cassettes are time capsules of functional vintage fun.

I loved tapes, esp in my youth, almost got back into them a few times recently but where I live it's either impossible, crazy expensive or both, I'm good with my CD & MD

I have hundreds + mixed tapes. What is the best new cassette deck available now???

I started my personal audio journey on cassette tapes when I was 13. I related to Randy in the video you mentioned. Prior to that all I had access to was vinyl on my old man’s all-in-one stereo system with a mediocre turntable. I could listen to my choice of music in my bedroom on a little portable cassette player/recorder. At that time in that place I was happy. I moved on to reel-to-reel at age 19. It’s been a fun trip because I was listening to music regardless of gear. I do miss my reel-to-reel tape deck. I was making “Mix Tapes” way before it was a thing 👍🏼🎶😎

Tapes and cassette tapes have a 'professional' sound. Deep, solid,.punchy. Like a live music club, concert hall sound. But cassettes and tapes must be kept away from heat, dust and up right. Better played on good vintage players with the heads cleaned and demagnetized regularly. Serviced with heads aligned and rubber bands replaced.

I used to record albums that i was allowed to borrow from the record store i worked at. I always used Maxell UDXLII tape and the sound was incredible to me at that point in my life. Then, after purchasing a Mitsubishi Stereo Hi-Fi VCR, I experimented with tecording music on high-end Videocassette. I loved it. That became my go-to method. I wish i could go back in time to listen and compare to the equipment i listen to now. I gave away all of my cassette and VCR recording equipment and tape when I moved to the Philippines. I have a little regret about that now.

8 tracks, yes sir I had an 8 track in my 66 ford. The real negative was the song fade out then fade in with an audible clicking in the middle. But the cassette decks and tapes were convenient but not sure it’s warmer than vinyl I don’t know. But you could put all your favorite music on a Maxwell tape and carry it with you. Now streaming makes it and the CDs obsolete. Audiophile seems to be thrown around a lot, me I’m just an old fella trying to enjoy music from my younger days.

Well, I re watched the video because it is quite good and if I was there with you we would be talking about this for hours. See? you put out the sleeve and opened it showing the lyrics, credits, etc inside. Well, as you already know I'm Spanish and back then at home, without any technology or anything like that I wanted to know among others what Mark Knopfler was saying on the Sultans of Swing album tunes (I had the brand new 1978 vinyl) and you could find the lyrics in the interior papers just like in the cassette, my point being that these inside sleeves in the cassettes which I had at the time too, helped me a big deal to learn to speak english properly more than school or college. It was my love for the music mostly from the U.K. and The United States and the fact that those lyrics were there the reason I'm talking to you right now. so Thank you ol' time devices for helping me out so much.

Before hard drive storage for studios, all LPs, cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs all originate from: TAPE. Be it analog or digital. Every recording you ever listen to from before the early 90s is a second, fourth or tenth generation copy of TAPE. Every single MOFI all analog vinyl pressing comes from (or , should I say, should have come from!) analog TAPE. Tape sound is the original sound Granted, cassette isn't the best tape media by far. Still, it was at its best fantastic sounding. I dare anyone to A/B test using the monitor/source button while recording on a good 3 head deck and say it differs from the source in any meaningful way. Back in the day most people experienced cassettes through CHEAP equipment. 100 dollar boom boxes, 35 dollar walkman copies, cheap car stereos with 4 inch speakers in the doors. Judging cassettes by that standard is like slagging off vinyl after listening to it from a suitcase style player today. Whatever the reason for people to use a cassette today is very comparable to buying a classic car. You don't buy a Mercedes 500 SEC or a Golf GTI from the 80s because it gives you better fuel economy, because it is faster or because it is safer than a modern car. You buy it for the nostalgia. For the feeling it gives you. Maybe because you remember wanting one when you were 18 and couldn't even afford a bus ticket. Whatever your reason, you just want one, and you enjoy using it. I am eagerly awaiting an AKAI GX-75 that is on the way as we speak. I didn't even know anyone that had or could afford one of those back in 1990. It cost 3 times what an entry level deck did. Also, most of us didn't have decks with calibration, or didn't know how to use it, so we didn't get the very best out of our recordings. I find it enjoyable to muck around with stuff like that. Call me weird. Opinions online about HI-FI is also a lot like with cars: keyboard warriors that will tell you - from their Mum's basement - that the new Ferrari is shit and only a Lamborghini will do. Because someone on Top Gear said so. There just can't be enough people with money to buy and compare 10.000 dollar speakers in this world to be discussing it on the webs with such passion and in such numbers that we see. Audiophile? Nah. Alan parsons said something along these lines: -Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. They use your music to listen to their equipment. Do you like music, or do you enjoy comparing cables? I know where I stand.

A decent Kenwood cassette deck sat at the thrift for over a month so i decided to rescue it. For $27 i got a dual well Kenwood CT21 which features auto-bias function, dolby b,c, mpx filter, manual record level adjustment, ccrs functions, and b well is dolby hx pro and that makes a difference. I'm surprised how enjoyable cassette can be. If you think cassette is worthless, you haven't heard the right deck with the right system.

5:58 You get that with vinyl too, what makes tape lively is that you can record your own music, and you can take it anywhere if you have the equipment. And if you have metal capabilities, you have one heck of a sound medium in the palm of your hand, analog, and physical.

I have a couple of High End tape decks and they sound very good. People here my Nakamichi or Yamaha decks and they can't believe its a tape.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza...... We need a T-Shirt of this!!!! Best thing I've heard in a long time!!!! Signed, kid that grew up in the 80's and cassette was my first format.

Yeah... this weekend I made my first mix tape since the 90's and It came thru how rewarding experience it was, so now I decided that at sundays I will make the week mix tape ... although I am using a rfeel-to-reel lol . .so as reel estate is expensive I just record over the same reel... so it made realise to get one k7 deck because my car still has the original k7 deck and make a mix tape just like the old days.... forget Radio and Streaming at alll. now onto quality, yeah it doesn't reach vinyl or tape or cd, but has that mix analog experience of being listening while recording and spend the entire day making the decision which music goes well to be the next one... its a creative process ... much better than rolling endless social media feeds... :D

Nice vid! Last night I opened (still in shrink wrap) Donald Fagen’s “Kamakiriad”. It’s a “digalog” from Warner. Sounds great! I just had my 1990 Luxman K351 cassette deck totally restored. Has Dolby B & C and HX Pro. The head can be reversed on the fly and it will search for gaps between tracks too. Also had my 1979 Pioneer CT-F950 deck restored 2 months ago. I use a 300B single ended triode (8-watt) tube amp and it really improves the sound quality. Thanks for the tip on Randy’s vid👍👍

Dear Lenny, I still listen to all my prerecorded cassettes, or I recorded myself ( 120 cassettes) , 60 min or 90 min Chrome or metal tape, and the different bias and noise reduction settings. This, of course, on a cassette deck or, guess what, on a Walkman (Sony). But to say that the sound is warmer and or better depends on the deck , and as you say is the nostalgic feeling and a of the many advantages that you can listen for a long time and do not change the vinyl or the same with streaming. You listen to your music with all feelings and emotions

I assume Lenny is familiar with the XDR tone-burst on some cassettes. Now THAT brings back some memories.

A am 48 years old and about 5 years ago i've decided to start collecting cassettes again.today i own several cassette players,nothing high end,and around 1500 cassettes that i've managed to collect for the last 5 years.i am happy as a kid decades ago but this time actually own the gear and the music i've dreamed about as a kid.to me cassettes are not all about the sound quality only,its about the whole experience and the ritual,and of course the cassette era,as a epoca of the entire evolution of music and the sound as a fenomenon it self.to simplify,i just enjoy playing cassettes and listening the music on it,recording on them,it just puts a big smile on my face,every time:))

My 10 Year old Son LOVES Cassettes and so for that alone I will buy them and support them - I love them too!

Tapes were king when I was growing up. Never had a cd until I was In 11th grade. I used to get my tapes from Record and Tape traders. Also Bmg and Columbia House. My mother beat my ass when we started getting cassettes mailed to us constantly. Tapes I did not order for one penny from In the Tv Guide. Lol! Great video!!!!! Tapes sounded best when they were labeled “Digalog”.

I remember the VCR players were so loud when rewinding the tapes. Lol! That is in the same realm as cassette tapes.

I was down at Third Eye Records a couple of weeks ago and the lady behind the counter said that they have people coming in asking for new cassette albums. I did tell her that if any of her customers was looking for a cassette deck, that you had some nice ones.

Put me down as a Tape Head. Cassette recordings can be extremely good, so audiophiles should not dismiss them. Lots of positive things to say about cassettes, as described in this excellent video.

Back in the day there was a scandal against record companies useing poor quality tape. They really sounded horrible I would borrow albums I didn’t have and record them on Maxell and they sounded great

I grew up in Northern New Jersey (mid 70's to 80's) and our local radio station was 105.5 WDHA it was an album rock station. When new albums would drop they would play the album end to end. My friends and I would record the broadcast and have an inexpensive new album. I purchased so many 10 pack cases of TDK SA90 cassettes from Crazy Eddies. "Every time you go away, You take a piece of meat with you".....

I'm a 'musicophile' and appreciate all you do for us. Thank you so very much, Sir.

Cassette tapes were the ultimate gift. Think about it. You're in Jr High or High School. There's that person of interest. You make them a mix tape. That took thought and time. It was work too. I was lucky to have a neighbor with a spare dj mixing board, so I hooked up both a cd player and a turntable to make a mixed tape with proper fading if needed.

I grew up listening to cassette tapes, and I had portable Walkman players. I eventually switched to portable cd players, and the sound quality was much better. The cassette tape is very cool and nostalgic for many people. At the end of the day, it's what is enjoyable for you that counts. My parents had a station wagon with an 8 track player in it and I always remember that.

cassettes can sound best if you run them fast on a modded system. i build my own cassette players for playback using custom preamps and anyone who hear my recordings ask what the trick is. and its all about recording and playing the tapes at high speed. this boosts frequencies above 8 kilohertz thus allowing you to hear frequencies you may not of heard in years. the crystal sparkly sound is amazing. also at higher speeds you get amazing signal to noise ratios to tape hiss is unhearable except between songs. tapes can do things easily that other players cant such as reversing recordings at the press of a button and allow different speeds. my tape players use 4s lithium banks for power and have eqs with glowing pots and large led spectrum analysers so they will draw attention from anyone nearby. its great to be an electronic engineer as you can design and manufacture whatever you want.

Love Cassette. Love making recordings on cassettes. To me it's a bit like shooting on 35mm film. You can push it, in one direction or an other, by changing the ISO, aperture, speed, etc. With cassettes on a good 3 head deck, you can adjust the bias, the tape type & brand, to tailor the sound to your tastes. I get fantastic results with my Akai GX-9!!

I remember playing lots of cassettes growing up, they were usually copied off the radio or vinyl or something. It was done with a pretty cheap recorder so when I heard the originals the cassettes were substantially lacking in quality. Also sometimes they would stretch and had lots of wow and flutter or the player belt would stretch and play really slow. I have two decks, neither are speed accurate. The Marantz one is 1percent slow forward and almost 6 percent in reverse (It's pretty worn out). I have nothing against cassettes, but I'm in the vinyl camp.

Digital sounds so good, mixing engineers add tons of distortion to make it sound more like tape.

I absolutely love cassettes! I still make mix tapes, and all mine from the eighties still play fine. The prerecorded ones also. They're convenient, cool and virtually indestructible.

I still have a few high-quality cassette players and most of my old high quality cassette tapes with '70's and '80's music that were recorded on good equipment; believe it or not, many still sound good after 40 years, because they were stored properly etc., especially the highest quality ones. In hindsight, it was worth the extra money to go for the highest quality equipment and tapes. Prerecorded tapes always sounded rather low fidelity. True, not as good as high quality digital, but surprisingly good for such a small 4-track tape using Dolby C.

Cassettes are my favourite because I just love the sound and feel of them. It's definitely a nostalgia thing but I definitely think I'm somewhat burned out on streaming. A cassette forces you to listen to the whole album.

I’ve been rocking Marantz since the 70’s and I have a degree in music. Does that make me an audiophile?

I consider myself an audiophile based on my 60+ years of buying and selling stereo equipment in the never ending search for the ultimate sound. I recently inherited some vintage equipment that includes a cassette deck. Never owned a cassette deck and I am enjoying buying cassettes of music I love or never purchased for one reason or another because the cassettes are considerably less expensive than vinyl and some CD's I think it is fine for casual listening and does not compare to music played on my main system. It's fun when you don't have time for a extended listening session.

How old are you guys? 25-30 yo? So maybe 5to10yo when the last good cassette tape transport was made 🥴

I have 55-year old vinyl records that still sound as good as when I first acquired them 55 YEARS AGO. The pre-recorded record label-produced cassettes RARELY sounded as good as a record. Records don't produce a high-pitched SCREEEECH when they get older and have been played 20 times. Several of my pre-recorded cassettes did that just a couple of years after their purchase from the record store. And, if they had Dolby encoding, you either dealt with lots of hiss if you didn't use the Dolby decoder on your deck, or you dealt with listening to an album that sounded as if it had been recorded under a couch cushion if you DID use the decoder.

Cassettes can sound fair or exceptional. Depends on the deck you are using

I had a few cassettes when I grew up, but I mainly went from vinyl to cd I mainly listen to them at work on a walkman. And I think they actually sounded pretty good. And just in case you didn't know the sleeve.Inside a's cassette is called an o-card. And thanks for another awesome video I can't wait till the next one comes out each time. And also, by the way, I still listen to vinyl 99% of the time.Thanks for your. Consideration.

Problem with cassettes, all the new players and recorders available, basically suck

I have had the pleasure of owning pro series tape decks with laser amorphous heads and Dolby noise reduction filters, but the hissing wile was more quiet but was still there, Vinyl records is more better to me as far as sound quality, tape is just for portable devices

Sparkomatic was a few tiers below Craig when it came to car audio in to 70's/80's , in my opinion. And the Kraco Power Booster was a must. Man, did we wire up some crap back then.

Just remember, you are in the land of milk and honey listening to the finest gear money can buy, so maybe it is a nice change of pace to wear that scratchy (but warm and dry) wool sweater every once in a while. Keeps your listening perspective fresh.

I used to have 800 cassettes all of them high quality cassettes chrome or metal. I recorded them on my Aiwa excelia 007 deck using dbx. I found it sounded great. But some ten years ago my wife convinced me to get rid of them. I still regret it. So many memories. I still have my Aiwa deck though...😢😢

I miss that new cassette smell

The BASF CRO2 tape formulation used in the A&M cassette releases of The Police sounded pretty darn impressive.

Bro that beard jiggling 💀

To paraphrase PCU, "Talking about a cassette from a band while wearing the shirt from that band, don't be that guy." :D

I consider myself a true audiophile yet perhaps without all the snootiness. I’ve been into high quality sound since I was a little kid and have pursued it ever since. However I’m not one that insists on paying uber $ on gear. I believe we can get most of the way there without buying the most expensive stuff. Thats why the Cheap AudioMan is so useful for myself. I like the Audiophiliac too but most of what he reviews is way out of reach. I have more important things to do w/ my income. I loved making mixtapes back in the day and I was good at it. At the time I had a Yamaha Natural Sound CD player, a duel cassette recorder w/ all the goodies(chrome/metal bias, Dolby B, C, S & dbx NR, Dolby HX Pro, and a Realistic graphic EQ to fix up poor source material(I didn’t EQ everything and I learned to only use small bumps/dips considering playback would also have treble & bass adjustments). With a quality blank tape I was making to my ears at the time CD quality dubs. Today I own an Oppo bdp I bought used on EBay, a Yamaha Aventage AVR & Pioneer Elite bdp I bought open-box at BB. I own 3 record players including a newish AudioTechnica 120 yet my favorite by a wide margin is the early 80s Akai AP-D210 fully automatic direct drive. The myth that a turntable must be fully manual & belt driven for great sound is pompous-ass nonsense outside of the emotional satisfaction. Likewise those that believe the only proper way to listen to music is stereo, no multi-channel surround sound. I’ll listen to whatever format I feel like. Sometimes I want to hear pure stereo, sometimes I crave a more immersive playback. It’s all good. Those that insist on 2-channel only may not have experienced a well mixed multi-channel DVD-Audio, SACD, or blue~ray. Of course it depends on the mix and personal preference. I think the performers intent is often overlooked. Sometimes a surround mix is closest to the artists desire. And when it comes to live concert material nothing beats a well done DVD or Blu-ray. That center channel can actually enhance the experience and make it more real. Quads also do great w/ both studio & concert recordings. Among the best sound quality I’ve experienced is my BR headphone rig w/ a particular set of cans. Monolith Liquid Spark DAC and Liuid Spark amp with my Status Audio OB1(open-back studio over-ear) that I swapped out the pads with Brainwaves pleather. All budget priced stuff. The cans retailed at $79 and I paid less on sale. The amp & DAC are lower $100+ range that I also nabbed at a discount(Monoprice has crazy sales sometimes). I absolutely love the sound rivaling my more expensive rig downstairs w/ higher end cans. I have a collection. That all said while I have experimented with various tunes just to hear the sound quirky I do not repeat tunes I don’t like. It’s all about making the music I like sound its best with reason. I also pursue new music. Even though I’m halfway through my 50s I have found quality music made by youngsters in this century. Those that claim all of today’s music sucks are just being fuddy duddies. It’s simply found differently today. We’re unlikely to hear great new music from 20 & 30 something’s on the radio. Putting your streaming source on discover mode can pay great dividends. Not everything coming out today is manufactured pop garbage. That’s always existed. I’m not my opinion the 80s is the worst overall era of music. Too much fluff-n-stuff & glamrock which I felt even as a teen was the dumbing down and cheapening of “rock”. Most of it felt like hard /fast pop garbage. Some gems exist of course as they do in all genres. I’m a pursuer of quality music that includes the music itself with hopefully fine sound quality.

I still own and play cassettes. I have over 900 cassettes in my collection. While not the best format. It is one that works well and can sound very good on a decent deck.

For sure prerecorded cassettes have no pops and tics. My Sony TC-K950ES delivers very lifelike sound.

Seeing you guys attempting to repair hifi with a hacksaw,, guess you don’t know other than what you se on RU-vid. This is heavy” 😅. It’s a cheap Chinese transport.. 😖

I like cassettes because compared to cd's and lp's it delivers the least listener fatigue. I agree with Tom that it is the warmest sounding format. In find bass sounds best thru my cassette player. Does my cassette deck sound better than my cd player or record player? No. Would i ever consider selling my vintage Nikko cassette player? No. As a teenager I owned a Pioneer 8 track player that sported VU meters and dolby noise reduction. I thought it too sounded good.

I have that very cassette player, except mine is blue. The "we are rewind" is a very decent player for today. I have a Sony TC-WE305 for my stereo system. But I'm totally into records mainly. 👍🏻

Personally, I consider myself a music enthusiast and do not label self as an audiophile even though I like nice equipment to listen to it with! 🎶

😂🤣😂😂Don't forget the pencil !

I love cassettes. Still have a JVC half professional deck with excellent sound, well, amazing for the times it was built 1978 or so, the you have the Tascam professional decks which sound great, notr to mention Nakamichi with their Dragon decks. Vinyl has the scratching problem, vinyl no matter what you do has scratching sounds, then if you get the proper cartridge, Ortofon, Grado, etc, an expensive good one, you will hear every single noise on earth. Obviously the high freqs will be to die for. Nevertheless If I had the budget I would go for a good reel to reel but, well I don't havre that kind of dough so Tidal will have to do.

Cassettes are like living in a mobile home. Cheap, plasticy and cheesy and if you want to go from the first song (kitchen) to the last song (bedroom) you have to go past all the other songs (rooms) to get there. Also, you can get a lot of them in a small area beit a cassette storage case or trailer park. Lol.

Lenny, I love cassettes type II or metal you can produce good recordings I did mix tapes for years. I sold audio so i do consider myself an audiophile. If the gear is good the music will be good

Here's the thing man.........

I love the cassette tape format. I still have two tape decks and still make mix tapes for my wife. 👍👍

I still ear tapes recrded more than 35 years ago,and they are fine..even yesterday i was a the store i work Ultimateaudio with my colegues comparing those tapes with vinil,Luxman PD 191 with luxman top of the line cartridge and its amazing,but i recorded in tape denon 700 and Sony 890 ES ..and the sound for some is better..sweeter and somewhow smoter,the Denon 700 a little more open than the sony.

Mix tapes made with love.

# 2. I'm not an audiophile, I'm a musicphile.

Lenny, MD is the worst sounding format mechanically, also MP3 at low bit rates sounds way inferior to a good cassette deck. the limitation of cassette is the pre-recorded tape as they suck, if you record your own on a good deck, it quite frankly will run in the same realm as vinyl records. Also, the quality of the system that its played on has material impact.

Sony WM-d6c the Walkman to rule them all. It took me 40 years to get one….. ❤ cassettes…..and proud of it. Love your music…..

The reason recording companies approved of the cassette was that it could not make a perfect copy of the original. It was physically impossible. Thus, sequential copying made sequentially worse copies. The only way for cassette to recreate the full spectrum of vinyl was with special encoding like DBX. Since DBX was not backward compatible with regular tape, it never became mainstream. Reel to reel could make a much better copy (identical to the master tape), but it was very expensive and unwieldy. So, no cassette was never, ever as good as vinyl. In fact most prerecorded cassettes were pretty awful.

CD is still the best format. And they don't degrade over time.

Magnetic tape is warmer, and more musical rounding off the high end and boosting the low end nice and smoothly. Tape recordings are also generally much quieter and more pleasing to the ear than digital files which are way too loud and gets annoying fast. Tape uses the VU meter standard which keeps the levels at a nominal level(-18dBV) for the human ear.

Never heard an 8-track?! You absolutely MUST bask in glory of the background noise from the other track bleeding through in reverse. Only real way to get the devil music rockin'. (So yeah, it suuuuuucked.)

I just bought over a hundred prerecorded tapes for well under a dollar each. All but 2 sounded fantastic. Many are on chrome tape with Dolby. I love my decks. Audiofiles, stay away. You won't hear those bat calls.

I love tapes and still have my Sony deck that I bought in the 90's. It's not high end but still works perfectly and sounds great. I also still have my Sony Walkman and that still works great. Are they better than LP's I don't think so and I prefer CDs as they sound great even on cheaper systems.

Hey if its just about getting noticed why not forget your pants next time your out for a walk? :-0 lol. Will say that some of those old cassette machines are very groovy beautiful engineering and something to appreciate regardless of any personal opinions about the sound which I think can be pretty good depending on the rest of your gear.

How can I say no to cassettes when I still have a working Pioneer CT-M6R Six Cassette Player/Changer/Recorder! 😉

There are audiophile wannabes, there are audiophiles who are overrated and audiophiles who are followers.

A decent 8track like an Akai can be surprisingly good, barring tape hiss.... MD is an awesome format...

I am an 80's reject with punk and new wave as my music of choice. Just picked up around 20 cassettes from a thrift store for 89¢ each. I also restore vintage Aiwa "Audiophile" decks and sell them for a premium. At 59, my hearing is getting pretty bad, so I can't really tell much difference these days. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6czytyCkrQw.htmlsi=cwIUeQOFYncw1hIB ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-a1ohg7QN0BU.htmlsi=m49RffbbHQqknyhm ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-z1M1N_OCArE.htmlsi=p4HJ0oabnvb1dFRs