Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo tapes

does anyone listen to tapes anymore? I just found an old collection (around 500 cassettes).

Is it worth getting a player for these... will they sound any good on my detailed M60's?

Can anyone recommend a good but not too expensive player?

TIA

Will they sound good? Not at all likely. But "Content is King" and if there's some music there they you don't have in other media, it could well be a hoot to get a cassette deck to check them out.

I have a few of these Teac Cassette Decks that I use for duplication; they've done fine for me.

Whenever we moved about 6 years ago I found a large collection of casette tapes from my Army days (late '70s) in our attic, played several and quite often they wouldn't last but a few minutes or a couple of playings before the mechanics of the tape failed. Hind sight being 20/20 I shouldn't have stored them in the attic and I would have had them recorded onto another device. Live and learn.

I have a nice JVC tape deck I bought back in the 90's and I still occasionally listen to some of my old cassettes. Suprising, some of them still sound pretty darn good, especially on my M60's.

Randy

Pick out the ones that you really liked and make a list to buy them on CD. . . tapes just can't compare. May be worth a laugh though to see how much of an improvement CD's really were.

Warfer, definitely pick up a deck and have a hoot going through all your old tunes!! I picked up an old Luxman deck for $50.00 off e-bay that originally retailed for $800.00. The thing works perfect. But beware - it is a crap shoot. The head could be shot, belts stretched, pinch roller shrunk & dried up, and so on. I guess I got lucky. I'd try a pawn shop where you could "demo" it first.

As far as sound quality goes........well, if you can get past the hiss, flutter, drop outs, and all the other anomalies you aren't used to hearing, you should do fine. Just enjoy what is on them! There will be a few lost gems you will certainly find, and those make it all worth while.

BrotherBob made a very valid point. If you do find something that is rare and out of print, try to copy it first listen through. Since my deck was a single, a tape-to-tape copy was impossible. So, I ran the output from the tape deck to the sound card input on my computer. Ripped it to the hard drive, ran it through some filters, and burned it to CD. I can't recall what software I used to edit the songs before burning (it was 7yrs ago), but I remember being happy with the improvements at the time.

Shawn

Man, tapes...?

Wow... I mean... they don't have the harsh digitalness of CD... they sound mellow, laid-back, round, open, airy, irving, precise... they open up the soundstage. You can buy something on CD or even on vinyl, but cassette - that was the pinnacle of audio excellence. There IS no tape hiss, that's just the pure quality of the sound coming through. Human hearing cannot process how clean and awesome the sound is, so we hear it as hiss.

*tongue planted firmly in cheek*

Bren R.

Wow, Bwen. It'th weawy hawd to tawk wiff a tongue pwanted fiwmwy in a t'theek.

Yo... I seen people givin' props to the DVD-A and Blu-Ray...
There's even some people givin' love and shout outs to the 12" long-play
But one format been living large and comin' correct,
I'm givin' respect
to the eighth-inch Phillips compact cassette...

Werd...

Bren R.

I still listen to some cassettes.....(mostly on the road).
As to will they sound ok?.........that is somewhat of a dichotomy.

On the one hand, many of the cassettes from the mid-80's...on, sound surprisingly good. You get the correct, original mix, and warm analog sound.

But.....you also get, tapes reproduced from 5th generation masters, (creating the mega-hiss when turned up) cheap shells, etc..... all limiting the format's potential for hi-fi sound.

Sure, I (as possibly the most cracker-type here!) let out the most humourous nerdcore flow about cassettes and get no love...

You's all hata's!

Bren R.

I can't comment... all of my cassettes were eaten by automotive decks a long time ago. Cassette audio did give me some of my finest listening moments, eg:

...running late on a car rally, tearing down undulating dirt roads north of Toronto in an old Ford Fiesta, with the wheels lifting gently off the ground over the high spots. The gentle, lyrical sounds of Beethoven's 5th, second movement filled the air, punctuated only by the (clunk) of the suspension bottoming out each time we landed.

Driving out to Killington Vermont on a bitterly cold morning at 4 AM with a car full of "stupid tired" people, listening to Laurie Anderson's new (at the time) album, with the tape jamming right after she said "Sun's coming up..."...

.. while my brother-in-law was messing with the tape deck, playing that segment over and over again to see if we could get past it, an extraordinary sunrise burst over the horizon...

I think that cassette was still stuck in the deck when I sold the car ;(

Bren, I ain't frontin'
Ayes be diggin what you's be laying down.
Phillips da bomb, yo.

actually I do have most of them on CD also

Oh man - all those old mixed tapes you traded with your s/o in high school - of course you don't notice the hiss! You're too far down memory lane . . . I still have a fun collection!

Thanks for Dolby Noise Reduction

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all those old mixed tapes you traded with your s/o in high school

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Yeah, great... I'm getting Glass Tiger, Warrant and Def Leppard... she's getting Dayglo Abortions, Skinny Puppy and D.R.I.

Between that and spending all my time in high school in the auto shop... I wasn't high on any girls' priority list.

Bren R.

Ooooh, Glass Tiger! And the Cult, Crowded House, The Lowest of the Low, Stereo Fuse. . . how could you possibly part with those gems?

your wife has good taste in music bren. i have the frontline assembly "nerve war" album on my computer that is ripped from cassette and it sounds pretty damn good.

speaking of wife, Bren, how are those plans coming?

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your wife has good taste in music bren

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Actually, we're not married, she's my fiancee... and it wasn't her I would have been trading tapes with back then... she would have been listening to Raffi and Fred Penner (there's a significant age difference between us!) at that time.

Though the fine young lady I was trading comps with is still a good friend, and is married to my chiropractor, a kind, not-the-least-bit-aggressive man who stays as far away as possible from electronics and signal wiring.

Bren R.

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a kind, not-the-least-bit-aggressive man

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good thing, since he is your chiropractor!