A good article which brings back memories. k Cassettes were very important during the 80s. Me and my work mates would tape each others albums, greatly expanding our collections. As I had the best system I seemed to do most of the taping. Most of my listening was done on a Walkman though. I had a Sansui deck which was repaced by a Denon when it packed up. That lasted a very long time and was only sold when I discovered streaming. When we moved a few years ago the tapes, which had not seen the light of day for years, were binned.
Main System
NVA BMU, P90SA/A80s (latest spec), Cube 1s, TIS, TISC(LS7)
Sonore OpticalRendu, Chord Mscaler & Qutest, Sbooster PSs
Network Acoustics Eno, ifi iPurifier3, AQ JB FMJ, Cisco 2940 & 2960
DH Labs ethernet, BNC & USB cables, Lindy cat 6 US ethernet cable
Second System
NVA P20/ A20, Cubettes, LS3, SSP, SC
Sonore MicroRendu, Chord Mojo 2 MCRU PSs, AQ Carbon USB cable & JB FMJ
Headphones
Grado SR325e/Chord Mojo, Beyerdynamic Avetho/AQ DF Black
I've bought 2 cassettes recently, 1 in a charity shop and 1 from ebay.
Wings - Band On The Run
Musical Youth - Youth of Today
The Musical Youth cassette sound better to me than either of the vinyl copies that I used to have. I can live with some hiss but vinyl pops a clicks are a no no for me. It did take 3 attempts to find a copy that plays without drop outs etc though. I had never listened to Band On The Run in it's entirity before so it was a good chance to hear it.
There are quite a few artists on Bandcamp who are releasing limited edition cassettes
Main System. Amp - Luxman LV-120, CD - Pioneer PDX505 & Hitachi DA 401. Turntable - Trio KD-2055/Denon DL-110 & Ortofon VMS20E. Cassette Deck - JVC KD A55. Speakers - Arcam Alpha connected with NVA LS3.
Headphone System - Little Dot Mkiii headphone amp, various vintage CD players into NVA P50 with Sennheiser HD600 and Beyer DT 880
Quarknosis wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 9:38 am
I've bought 2 cassettes recently, 1 in a charity shop and 1 from ebay.
Wings - Band On The Run
Musical Youth - Youth of Today
The Musical Youth cassette sound better to me than either of the vinyl copies that I used to have. I can live with some hiss but vinyl pops a clicks are a no no for me. It did take 3 attempts to find a copy that plays without drop outs etc though. I had never listened to Band On The Run in it's entirity before so it was a good chance to hear it.
There are quite a few artists on Bandcamp who are releasing limited edition cassettes
Sorry but vinyl blew away pre-recorded cassettes when I tried a few back in the 70s I have an original Band On The Run bought in 1973 and plays with hardly any clicks or crackle. Apparently according to some Hoffmanites some later US pre-recorded were done in real time and sound very good. I believe MFSL did them this way with Chrome tape. In the end it's much down to the quality of the playback machine as well as how duplicated. No doubt we will soon see audiophile cassettes again on a very limited scale as recently we have seen very expensive reel to reel albums. Original unused cassettes can fetch a fair bit of money. I have a few plus a bag of ones my father used to record jazz to from the radio. I feel they might be too valuable to bin as they can be reused. Just waiting for this revival to take off (even though i find it a bit ridiculous). Also have two working cassette decks (Teac and Technics) in a cupboard and I think there may be a 45 yr old Akai boxed in the attic. Seem to have lost any of my Top 30 recordings I made, and copy tapes of albums suffered from being in my previous cars glove boxes for years (now binned).
Picked up this deck for next to nothing on ebay recently, mainly for nostalgia reasons, but if i'm honest its sounds not half bad and it's a bit of fun.
TT- Thorens TD160B MKII with SME 3009, SL1210 and PL-71. Amps-NVA P50sa/A40's & Phono 1. CDP- Sony X555ES. Speakers-B&W 705 with LS1. Headphone system Bushmaster II, Capella amp, Pi 3B+ with Hifiberry Digi+ Pro & Nighthawk cans.