What are your experiences with cassette tapes?

I still buy blanks, and play/record cassettes quite frequently. I own thousands...many I've had since the 70's, 80's, 90's. All are either CrO2, FeCr (type III) or Metal (type IV) cassettes. The latter proved a better durability, and their sound quality has not diminished. Most are either C90 or C60. They still sound fantastic on my Nakamichi Dragon deck, which is over 30 years old.

Many who have recorded their digital CD's to cassette may have noticed an improvement in sound. The reason your cassettes sound so nice is because they're analog. I remember experimenting back in the late 80's...taking the new CD's and recording them onto cassette. Those tape recordings always outperformed their digital source.

I never had any issues with snags, or tapes getting "chewed-up". But I suppose that all depends on the care taken (always rewind when storing), the quality of the tape, and the equipment being used.

In much the same way some people had scratched/damaged records, and others didn't (me)...it all boils down to common sense, and the caring for ones property.

I also have many reel-to-reel tapes...still play them too :)

Yes I have about 400 cassette's, which I still play from time to time, when they first came out, they were much easier to transport than vinyl. And you could use them in your car. But yest there were a lot more trouble with them in the long run. But most moving parts will give us trouble now and then. But I did not mine the sound, and I did not have the problem some people did with rewinding to find a song, as I don't do that with vinyl and I did not do that with tape, I always played the tape from A to B. My friends would get mad at me at times, because I would not rewind or fast forward the tapes, to find a song.

I think CDs are a lot more practical. But I like the sound of the tape a bit better. But prefer vinyl over all.

Here is a photo of part of my cassettes; http://s999.photobucket.com/user/davidv60/media/da...

take care

dave

I had a bunch of cassettes a few years ago, but I guess I prefer CDs because the tape inside them is REALLY annoying when it gets messed up. And don't even ask about rewinding.

Vinyl is okay, I guess. I have a few.

I don't really like purchasing albums digitally, I like to own hard copies.

I use to record a lot of cassettes myself (Nakamichi BX-300). Back in the days before CD's and digital it was the best way to preserve our precious vinyl, specially longer playing vinyl (25 minute sides or longer) that was highly susceptible needle wear. Pre-recorded tape like from some of the bigger bands/record companies tended to be sub-par because of shoddy quality bought-in-bulk cassette tapes and rarely sounded as good as vinyl, the exception though was from newer and local bands that would make their own cassettes using better quality tapes like Memorex and TDK.

I still have most of my own cassette tapes that I recorded myself and a few pre-recorded ones that were actually made well (the rest I pitched) they do still sound good but I prefer to listen to CD's.

They were useful back in the day, when they were the only way to make music portable.

However, they were of much lower fidelity than vinyl (let alone CD), and were useful only for dubbing, not as your original copy of something.

They had a tendency to get chewed up in tape players, which was an awful sensation...

The wow and flutter were awful, and when the tapes were chewed, this got much worse.

They were prone to dropouts in one channel or both channels pretty often. The more you played a tape, the more dropouts would appear.

They were inconvenient for listening to tracks out of order, because of all the rewinding/fast forwarding necessary (which stressed the tape, leading to chewings or rips)

They would unwind easily if you packed them in a bag with a lot of stuff.

Pre-recorded tapes always sounded bad compared to vinyl, and were priced a dollar more expensive than vinyl.

The only fond memories I have of tapes is when bands would make tapes and sell them or pass them around, or tape trading of bootlegs or live shows. For these things, tape was all we had.

But I sure don't miss the headaches and dodgy sound.

I have a lot of cassette tapes passed down from my sisters but I'm not sure they still work.

I bought a few of them because I have no other choice. I prefer CD and digital overall.

Depends on the production, I guess. Most cassette tapes I have sound crappy. The bands made it crappy on purpose.

its been a long time that i listened to a cassette tape..i had an entire collection when i was younger (in school)..i still have those cassettes but haven't played any since CDs and MP3s came out.. i should try it sometime though.. just to get the feeling of good ol' days :)

I pull out old tapes now and again, have old pioneer stereo system Expensive in its day.cassette,turn table, early CD player, EQ, a monster. Now i have a lap top plugin in to a nice speaker system, But i have tapes that are twenty yrs old that still sound good.But the are stored in plastic containers no dust . Sound is good,through a good system. play a digital copy of a original vinyl, Vinyl is so much better, have played them side by side.But sorry.tape was good for its day.Hate havin to search for the track you want.have become spoiled with all the tech.

I haven't had an experience with a cassette tape since my early 20's.

I think I only ever owned one album on cassette, which was Michael Jackson's "Dangerous", other than that cassette was only useful because our family only had one CD player, so to play something in our rooms or on Walkman, we had to dub albums from the CDs we had, or to tape stuff we borrowed from friends.

The only experience that I truely remember about cassettes is the feeling I got when I was 8 years old in 1992 and my uncle had just bought me a copy of Pantera's 'Vulgar Display of Power'. I remember giving him a hug and a thank you then running the house and shoving the tape into my dad's cassette player and crankin' that m*therf*cker up.

Turned 29 today... ahh, to be a kid again.