Old cassette tapes

[Robert J]

I am cleaning out my basement, and I every year I look at my vast collection of cassette tapes. 20% are pre-recorded while the rest are dubs of LPs and Cds. Recently I acquired another person’s collection. No one seems to want to throw them in the bin completely.

Oddly - I am not "really" attached to them, but I can't just throw them out yet. Many bring back memories of University I suppose. Friends getting me into music, and, pre CDRs, taping was the way to get free music.

I've now bought the CD versions for many of the cassettes, but there are still lots of vinyl-only dubs kicking around. I also have a bunch of cassettes I bought when I traveled in the mid-East: Arabic classical music, Indian ragas, Ghazals, etc, that I’d hang on to.

Also, I no longer have a car that plays cassettes and when I did the player got destroyed eventually by these same tapes. Though I still have an Onkyo home deck, it also sits in the basement, collecting dust.

Anyone have stories of how they finally got rid (or not) of their cassette tape collection?

[Jim R]

I never really liked using cassettes, and so I never collected a great number of them (I don't think I own one pre-recorded one). I did end up with a small collection, though. Most of the important ones (LP's not available on CD, live recordings, etc) I've already transferred to MiniDiscs or CDR's. I haven't gotten around to getting rid of the tapes yet, only because they don't take up that much space.

[mikeweil]

I will keep some with really rare material if they are pre-recorded, and plan to transfer the rare and live stuff I have - I reckon the days are not very far ahead when there will be no more cassette machines. The sound quality is simply too low compared to other media.

[Chalupa]

http://hanazuc02.ld.infoseek.co.jp/cassettes/cassettes.htm

[Harold_Z]

I just gave them to friends who I thought would dig them and who still played cassettes.

[marcello]

http://hanazuc02.ld.infoseek.co.jp/cassettes/cassettes.htm

This site should give Chuck the Heebie Jeebies.

[Jim Alfredson]

That site is insane!!! What's even crazier is how many of those tapes I actually had!!! Different brands and models... I used tapes like crazy when I was a kid, dubbing records from my dad's collection to listen to on the bus, making my own music on a 4-track cassette machine (then dubbing the finished song down to another tape) etc.

Wow.

I think I might have some that he doesn't, though. Some really old Maxell's from the 70s that I yanked from my dad.

[CJ Shearn]

wow I remember some of those too!

[Stefan Wood]

They collect them like old jeans and pre G3 Macs.

[762rob]

I buy them all the time - if you can find a Pioneer ELITE CT 05D or Pioneer CT 07D these decks digitally clean up old tapes like you would not believe. The sound is quite acceptable. I've even played ones from the 70's on these units and they sound great!

You can pick one of these up on ebay or audiogon if you are patient.

So, I still listen to them and collect them - there are some great jazz titles out there for like no money.

[JohnS]

I have quite a number. A lot went into the bin but I couldn't bring myself to bin a few lp dubs and a lot of concert recordings from the radio. I transferred one or two to mp3 but it's so time consuming that I soon lost interest. Maybe I'll get around to doing a few more in time. But for now I still have areasonable quality tape deck so there'e no real hurry. I'd rather see the back of them though.

[Soulstation1]

i bought a lot of these in the 80's early 90's

when was the last time you listened to a cassette?

[jazzbo]

I've listened to cassettes quite recently actually.

I have about 100 at work I listen to on a Sony boom box that I keep on a bookcase behind me.

I have about 100 of several bands I was in in the late eighties that I will probably tranfer to cdr or maybe even dvdr (lots of playing time available on some of the recording lengths) as back up in case I actually wanta to listen to these in twenty or thirty years. . . .

With a good cassette deck fidelity on cassettes can be surprising. Better than early digital on a cheap cd player.

[Christiern]

I forgot that I have a bunch of these--mostly virgin--purchased on a trip to Tokyo 21 years ago.

[sidewinder]

i bought a lot of these in the 80's early 90's

when was the last time you listened to a cassette?

I have a whole box-full of those muthas (and the XL1s) purchased in the 1970s and with jazz broadcasts from the BBC on them (not much 'live' but I think somewhere there is a Clark Terry Big Bad Band).

[Robert J]

i bought a lot of these in the 80's early 90's

when was the last time you listened to a cassette?

That was my first choice for tapes. Same time period. Then they became the XL2S.

I think they were about 30-35$ for a box of 10.

I recall the first tapes I bought were from Radio Shack. I think I bought everything there when I was in high school.

Edited November 25, 2005 by Robert J

[JSngry]

With a good cassette deck fidelity on cassettes can be surprising. Better than early digital on a cheap cd player.

Heck yeah. Even with tape hiss and lower high-end, it's still analog, and that ain't nuthin' to sneeze at...

[Daniel A]

My vote for lousiest looking cassette brand:

[Daniel A]

I put all cassettes away maybe three or four years ago. I thought I was going to transfer most of them to MP3, but... So far only a handful of concert recordings from FM radio actually made it into my PC. Some other day, perhaps...

But I agree that cassettes can sound good. I had one of these:

Akai GXC-710D

[jazzbo]

I have a nice Harmon Kardon I think is a good machine. When I really have something I want to get the very best out of I borrow a trumpeter friend of mine's Nakamiche.

[Soulstation1]

also used these

and these

back in the day, i had every led zep album on cassette

[Noj]

My first tape collection was stolen out of the back of my parent's truck while parked in a friend's driveway after a camping trip. I still have my second tape collection in storage. There's stuff in there I've never gotten on cd, so every couple years I get them out.

I once got a big box of outdated foreign language school curriculum tapes for mixmaking which were essentially going to go in a dumpster. They were terrible quality, but free. Some were entertaining to listen to; multiple Asian dialects, Russian, Portuguese, etc.

[Jim Alfredson]

Sounds like fun stuff to sample!

[sidewinder]

My vote for lousiest looking cassette brand:

Hey, I have a stack of those too !

These UK ones have the 'Philips C60' imprint and not the 'Big Ben' designer label.

They were the first tapes I ever bought, for a trusty old Philips casette recorder.

With a good cassette deck fidelity on cassettes can be surprising. Better than early digital on a cheap cd player.

Heck yeah. Even with tape hiss and lower high-end, it's still analog, and that ain't nuthin' to sneeze at...

Amen !

[gdogus]

I used to have a ton of cassettes (several bureau drawers full) that were recorded mainly in the early and mid 1980s. I threw them all away a few years ago. One listen revealed most of them to be... er, unlistenable: muffled, wobbly, distorted, awful woozy stuff. So I dumped them.