Do You Miss Your casettes

[Thad E Ginathom]

Never!

Of the formats that my lifetime has so far encompassed, from 78RPM to FLAC, cassettes were the most horrid in every way.

ok, ok, I would like to be able to play them if I wanted, which I can't because my deck is dead ... but I seldom miss them.

 

[mbhangui]

I still listen to my cassettes on my Nakamichi deck. In my college days, whatever was left over of the pocket money, was spent on cassettes. Those days I could afford to buy two cassettes per month. My stereo system in those days used to be a Takara auto cassette deck mechanism connected to a DIY LM386 preamp connected to a DIY TBA810 amplifier connected to Philips speakers placed over earthen pots. I also had connected a baxandall tone control (i forget the IC used). At a later stage when smoking pot to enhance music listening was discovered, I had also connected two 5 LED dancing lights for effects.

I had the habit of writing the purchase date, price, shop and location on the inlet cover. Today when I listen to a song, it amazes me to see the details that I wrote then. e.g. (Rs 15, Oct 11, 1984, Neelkamal Cassette Center, NS Avenue Silchar, Assam)

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

I would not mind picking up good pre-recorded cassettes - Thomson Originals etc. I recently acquired an Akai GXC 39 D, and the output is quite brilliant. But my cassettes are not in the same league, so at present, I amuse myself by recording CDs and Vinyl and testing the quality of playback. It is very good, but I must experiment more.

 

[reubensm]

+1 to what you've said...absolutely everything of it. Even still remember the Pre-Grammy cassettes.

In those day's I had a DIY cassette player and used to run around to friend's places to get cassettes recorded. Also vividly remember the Thompson cassettes from the Middle East. They used to be on Sony CHF tapes with a name label stuck at the top. The recordings were far superior to what was available in the Indian market. For English music, there used to be a lot of these brands from Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia. If one saw "Digital Recording" or "Dolby" on the cassette label, the recording was perceived to be superior.

Yes, yes I miss them very much. The thrill of getting information on released music in the "Sun" [Oldies like me will know what I'm talking about] magazine and then asking relatives to get pirated "Thomsun" [again, oldies like me will know what I'm talking about] cassettes for me from the Middle East. I miss lending them to friends and seeing the thrill on their faces when they see a cassette they have not listened to and the anticipation. I miss the same thrill and anticipation when I used to borrow cassettes from them. I miss the painstaking effort of recording a cassette from one cassette recorder to another and trying to set the optimum recording level on the target cassette recorder. I remember the tremendous elation I felt when I first saw a dual cassette deck and saw part of the pain of recording taken away. I remember the Maxell, Sony and BASF normal/chrome/metal tapes I had - actually I still have around 400 of them packed with retro rock and country music. I miss giving a list of songs to the local "pirate" and he recording those numbers for me on a cassette for 1 rupee per number. I remember recording the done to death rock songs of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jim Morrison and a few more - actually those days if you asked any Indian about their favourite group it would invariably be Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple :lol:
I remember recording an album from this new [according to me at that time] group "The Eagles" and listening to Hotel California over and over. Then, long after, a jaded me watched when "Hell Freezes Over" was released and Gen X did Hotel California to death all over again. Anyone love Tequila Sunrise? I do. A lot. And I hate Hotel California now. BTW for a surreal experience - listen to The Eagles - Unplugged.
Before MTV and the first pre-Grammy and Grammys [with Michael Jackson and Billy Joel and The Police etc.] shown on TV which actually started it all in India - I remember an album on cassette that EVERYONE who listened to English music had or wanted at that time - I forget the name of the album but it was a compilation of songs of various artistes and had Lipps Inc' Funky Town on it. If anyone remembers the name of the album please refresh my memory and the other songs on that album.

 

[reubensm]

Solid memories of the GXC39 deck, most of my father's collection back in the day, was recorded on this deck.

I would not mind picking up good pre-recorded cassettes - Thomson Originals etc. I recently acquired an Akai GXC 39 D, and the output is quite brilliant. But my cassettes are not in the same league, so at present, I amuse myself by recording CDs and Vinyl and testing the quality of playback. It is very good, but I must experiment more.

 

[reubensm]

+1 to this as well, took the same route, except that my pocket money was enough for me to buy 1 english cassette every month. I remember distinctly that a T-Series Hindi cassette used to cost between Rs.15 and Rs.18 while a Magnasound cassette used to cost Rs.35/- This was 1987-1988.

My equipment was a home made cassette player, using a mechanism salvaged from a Japanese cassette player (was very good and accurate, speed-wise) with the LM386 preamp connected to two TBA810 amps (got these pre-assembled by HRC, complete with bass and treble controls). My speakers were 2-way, used 2 8inch ordinary drivers as woofers and 2 4 inch ordinary speakers as tweeters. Had home made cross overs made as well. Enjoyed this system from 1986 till 1995.

I still listen to my cassettes on my Nakamichi deck. In my college days, whatever was left over of the pocket money, was spent on cassettes. Those days I could afford to buy two cassettes per month. My stereo system in those days used to be a Takara auto cassette deck mechanism connected to a DIY LM386 preamp connected to a DIY TBA810 amplifier connected to Philips speakers placed over earthen pots. I also had connected a baxandall tone control (i forget the IC used). At a later stage when smoking pot to enhance music listening was discovered, I had also connected two 5 LED dancing lights for effects.

I had the habit of writing the purchase date, price, shop and location on the inlet cover. Today when I listen to a song, it amazes me to see the details that I wrote then. e.g. (Rs 15, Oct 11, 1984, Neelkamal Cassette Center, NS Avenue Silchar, Assam)

 

[apk]

+1 to this as well, took the same route, except that my pocket money was enough for me to buy 1 english cassette every month.

Yup......as a kid growing up in the late 80's and early 90's, the pocket money was just enough to manage one english cassette a month, or sometime 2 hindi cassettes (which were cheaper).

I have a brother, who is younger to me by 2 years. So once I bought my cassette for the month, the rest of the month was spent 'persuading' him to buy a cassette of 'my choice' with his pocket money! He did'nt buy this argument most of the time...

 

[metalmickey]

wow cassette's brings me loads of memories...used to get around 3-5 tapes in a month...until sony started pricing it at 125/150...my favourite hobby was to buy cassettes from wherever i go on a vacation....whenever shops for everything my shopping list was for nothing more than some genre-'rock'(the way it was labeled in the sides of the sleeves!)tapes and some strings for my guitar!......most of my favourite bands were actually blind buys and i feel so lucky i did... .had picked up some nice albums from shops which was in its closing stage...my last tape was in 2007...tamil=soundtrack of 'patchai killi muthu charam',english=vh1 hip hop mix!

 

[Asit]

No, I do not miss the cassettes.

That is because I still got about 500 of them or perhaps a bit more,and I have 2 decks (one of them is a 3-head Nakamichi RX505, and the other one is an ordinary deck from Onkyo). All my cassettes (even the ones recorded in 1982) play, as far as I know. Of course, I have not played all the 500 cassettes in a single sitting, but all the ones I have tried recently play and play flawlessly. I bought cassettes of excellent quality (mostly TDK, Denon and Sony in chrome, and Sony in metal), and store them well. That's all.

A couple of weeks ago, our forum member Kuruvillajacob visited my place along with fellow member mksharan (Manoj). I played for them some music in cassette on the RX505 deck, and they loved it.

Some time ago, there was an active thread on showing pictures of one's cassette decks. Although I intended to post a picture of my Naka deck there, but never got around clicking the pictures.

Regards.

 

[corElement]

No, I hated dealing with tape and them getting stuck. Even if it was the players fault, no thanks.

 

[kaushik]

aah !memories of olden college days ..smokie,lita ford,deep purple, rock machine,nirvana..all were introduced via cassettes..tapes got scattered and disappeared .

i admired cousins' walkman,until i managed to get my sony portable walkman in engineering

first diy tda810 amp playing from 2in1 was the best,may be not knowing highend audio crap was best

 

[soulforged]

I still have my Technics tape deck and a handful of cassettes but I hardly ever play them these days. Like Thad said, it's a pain when you have to endure crappy sound due to tape speed going awry or a stuck capstan...

Do I miss them? probably not...but I do miss the excitement of my college days when getting new music even if it was a badly recorded copy of a copy of a pirated cassette, meant hours of enjoyment and analysis (not of the sound but of the music and lyrics). I remember TDK and Maxell tapes that we used for copying music...and our own Meltrack...

 

[Sanjay Khanna]

Don't miss them at all - because I listen to them virtually every day. I have a collection of about 300 cassettes,pre- recorded (dodgy sq ), albums borrowed from friends and recorded myself from my Garrard zero 100 TT onto my Sony TC 161 SD Deck ,some dating back to the seventies and more recently, compilations made from a variety of sources including Worldspace and internet radio ( MYINE ) onto my ONKYO RW 255 and the Sony Deck.The advantage is that I record only the songs I want to hear and leave out the crap. I enjoy them so much that I have revived and serviced a couple of old Sony Walkmans and rigged them up to listen to them in my cars through their systems, which no longer have a cassette deck included.Compiling the tapes is great fun because it makes you listen to hours of music --- in the dead of the night and record only what I want , as it comes along.

 

[manojbhagat]

No ! LOL .... my god to go through the problem of spooling the loose tape with my fat fingers when it sticks, or dealing with warbles and drop outs etc. Happy that I moved on to CDs and now prefer digital files.

Dude you should have used a pencil!
Simple!:lol:

 

[audio_passionate]

Hi ll
I still remember the 80's era when cassette was the most popular medium for music. I used to get record my favourite film songs from the recording shops @ Rs 1 per song. And if it was cassette to cassette same recording then usually Rs 5 per cass for 60 minute cassette. And there was only one or two recording shop in my town , facility of recording from L.P's. But it was costly as compare to recording from cassette to cassette. And I got the idea that time to record 120 minutes of recording on a 60 minute cassette but with mono. There is Balance knob in Two in one stereo and keeping balace knob left for the first time and right for the second time on same cassette , I showed my friends this gimmick and they were surprised. Lots more memories.......

Ashutosh

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hee hee, what an idea!

You could have just used a C120, although your idea would give 240 minutes then.

Cassette copying was the high-compression MP3 of its day. Every copy generation degraded the sound. A first-generation might be acceptable but one didn't need "golden ears" to hear the problems after that.

Cassettes have a much reduced dynamic range compared to vinyl. I used to put this to use with scratched, but irreplaceable LPs. The reduced range took some of the impact out of the scratch, and at least I did not have to worry about damaging the stylus.

Now, of course, we have digital editing

 

[Shivam]

Tweaking my cassette deck was fun. I had a set of Sony test tone cassettes and then using a oscilloscope, I used to set preamp gain, speed etc. For head alignment I had another thin tape transparent cassette and also a test tone cassette for azimuth. Now this was good. Metal and Type II cassette were nice to play with.

Coming to the main topic- I don't miss the cassette format at all but I do miss some of the songs which I have not yet found on other formats and I miss tweaking and setting my player. Cassette as a format was pathetic in my opinion.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I don't miss the cassette format at all but I do miss some of the songs which I have not yet found on other formats

Yes, same here: I regret not being able to play the boxful of cassettes even if I want to. Must try to get my deck repaired.

 

[pupupuchi28]

Interesting discussion guys! I can relate to most of you...copying @ Rs 1, dust on heads, reels stuck after 2 months of keeping it idle during summer days, playing with the reels.....throwing them at a distance and watch the reel rolling....wrap it over an hour and throw them again. And all these with my Dad's lovely Gazal collection.....and yes the rest.. as you guessed it....one tight slap from him.
On one Friday night while he was enjoying his drink and listening to Penaz Massani's collector edition, suddenly the song ends and then "Tip tip barsa pani" (from Mohra) starts. Man that night, I got the beating of a lifetime So in terms of memories....yes I still miss them, but in terms of enjoying the sound and overall effort to play one of those..probably not.

Keep writing!

 

[Rockfella]

Reminds me of that era, don't miss much though but those were great times. Peeling off the plastic cover off a new casette was amazing!