David S. Wallens
David S. Wallens Editorial Director
12/31/23 8:00 p.m.

There’s a documentary about them.

I recently came across it and figured some here would also dig it.

 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter)
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
12/31/23 9:30 p.m.

I just pulled mine out earlier. No idea if any of them still work though. 

 

To think that I used to drive around with all these cases stacked on my front seat. 

Duke
Duke MegaDork
12/31/23 9:50 p.m.

Yeah, I had a big bunch. Some really oddball stuff on some of them, too. Live version of "High On The Starway" by Hungarian rockers Omega, anyone?

I used to make my labels with Letraset lettering!

I don't think I have anything to play them one anymore.

 

Datsun240ZGuy
Datsun240ZGuy MegaDork
12/31/23 10:15 p.m.

I bought a cassette player that had a NEW feature that if you didn't want to hear a song you would fast forward and it would sense the quiet space between songs and auto stop at the next song.  High tech. 

I grew up buying 45's then 8-tracks then cassettes then CD's.  I don't miss cassettes since the day I  tossed them into the donation box. 

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
1/1/24 12:18 a.m.

Still buying them new. Quite a few favorite bands are producing them. Vinyl is the old new old school. Cassettes are the new hawt.

Noddaz
Noddaz GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
1/1/24 12:15 p.m.

I re-cycled about 50 of them just before Christmas.

Duke
Duke MegaDork
1/1/24 12:39 p.m.

In reply to Appleseed :

I never got the point of prerecorded cassettes, because I had a decent turntable. I got better quality buying the vinyl and dubbing my own copies for the car or Walkman.

 

David S. Wallens
David S. Wallens Editorial Director
1/1/24 2:11 p.m.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Not surprisingly, we have some overlap. :) 

RonnieFnD
RonnieFnD Reader
1/1/24 2:32 p.m.
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

I just pulled mine out earlier. No idea if any of them still work though. 

 

To think that I used to drive around with all these cases stacked on my front seat. 

Holy E36 M3.  There are soooo many winners in there.

stuart in mn
stuart in mn MegaDork
1/1/24 2:52 p.m.

I never bought any prerecorded tapes but dubbed a bunch of them off LPs for listening in the car.  Now that I think of it, my current daily driver has a cassette deck...I should dig out my tapes and listen to them again 40 years later.  smiley

Streetwiseguy
Streetwiseguy MegaDork
1/1/24 5:03 p.m.

Tapes were better than AM radio, but the hiss just drives me nuts.  The only thing worse than tape hiss is Dolby sound.

I burned all my cassettes and 8 tracks on the altar of the CD.

1988RedT2
1988RedT2 MegaDork
1/1/24 5:15 p.m.

Did anyone ever love cassettes?  They were convenient, and I may have built an impressive music collection by borrowing vinyl,  and later CD's from friends and using a quality deck and quality CrO2 tapes (I used TDK SA-90's almost exclusively, and a few Maxell UD XL-II's) to make a tape that was super-convenient to take on the road or listen to at home.  I found the chrome tapes to be pretty quiet, and Dolby C a fairly effective noise reduction system.  I never invested in "store bought" music on tape, figuring it was lower quality than vinyl, and more degradeable.

DarkMonohue
DarkMonohue GRM+ Memberand Dork
1/1/24 10:20 p.m.

Yes and no, respectively. Cassettes were the only practical (durable, portable) format for those of us smack dab in the middle of the Gen X years, but even then we knew they weren't great. I miss cassettes like I miss all the cassette-based drivel Columbia House used to send me in their heyday, or being dragged through endless shelves of sad, off-brand shoes and jeans littering an equally sad Kmart or Montgomery Ward, or probably both, on the third or fourth absolutely broiling Saturday, or probably both, in any given absolutely broiling August.

All that venom aside, I never use the CD player in the AW11, either. Maybe I should replace the Eclipse with a nice Alpine tape deck.

BlueInGreen - Jon
BlueInGreen - Jon UberDork
1/1/24 11:13 p.m.

There was an Ozzy Osborn tape that lived in the Neon. It's entirely possible it went with the car when I sold it. I considered it part of the car's personality ;)

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
1/1/24 11:27 p.m.

In reply to Duke :

Because buying blank cassettes doesn't fund my favorite independent bands.

Duke
Duke MegaDork
1/2/24 7:49 a.m.

In reply to Appleseed :

But buying vinyl or CDs and dubbing them does, unless they are literally self-producing.

[edit] Oh, and apparently I do have the means to play cassettes, just no space or desire to do so:

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter)
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
1/2/24 8:52 a.m.

Add me to the list of folks who remember them but doesn't miss them. Convenient for the time, yes, but lower sound quality, durability issues, and harder to skip songs. As soon as in-car CD players and Discmen got cheap enough, I ditched cassettes and never looked back.

David S. Wallens
David S. Wallens Editorial Director
1/2/24 9:13 a.m.

The documentary very much discussed the quality issue–even the gentleman who designed the original cassette acknowledges the quality issue. But the fans of the medium, even today, praise the pluses, among them the ability to make a mix tape. I haven’t played a cassette in decades but still found it all fascinating. 

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
1/2/24 9:32 a.m.

In reply to Duke :

I buy both.

Peabody
Peabody MegaDork
1/2/24 9:59 a.m.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I didn't want to ruin their party, so I stayed out of it.

I hated cassette tapes

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