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Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

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Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#151

Post by ErroneousBosh »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #124
jackdoe wrote: post #105

I stopped using my smartphone for about 1 year now and bought a walkman fiio cp13, it is really cool, but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette, particularly if you dont know what you are doing (like me). I record stuff from youtube and make mix tapes. I am experimenting with "not getting what I want the second I want it", e.g. "I want to listen to XYZ", 1 second later I click on spotify and its done. No…

> but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette It is unfortunate that cassettes are the lowest fidelity consumer medium (of modern times). But there is some room to optimize within that space. If you are curious: The cassettes available today are Type I, Type II ("high bias") and Type IV ("metal"), each being higher fidelity than the last, but not all portable players supported these types of tape. Dolby B/…

Chances are you're not listening to it in an environment that's quiet enough for 65dB SNR to be even noticeable.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#152

Post by FieryMechanic »

karlkloss wrote: post #114

As soon as recordable CDs were affordable, I switched completely, and never looked back. Cassette tapes were nice when we didn't have anything better, but they were always a big pain in the back. Noisy, wearing out, skipping took a long time, making compilations took hours. I don't miss those times. Nowadays, I can play mp3's on a $3 microcontroller, at excellent quality, and I love it. Do you still use a kerosene la…

> As soon as recordable CDs were affordable, I switched completely, and never looked back.

Cassettes were good for mix tapes, but once their were CDs and MP3s I never really looked back.

> Do you still use a kerosene lamp when you go into your barn at night?

It not quite the same comparison. Not sure about a kerosene lamp, however a kerosene/paraffin stove does have it uses.

You would be surprised what people are using. I spend a lot of time walking/cycling up canals and people are using wood hearths and similar to keep the boats warm in the winter. Wood is literally everywhere along the side of the canals and so it is literally free energy.

Some of the boats have solar panels, generators, full internet but quite a few of the boats only have relatively basic amenities by today's standards.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#153

Post by [deleted] »

ceuk wrote: post #7
finaard wrote: post #5

I started getting cassette players working again when I had kids - I had lots of old cassettes with stories still, and after looking into a lot of stuff determined that it is one of the best physical storage formats for that kind of content for kids we currently have. Its major advantage is that it automatically saves state, and the state saving is player-independent. Add to that that players typically have large clu…

Basically the same story here for me. I have a trove of audiobooks I've carted around with me from house to house since I left home which my kids now eagerly pick from each night to listen to at bedtime. I've even supplemented my collection considerably since from eBay and the like. It's just such a great medium. Fairly resilient, incredibly easy to use, compact, cheap ish. And of course there's the heady dose of nos…

[deleted]

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#154

Post by j45 »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #124
jackdoe wrote: post #105

I stopped using my smartphone for about 1 year now and bought a walkman fiio cp13, it is really cool, but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette, particularly if you dont know what you are doing (like me). I record stuff from youtube and make mix tapes. I am experimenting with "not getting what I want the second I want it", e.g. "I want to listen to XYZ", 1 second later I click on spotify and its done. No…

> but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette It is unfortunate that cassettes are the lowest fidelity consumer medium (of modern times). But there is some room to optimize within that space. If you are curious: The cassettes available today are Type I, Type II ("high bias") and Type IV ("metal"), each being higher fidelity than the last, but not all portable players supported these types of tape. Dolby B/…

It's less about fidelity, more about portability and customizability.

Today we can hear all the hifi we want, it's a trip to see what the imagination can fill in as well.

If you're really into walkmans, check out the Panasonic ultra small ranges.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#155

Post by gilleain »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #150
jackdoe wrote: post #105

I stopped using my smartphone for about 1 year now and bought a walkman fiio cp13, it is really cool, but it is really hard to make a good sounding cassette, particularly if you dont know what you are doing (like me). I record stuff from youtube and make mix tapes. I am experimenting with "not getting what I want the second I want it", e.g. "I want to listen to XYZ", 1 second later I click on spotify and its done. No…

> Now I have to wait, first XYZ might not be on the cassette I have with me, > There has to be some minimal amount of effort for a `thing`, when you go below it, it just becomes nothing. I had this conversation with someone at the weekend. It's hard to find new music on Spotify because it's too easy to find stuff you already like. I'm in my early 50s. I grew up in the 80s, in a fairly rural part of the UK with basica…

Also, if you bought an album, that meant getting some tracks you liked, and some you did not. Oddly enough I bought Suzanne Vega's self-titled album with 'Cracked' on it (off a guy in a stall off Brick Lane, only a fiver), and some of them are fantastic some slightly less so. Some albums I own I turn off one or two of the tracks as they are rubbish, but that was slightly more difficult if you had to fast-forward past them on a tape.

That said I listen to a lot of music on youtube, and it's a rare case where the dreaded 'algorithm' actually works to recommend things I had not heard before. I'm pretty sure that's where I learned of Unkle (UNKLE?) - who I _should_ have heard back in the day, but somehow never did.

(Incidentally, I found 'Daughter' recently, a UK band that is similar in tone to Suzanne Vega. Possibly also Heather Nova, although a bit more dreamy.)

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#156

Post by wkjagt »

jghn wrote: post #10

I lived through vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, and CDs. I digitized all of my music over 20 years ago and no longer even own a physical media playback device. I can't fathom going back. Digital or bust.

Not trying to correct you, just looking for the right word. Digital isn't the right term here, because CDs are also digital. I'm trying to come up with the word for the opposite of physical media, but strangely I can't. Maybe streaming, but how would MP3s on a USB drive fit in?

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#157

Post by thw_9a83c »

KaiserPro wrote: post #141

Cassettes suck hard. Sorry, but apart from being smaller and failing in a different way to CDs, they suck hard. Yes they were portable, and if you want a "pure" sound experience (you're not going to get that from cassette, you're going to get tape hiss and pitch wobbling) I can sorta understand. But DAT is where its at if you want that. Cassettes have terrible dynamic range, and hiss like a mother fucker. Sure it evo…

> Cassettes suck hard.

Exactly. We need DAT Walkman back [1] [2].

[1]: https://www.dcaudiovisuel.com/product_info.php/products_id/1...

[2]: https://www.just-cassette.com/post/digital-audio-cassette-da...

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#158

Post by K0balt »

Based on the assumption that the appeal here is the experience, not the actual legacy media, it seems like it would be trivial to implement a digital stream standard so that audio cassette players could record and play a digital stream for higher fidelity with an identical experience? Or would that not be possible on legacy media because of bitrate limitations?

I can easily imagine the DAC/ADC and amplifier tuning/stream processing being an optional step so that legacy compatibility would be perfect, and even dual head setups that could do on the fly conversion. But perhaps the data density of the tape just isn’t there? Though it seems like with the type of data stuffing tech we use it flash memory and hdd these days to quadruple up on bits per domain, that it should be possible.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#159

Post by echelon_musk »

gilleain wrote: post #155
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I have to wait, first XYZ might not be on the cassette I have with me, > There has to be some minimal amount of effort for a `thing`, when you go below it, it just becomes nothing. I had this conversation with someone at the weekend. It's hard to find new music on Spotify because it's too easy to find stuff you already like. I'm in my early 50s. I grew up in the 80s, in a fairly rural part of the UK with basica…

Also, if you bought an album, that meant getting some tracks you liked, and some you did not. Oddly enough I bought Suzanne Vega's self-titled album with 'Cracked' on it (off a guy in a stall off Brick Lane, only a fiver), and some of them are fantastic some slightly less so. Some albums I own I turn off one or two of the tracks as they are rubbish, but that was slightly more difficult if you had to fast-forward past…

> UNKLE

I was a huge DJ Shadow fan as a teen, getting as many albums, mixes and singles as I could find online.

DJ Shadow was involved in the production of UNKLE's first album Psyence Fiction. I recently discovered that there was an intro mix that wasn't on most CD copies of the album that has DJ Shadow mashing ~70 tracks together in just over 2 minutes.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oRwnUM10mf4

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#160

Post by georgefrowny »

finaard wrote: post #5

I started getting cassette players working again when I had kids - I had lots of old cassettes with stories still, and after looking into a lot of stuff determined that it is one of the best physical storage formats for that kind of content for kids we currently have. Its major advantage is that it automatically saves state, and the state saving is player-independent. Add to that that players typically have large clu…

> Its major advantage is that it automatically saves state, and the state saving is player-independent.

Yes, it's pretty mad if you think if what you would need to do to replace it.

Either you have a system with QR codes or simple ID chip to refer to some URL. Now you need a server, media licensing agreements and somewhere to store progress information, subscriptions, on and on. And the eternal temptation to abuse the data if it's in the cloud.

Or you store all the audio in the card, and now you need a memory chip and PCB in every card, plus some proprietary USB/WiFi/Bluetooth device to write the cards.

And the barely-makes-contact head system is genius too rather than sliding gold contacts. And it just has paper label inserts.

The only real down sides of cassettes other then the obvious physicality if you don't like that, is they integrate badly into modern cars, have a fairly short run length (and occasionally get chewed up). And if lots of need to be authored quickly, that's too bad!

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