Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 273 posts

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#71

Post by tom_ »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #61

My cousin had many old tapes from 1994-1995 of radio recordings. They've been put up for years and he's been recently listening to all of them. Most still work. He says that 30-ish years is the longest time he's seen a storage medium last. So he's been recording YouTube audio he wants to keep over them. The article is also wrong on several points regarding the attributes of the medium: > Meanwhile, cassettes break an…

Are CDs more fragile? All of mine still seemed to work last I checked. I gave up on tapes years ago, because they'd always fuck up one way or the other. The sound quality was also annoyingly bad, and track search was a faff.

(I think I prefer measles to tapes. Neither killed me, but at least nobody reminisces fondly about that time they had measles!)

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#72

Post by JKCalhoun »

navbaker wrote: post #31
xg15 wrote: post #20

I find it depressing that there seem to be only two ways to distribute media and manage one's audio collection: Either ultra-convenient but fully locked down streaming services - or analog "vintage" media like vinyl or cassettes, which do give you a physical medium under your full control, but also require you to forego all the progress we made with digital media. The one thing that's absent: Plain old audio files th…

I regularly buy full albums and individual tracks on the Apple Store. AFAIK Amazon also still offers the same, both stores are DRM free

Amazon are MP3 though. :-(

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#73

Post by tkgally »

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.

Same here. And I've been old-guy grumbling for years now about kids-these-days getting into vinyl and other retro technology that I was happy to be rid of.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#74

Post by TacticalCoder »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #64

I have never experience reel-to-reel. That is the format I would like to get into. My sense though is that anything made of rubber on these old machines need replacing. I'm a little intimidated about spending so much on a device only to be unable to restore it.

> I have never experience reel-to-reel. That is the format I would like to get into.

I remember some people, back in the late 80s (?), using VHS Hi-Fi as some kind of a poor man's reel-to-reel. Audio quality was leaps and bounds above the compact cassette from TFA.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#76

Post by linehedonist »

devilbunny wrote: post #47
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.

If you want the cassette experience without the massive downsides of cassettes, pick up an old Minidisc recorder. Physical media that are nearly infinitely re-recordable (unused ones are expensive but used ones from Japan are not) and nearly indestructible. The NetMD ones have been bid up in price because of transfer speed but older ones that only do real-time transfers are not hideously expensive.

But why would I want the cassette experience in the first place?

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#78

Post by reel2reel »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #30
fsckboy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compact since "compact cassette" is the actual trademark®, I can't help but think you might've been unduly influenced here. https://duckduckgo.com/i/4b7c08d5084dbabb.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette

Maybe it's just an accurate name? CDs were pretty compact, back in the day: think of how many floppies would fit on a CD-ROM.

My family had a reel-to-reel player, which was definitely not compact. My dad would record tapes from Vietnam and send over the recordings so that our family could hear him. I was afraid to touch it growing up. Instead, I played records on our turntable, and 8-tracks tapes in our car and a couple of 8-track players we had. As a teenager, I played cassettes, which was awesome. Vinyl sounded great and had the best overall experience for things like Christmas records, but cassettes had a warm feel and you could listen to them in your car, a friend’s car, on a boombox, etc. and if you had two tape decks, you could make mix tapes and share them! Or you could just copy a tape for a friend. Those were the days.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#79

Post by nine_k »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #30
fsckboy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compact since "compact cassette" is the actual trademark®, I can't help but think you might've been unduly influenced here. https://duckduckgo.com/i/4b7c08d5084dbabb.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette

Maybe it's just an accurate name? CDs were pretty compact, back in the day: think of how many floppies would fit on a CD-ROM.

Unlike a CD, a cassette could fit a pocket. Barely, but still. A CD never could.

Re: Cassette tapes are making a comeback?

#80

Post by bagels »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #61

My cousin had many old tapes from 1994-1995 of radio recordings. They've been put up for years and he's been recently listening to all of them. Most still work. He says that 30-ish years is the longest time he's seen a storage medium last. So he's been recording YouTube audio he wants to keep over them. The article is also wrong on several points regarding the attributes of the medium: > Meanwhile, cassettes break an…

My experience with tapes does not match yours. I've seen both audio and VCR tapes unspool by playing or trying to remove them from the player.
Post reply on HN