Cool machines already lurking.

Stephen, the market is depressed right now, you should hit Ebay for a Nakamichi 700 or 1000 and really pimp out the look of your rig.

The 700 was a CLASSIC of cassette style.

The inimitable 700:

Pimped out gold plated 1000:

Just the site of these decks makes womenses shirts fall off.

Someone else recommended the Nak Dragon. The name alone makes it tempting as hell, but I actually prefer the stripped-down look of the CD/CR series. I mean, I don't need all the functionality anyhow. I don't even need Fast-Forward or Rewind. I just need PLAY!

Those things are freaking rad-looking.

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Just the site of these decks makes womenses shirts fall off.

Ha! LOLROFLCOPTERAOLLMAOBBQCHICKENWINGS.

Cassettes - Cheap, portable, good sound. They're quite amenable to tweaking, too. The perfect audiophile thinggie.

Commercial cassettes sucked from the get-go, but a decent deck and some good blank tapes were GREAT for portability- and the real beginning of sharing music. It was fun making mix tapes and custom covers to go along. I recently heard from a friend who said she still has several of my mix tapes from 20 years ago- though no tape player to play them.

The Nak deck that would mechanically flip the cassette over at the end of the side (in about 1 second) was the bomb!

I still have a Pioneer CT-A9

that I did massive amounts of modifications to. My biz partner has one too..and the other biz partner has a Mint and perfectly functional (he bought it NIB when it was current) Tanberg 3014A

The 3014A comes up as being the 'best of the best'. However, the Luxman K-05 and the K-03 are serious contenders.

The modded out CT-A9 trumps them all. However, the others can be modded out in the same fashion, the Tanberg receiving the least benefit from the modifications, as it is the most perfected in that sense-from the get-go. Which is why it scores so well in the first place.

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I mean, I don't need all the functionality anyhow. I don't even need Fast-Forward or Rewind. I just need PLAY!

This is the key point. Even though some people endlessly rewound or ff'ed their cassettes to hit favorite songs, you did so very much at your own peril.

The cassette itself is so delicate, and the machinery for playing one so finicky, for many of us it forced extended listening. Put the tape in, listen to side one, wait for the side to run out, flip over, do the same on side two, let the extra tape run out. Lather, rinse, repeat.

You knew even less about a cassette than a record, in that cueing a track usually involved some guesswork. In a way, cassettes were the ultimate realization of the album as a form precisely because they were *least* suited to any kind of random access.

Unfortunately, most of them just don't last. I recently found a box of cassettes from the 80s I purchased for my folks - less than a quarter could be saved.

s.

cassette sound is abysmal.

no thanks.

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there's a second revival happening alongside the Vinyl Revival: The Cassette Tape Revival.

Sigh. Are you kidding?

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I think of LP as the wine with a cork to digital's wine in a box!

and the cassette as a Gallo jug.

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there's a second revival happening alongside the Vinyl Revival: The Cassette Tape Revival.

Sigh. Are you kidding?

Nope, serious this time. But thanks for asking. The thing is this: The bands I'm interested in are releasing their work on cassette. So, I'm going to buy a cassette deck. I could keep listening using my rinky-dink Phillips boombox, but I want to listen to this music on the hi-fi.

I can't wait!

I guess it'd time to bring my Luxman K 03 out of storage.

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The thing is this: The bands I'm interested in are releasing their work on cassette. So, I'm going to buy a cassette deck. I could keep listening using my rinky-dink Phillips boombox, but I want to listen to this music on the hi-fi.

I can't wait!

The last time my daughter and I fell into a serious conversation about this, she rattled off a list of current cassette only releases that she's listening to - of course, I knew absolutely nothing about any of the bands, which seem to fall somewhere between hard core and metal.

But I was struck by her enthusiasm for the medium, and the fact that she's not the only one - a lot of 20 somethings who are in bands or are avid music folks are doing this, regardless of what their audiophile parents think.

s.

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But I was struck by her enthusiasm for the medium, and the fact that she's not the only one - a lot of 20 somethings who are in bands or are avid music folks are doing this, regardless of what their audiophile parents think.
s.

Has she explained what she likes about it? I've been wondering about this so much. Why are the musicians doing it? The most logical explanation I've heard came from a person named Mike. In the blog comments, he said the cassette tape revival is about "keeping the underground underground."

I think he's probably right. There's a lot of music being made these days that also seems to be a direct statement against high technology and the digital world: so-called "lo-fi" bands making a sort of punk/garage rock with lots of reverb on the vocals, using cheap instruments, and playing them as if they just learned, but with excellent, catchy melodies and harmonies. Musically, I find it to be kind of bad -- marked by a lack of skill and ambition -- but, intellectually or theoretically or something, I'm fascinated by it.

I think I'll just ask some musicians to talk to me about this. Maybe I can post some sort of interview on the blog.

You're 100 percent right.

The downside of having access to so much music so easily is that it is very hard to keep anything a secret, to make music that has to be worked for, discovered.

Folks like my daughter are in the love with the samizdat aspect of cassettes, the "we're renouncing the modern tech world for these stone tablets that we pass - in person or by snail mail - to one another."

I know this because she tells me while cueing up a song on her iPod for me to hear .

I also think there's something to my 'cassettes suck as a medium so you better listen all he way through' theory that appeals to young folks. Think of this little branch as rejecting the 'everything is a playlist' mentality for 'everything is an album.'

s.

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The downside of having access to so much music so easily is that it is very hard to keep anything a secret, to make music that has to be worked for, discovered.

That's what I've been thinking, too. I mean, is anything really underground anymore? If I can walk into a record store in NYC and buy a piece of music, how underground is it? If I can put "Period Tapes" in a search engine and find the website on the freaking World Wide Web, how underground is it?

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Folks like my daughter are in the love with the samizdat aspect of cassettes, the "we're renouncing the modern tech world for these stone tablets that we pass - in person or by snail mail - to one another."

Which is kind of a beautiful thing.

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I also think there's something to my 'cassettes suck as a medium so you better listen all he way through' theory that appeals to young folks. Think of this little branch as rejecting the 'everything is a playlist' mentality for 'everything is an album.'

"Everything is an album" is a mentality that I find very attractive. I think it inspires better art. And a higher, more meaningful and worthwhile, quality of life.

It's all cassettes and 7-inches as Christmas presents this year, dammit!

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I guess it'd time to bring my Luxman K 03 out of storage.

It won't work. All the belts will be shot. Give it to me for $50. It's ok. I insist on giving you at least $50.

FWIW, when it came time to get a cassette deck I debated buying a vintage machine but ended up with a Sony KA2ES. My theory was, with a lot of moving parts in what is basically dead tech, newer is better, even with Sony not really being part of the audiophile world.

It's a three head, three motor deck with Dolby B, C and S and I'm satisfied, though I've never heard a Nak.

s.

"But I was struck by her enthusiasm for the medium, and the fact that she's not the only one - a lot of 20 somethings who are in bands or are avid music folks are doing this, regardless of what their audiophile parents think."

The secret is out: cassettes -- regardless of any technical limitations -- get to the heart and soul of the music. Unlike uh, CDs.

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The secret is out: cassettes -- regardless of any technical limitations -- get to the heart and soul of the music. Unlike uh, CDs.

Honestly, I don't think so. You have to struggle with cassettes - in my limited experience - to get them to 'good.' And unlike vinyl, which brings with it a wave of emotional associations that make sense and that also sounds pretty good on cheap equipment, cassettes don't.

This is gonna sound real stupid or pretentious or both, but to me the only reason to dabble in cassettes is precisely because of the above - it's kinda like some kinds of poetry or sonatas or something. The form is very restrictive and the point is to see what you can do with it.

I bought my deck for personal reasons - I gave my folks cassettes as gifts in the 80s, which led to my dad and me talking about the depression and seeing Ellington and Basie and such, and I want to hold onto that memory.

s.

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Cassettes - Cheap, portable, good sound. They're quite amenable to tweaking, too. The perfect audiophile thinggie.

They sound better than MP3's...I have a Teak deck in a box in the garage..If my car had a cassette deck, I would still be using the thing as I dislike CD's in the car (too easy to damage the CD)

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If my car had a cassette deck, I would still be using the thing as I dislike CD's in the car (too easy to damage the CD)

Yea, right!

Assuming you could get it out of the deck, how many of these did you eject from your car deck?

I agree.
Everytime there is no one posting here the moderator comes up with some silly thread.
I had vinyl. I had cassettes. They were both terrible in their heyday.
They are so terribly bias against CD.
They killed the golden egg like Martin colloms said one day in an editorial and now the only thing they can talk about is Vinyl and Cassette revival. They have nothing else to write about.

What's next, an 8-track revival?

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"get to the heart and soul of the music. Unlike uh, CDs.

that makes no sense. the heart and soul of the music IS the fucking music!!!

higher resolution= more musical information= more heart and soul(whatever the hell that means, im not up on my ultrafidelista psychobabble)

if by heart and soul you mean terrible SNR, lack of any real high or low extension, and abysmal degredation over time.. yes, plenty of heart and soul.

the cassette thing is a fad. a stupid, hipster fad.

the idiotic idea probably was born in some fucking Starbucks. or some dumbass saw thurston moore or some other hipster twit wearing a cassette tape t-shirt and light bulbs came on.

i do like daniel johnston (only releases on cassette) but it sure isnt for SQ or heart and soul.

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as against CD.
They killed the golden egg like Martin colloms said one day in an editorial and now the only thing they can talk about is Vinyl and Cassette revival. They have nothing else to write about.

Msgr Frog,

Which Medium do you choose to listen to your Vanessa Paradis and Gipsy Kings albums? Surely not CD!

I don't listen to Paradis.
Apart from Trenet (The sublime: "Que reste-t'il de nos amours?"; songtrack of one of Truffaut's movie) and Bashung (if only he could sing like Johnny Hallyday) I like singers I grew up with:
Jane Birkin (Hermes Birkin bag)/Gainsbourg; France Gall/Michel Berger and also Gainsbourg; Brel; Barbara; Jean Ferrat. I never cared for Brassens.

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Commercial cassettes sucked from the get-go, but a decent deck and some good blank tapes were GREAT for portability- and the real beginning of sharing music. It was fun making mix tapes and custom covers to go along. I recently heard from a friend who said she still has several of my mix tapes from 20 years ago- though no tape player to play them.

The Nak deck that would mechanically flip the cassette over at the end of the side (in about 1 second) was the bomb!

I drooled over that for years! I saw one in person once at a local dealer, so cool! I just couldn't afford one. That being said, I wouldn't go back to cassette. The ones I made,which were mostly dub's of friends' vinyl, sounded decent. But, like others have said, they are too delicate & I'm not sure if they could be considered "Hi End". Maybe IF recorded & played back on a Nak.

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What's next, an 8-track revival?

We are working our way to the Edison Cylinder and then see who can pull the can and string the tightest and talk the longest distances.

When the stylus is a 10 penny nail do we need to wory about
tonearm length?

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If my car had a cassette deck, I would still be using the thing as I dislike CD's in the car (too easy to damage the CD)

Yea, right!

Assuming you could get it out of the deck, how many of these did you eject from your car deck?

Heh, more than I care to remember!

I'm not at all interested in going back to cassettes. Sure, home made dubs could sound quite nice and all, but it was such a crappy, fragile medium.

I totally enjoy vinyl (and CDs) but see no place for cassettes in my world.

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that makes no sense. the heart and soul of the music IS the fucking music!!!

higher resolution= more musical information= more heart and soul(whatever the hell that means, im not up on my ultrafidelista psychobabble)

Evidently, because that's not what "transmitting the heart and soul" of music is about. More resolution simply = more resolution. CD's easily offer more resolution, in at least some aspects, than their LP counterparts. Yet many who value "the heart and soul" of what music is about, prefer vinyl replay, putting up with all of its idiosyncracies. That's what the whole LP vs CD debate has been about. The "heart and soul" of the music can be missing in a lousy attempt to reproduce music, and you would still have "the fucking music". So it's obviously not simply a reference to music, which can be reproduced in a million different ways, quality-wise. But to -musical values-, that are transmitted intact, only when they are not destroyed by whatever is broadcasting the music.

Cassettes are a good example of this concept, actually. Cassettes have never been high fidelity by anyone's definition. As you correctly state, they have a terrible signal to noise ratio, lack of any extension at the extremes (you'd be lucky to get any energy above 12kz with a typically non-azimuth corrected head), more wow and flutter than the front row at a Jonas Brothers concert, and more dropouts than all the high schools of East New York combined. But presumably, people like them for the things they do well, not the things they don't do well. I remember back in the 80's, making tapes on my Nak, the source being my Linn Axis. Everything I compared those recordings to, from commercial cassette tapes, to Beta and VHS video tapes, and CD PLAYERS as well, nothing was able to come even close to surpassing that sound. Certainly the CD had greater SNR, FR and dynamic range. But it couldn't play music. It's like it didn't even know what the hell music WAS.

The "heart and soul" was completely absent in the CD (and other) devices, but I could play those Linn tapes on a Walkman with 50 cent ear buds, and that "heart and soul" of the music would still remain intact (much of it being in the midrange anyway). Needless to say, those old Linn tapes would have obliterated mp3's today, if they too were not produced from a good source that kept those musical values intact. It shouldn't ever be presumed that if music passes from one format to another, one process to another, it will always retain and reproduce the same sound, simply because it came from the same recording.

My interest in cassettes wasn't with their sound per se, but their ability to record, and their ease at doing so. During that time, I had a Sony Walkman Pro, which was a small portable cassette recorder, that I could sneak into concerts with, stick a mike into, and leave with a souvenir of the event. With quality good enough to record Michelle Shocked's first album. With these things, you could tape up to 2 hrs per cassette. What I'd like to know is... if cassettes are pass

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Everytime there is no one posting here the moderator comes up with some silly thread.

I posted this thread because I wanted to share my enthusiasm for what seems to me to be an interesting new development in a small, but exciting, segment of the music industry. I was, and continue to be, curious about the cassette as a medium for expression.

And I think the reason for my enthusiasm is pretty clear and simple: Several of the musicians and bands that I find most interesting are releasing music on cassette -- and only on cassette -- so I want to hear that music played back at the highest possible quality.

If your favorite musician released a new piece of work on cassette, in unique, hand-designed packaging, limited to 50 copies, would you want to own it? I would.

I lost the auction on the Nak cassette deck. Bummer. I'll keep trying.

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If my car had a cassette deck, I would still be using the thing as I dislike CD's in the car (too easy to damage the CD)

Yea, right!

Assuming you could get it out of the deck, how many of these did you eject from your car deck?

None that I can remember, as all one needs to do to avoid that is run a cleaner through the thing every now and again. I also never bought recorded cassettes, always recording my own so the original music is still safe..

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I guess it'd time to bring my Luxman K 03 out of storage.

It won't work. All the belts will be shot. Give it to me for $50. It's ok. I insist on giving you at least $50.

Good try, KBK, but $50 won't even pay for the new belts that I have already purchased. Nice try, though.

I had a very nice 3-head Nakamichi cassette recorder for many years, and it could make tapes that sounded MUCH MUCH better than cassette tapes made on damn near anything else you can name. The mechanical construction of that 3-head Nakamichi transport, and the quality of the record and playback heads, were the ultimate in precision manufacturing (and damned expensive). The fidelity of the very best cassettes was still definitely 2nd-rate compared to current vinyl or CD reproduction on good equipment, however.
Anyone who thinks cassette tapes "sound great" either has a serious hearing problem or has never heard a really good sound system.
This reminds me of people who think that a 1955 Chevy was a "great car". It had its good points in 1955, but even then its brakes were poor quality and so was most of the rest of the car. I vas dere, Chollie!

It is not 'great sound', just better sound than MP3....

Sound isn't everything.

MP3...BARPHPH.... That's not tough to do, is it??...lol.

The Nakamichi 3-head decks WERE the height of the technology, though. No other manufacturer even came close to their mechanical or electronic standards, in my opinion, and all 2-head decks were of course absolute trash (the record head has totally different PHYSICAL requirements than a playback head, and 2 head decks used a combination record/playback head, which is a joke).

With a good quality tape, like the TDK SA, and a good source for the feed (live, vinyl, etc.) you could make some fairly good tapes on a Nakamichi.

99% of Pre-recorded commercial tapes were absolute crap, of course, since they were made on cheap tape at high-speed and had a laughable frequency response and terrible noise levels.

The 481 was what I had; it was one of the best (the 480 only had 2 heads; the 482 had 3 heads plus extra electronics for monitoring the recording quality while recording).

The 581, 580, and 582 were very similar (later on).

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Sound isn't everything.

Drums....

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MP3...BARPHPH.... That's not tough to do, is it??...lol.

Ya think? Oh, maybe use 384kb/s MP3 instead of those 32 kb/s stereo files you were listening to?

But it is so easy to record a CD. It is so easy to duplicate a CD. This is why CD is so much more fun than vinyl in the first place. Why would someone wants to make a cassette today?? It is just plain silly.

Many times the psychological and human value of a thing is tied directly to what you pay for it, like 'free advice', for example. So..that easy to make and easy to duplicate CD is worth about as much to you (or anyone else) as the effort you put into it.

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But it is so easy to record a CD. It is so easy to duplicate a CD. This is why CD is so much more fun than vinyl in the first place. Why would someone wants to make a cassette today?? It is just plain silly.

It's easier to drive through McDonald's than it is to prepare a good meal.

Is it all about 'easy?'

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Sound isn't everything.

Dude,
Where do you work?!
Seriously, I want the music I like to sound as good as possible. Otherwise, why be an audiophile?
However, I will say that I first bought some music(Reference Recordings, Yarlung, Chesky)because of the description of the recordings. I bought things that seemed interesting, & I discovered great music!!
Of course if the music you like is only available on cassette, what else can you do?

McDonald's is really bad. CD is pretty good.. easy and fun.

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McDonald's is really bad. CD is pretty good.. easy and fun.

Sometimes, it isn't about 'easy.'

Sometimes working a little harder for something is actually part of the fun.

In a way, recorded music is just a memento of a musical experience. So, using an LP, cassette, 8-track, or what-not can add a physicality or pleasing ritual to the experience; perhaps heightening the enjoyment for someone, or making it more personal or more 'exclusive.'

All part of the fun, and so maybe it isn't all about what's easiest or what sounds best for some aspects of music enjoyment. Heck, we don't have to have our audiophile switches in the 'on' position at all times, eh?

Consider it taking a day off.

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There's a lot of music being made these days that also seems to be a direct statement against high technology and the digital world: so-called "lo-fi" bands making a sort of punk/garage rock with lots of reverb on the vocals, using cheap instruments, and playing them as if they just learned, but with excellent, catchy melodies and harmonies. Musically, I find it to be kind of bad -- marked by a lack of skill and ambition

Maybe the boombox is just what the bands want you to play it on....but just maybe the lack of availability is their statement (marketing) and you being in the know is what turns you on...the inner circle.
"Sound isn't everything" yet you can't wait to geek out on an audiophile quality cassette player to hear what the bands are trying hard to not let you hear...anyone else confused?

Who are the bands? Can we track them so if they play in our neighbourhood we can go and see them...or do we have to be in the know?

It is top secret.
They tape the toilet being flushed and sell the cassette undercover in a nice package.
With the cassette comes a free bracelet and an earing with a cross.
You open a bottle of Airwick and smoke a cigarette gravely when you listen to the cassette.

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Sometimes working a little harder for something is actually part of the fun.

Exactly.

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There's a lot of music being made these days that also seems to be a direct statement against high technology and the digital world: so-called "lo-fi" bands making a sort of punk/garage rock with lots of reverb on the vocals, using cheap instruments, and playing them as if they just learned, but with excellent, catchy melodies and harmonies. Musically, I find it to be kind of bad -- marked by a lack of skill and ambition

Maybe the boombox is just what the bands want you to play it on.

Maybe. But, as the listener, I also have a say in the experience. Don't I?

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...but just maybe the lack of availability is their statement (marketing) and you being in the know is what turns you on...the inner circle.

Again you seem to suggest that I just happen to be "in the know," as if I didn't make any effort to get there. I'm not part of the artists' inner circle, though I often wish I was. I'm just a fan.

You may be right about the "marketing." I see nothing wrong with the artists attempting to reach their true audience.

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"Sound isn't everything" yet you can't wait to geek out on an audiophile quality cassette player to hear what the bands are trying hard to not let you hear...anyone else confused?

What's confusing about that? What is at odds about me saying "sound isn't everything" and also saying that I want to hear cassettes played through a good deck?

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Who are the bands? Can we track them so if they play in our neighbourhood we can go and see them...or do we have to be in the know?

I've already listed some names. A few more: Noveller, Hoor-paar-Kraat, Oneida, Wet Hair, Pocahaunted. I don't know what sort of music you like. These bands can be tagged as "noise," "ambient," "psychedelic," "rock." But there are also tapes being released by punk and garage-rock bands. And probably many others that I'm not aware of.

If you wanted to find them, you could find them. And the search would be fun and rewarding. All of these bands are present on the Internet. Find their Myspace pages and click around. That's what I do.