I get the vibe of vinyl, as it is the true analog/mechanical way to play music. I get CDs as it is truly lossless way to play digital music (CD doesn't wear out when you use it). I don't get...
I get the vibe of vinyl, as it is the true analog/mechanical
way to play music.
I get CDs as it is truly lossless way to play digital music (CD doesn't wear out when you use it).
I don't get cassettes though. They wear out and they don't really come up to CD level quality. They lack the mechanical aspect of turntable and they lack quality. I understand why they existed, I don't get why they are returning.
A bit spin-off: Are they making new cassette drives/decks yet?/I remember Techmoan saying that only some really cheap chinese deck exist nowadays with all the major players discontinuing manufacture long ago. This doean't add up to cassette's comeback as even if you get one, there is only cheap decks to play it on. If you don't spend way too much money on decades old hi-fi hardware...
Not to mention, they get eaten pretty frequently. My last cassette was around 2005 or so and it worked great until my car ate it. I'm with you, I don't understand why anyone would ever want to go...
Not to mention, they get eaten pretty frequently. My last cassette was around 2005 or so and it worked great until my car ate it.
I'm with you, I don't understand why anyone would ever want to go back to cassettes.
I just really like how they sound. They have the warm, lo-fi feel to it. I don't care about perfect quality. It just sounds so nice when the tape is being read a bit faster, a bit slower depending...
I just really like how they sound. They have the warm, lo-fi feel to it. I don't care about perfect quality. It just sounds so nice when the tape is being read a bit faster, a bit slower depending on how you move. I recently bought a couple of walkmen and fixed them and I really enjoyed listening to music with them
What makes vinyl more “true” than cassettes? They’re both analog formats. The appeal is that vinyl is very cumbersome. Vinyl discs are huge and fragile. Cassettes are compact, in a protected form...
What makes vinyl more “true” than cassettes? They’re both analog formats.
The appeal is that vinyl is very cumbersome. Vinyl discs are huge and fragile. Cassettes are compact, in a protected form factor, and survive more plays.
Vinyl and cassettes degrade differently. Records may get dusty, but you can clean them. But even with some dust, scratches, pops, and whatever, the degradation is kind of seen as acceptable and...
Vinyl and cassettes degrade differently. Records may get dusty, but you can clean them. But even with some dust, scratches, pops, and whatever, the degradation is kind of seen as acceptable and somewhat charming. Cassettes on the other hand tend to get noisy and hissy, and get drop outs and flutter. Cassettes, back when I used them, seemed to be going bad the day you recorded on them, although commercially recorded tapes less so. Records can wear out, but I don't recall ever doing it. I certainly warped a few in a hot car.
This matches my experience pretty well. My middle kid has been getting cassettes and using them, which is all fine and well, but let's not kid ourselves. It was popular at the time because it was...
This matches my experience pretty well. My middle kid has been getting cassettes and using them, which is all fine and well, but let's not kid ourselves. It was popular at the time because it was compact and portable, not because of the audio quality.
While I am not about to get back on the cassette train, I did end up buying a new (old stock) cassette from a vintage store of a band I liked. The album came out in the early '89, so I was impressed to see it I had to get it. I feel like that gives it some tricket/collectible status.
And we went through all kinds of hoops to improve the audio quality, lower the noise floor etc. I went through Dolby B (would rather live without that), C - better but niche, dbx - fantastic but...
And we went through all kinds of hoops to improve the audio quality, lower the noise floor etc. I went through Dolby B (would rather live without that), C - better but niche, dbx - fantastic but even more niche, and Dolby S, the pinnacle. There were tape types, bias, azimuth, levels, lots to mess with.
Kind of wish I still had my decks now, but also not really. High maintenance items now, and you probably can’t get high quality compact cassettes any more.
I dabbled with DCC for a while too, that was good, but again … nicher than a niche thing on niche day.
Oh for sure, but as someone that could not afford a truly hi-fi system at the time, CDs were a massive and noticeable step up in audio quality at the time. Not to mention not having to rewind...
Oh for sure, but as someone that could not afford a truly hi-fi system at the time, CDs were a massive and noticeable step up in audio quality at the time. Not to mention not having to rewind tapes anymore or being able to listen to tracks in arbitrary order.
The only thing that saddened me was needing to rebuy albums.
Oh no doubt. I remember vividly getting my first CD player. A colleague was emigrating and I bought his “entire collection”. Which by the the time it came around was one CD player, and one entire...
Oh no doubt. I remember vividly getting my first CD player. A colleague was emigrating and I bought his “entire collection”. Which by the the time it came around was one CD player, and one entire CD. Maiden’s Somewhere In Time.
I still have that CD, and the difference in quality, in sheer heft, is quite something. That’s one heavyweight CD.
Yeah, early CDs were quite a bit more hefty. They definitely became flimsier after they became the default physical format. Your story is funny because it reminds me of when I first asked for a CD...
Yeah, early CDs were quite a bit more hefty. They definitely became flimsier after they became the default physical format. Your story is funny because it reminds me of when I first asked for a CD player for Christmas. CD players were still very expensive, so my parents decided a record player would be better. And they picked up a bunch of "cool" used records from a garage sale. Said cool records were all Iron Maiden heh.
These noise reduction tricks would also cause consumer frustration and confusion. Tapes mastered for any of the Dolby noise reduction systems and played back on decks without support will not only...
These noise reduction tricks would also cause consumer frustration and confusion. Tapes mastered for any of the Dolby noise reduction systems and played back on decks without support will not only keep the high natural noise floor of the recording medium, but also make the music itself sound wrong in various ways.
It's no wonder that Dolby S never took off despite how good it was. CD was rapidly maturing and inherently free of this mixed bag of competing proprietary standards as well as the underlying problem they were all designed to solve.
Dolby C was pretty darn good. I never had Dolby S, but I read that it approached CD quality. I did have some of my old decks stored in the garage but the rubber belts inside went bad rendering...
Dolby C was pretty darn good. I never had Dolby S, but I read that it approached CD quality. I did have some of my old decks stored in the garage but the rubber belts inside went bad rendering them useless. I couldn't possibly see getting back into cassettes today, even as a retro hobby sort of thing. Vinyl is another story.
If you still have the decks, you can replace the belts fairly easily. They’re simple rubber things you can order online; it’s not like a complex timing belt in an automobile.
If you still have the decks, you can replace the belts fairly easily. They’re simple rubber things you can order online; it’s not like a complex timing belt in an automobile.
I still buy vinyl today (or rather, returned to it). Best way to support bands and stuff these days is to buy their merch, including vinyl, direct from their website, and so I do. One day, I'll...
I still buy vinyl today (or rather, returned to it).
Best way to support bands and stuff these days is to buy their merch, including vinyl, direct from their website, and so I do.
One day, I'll buy a turntable again. But right now they just sit shelved, looking nice.
...while they're not high-speed reel-to-reel, ceramic cassettes with type IV metal tape and dolby S noise reduction managed reasonably high fidelity and saturated soooo gracefully...
...while they're not high-speed reel-to-reel, ceramic cassettes with type IV metal tape and dolby S noise reduction managed reasonably high fidelity and saturated soooo gracefully...
I mean, if it's audio quality you're after, lossless digital audio is unbeatable, mathematically. In some sense, the return to analog formats is about explicitly trying to have worse audio quality.
It was popular at the time because it was compact and portable, not because of the audio quality.
I mean, if it's audio quality you're after, lossless digital audio is unbeatable, mathematically. In some sense, the return to analog formats is about explicitly trying to have worse audio quality.
You won't get an argument for me about lossless digital audio being the best path, I have spent far too much time ripping albums to flac over the years. I don't think the return to analog formats...
You won't get an argument for me about lossless digital audio being the best path, I have spent far too much time ripping albums to flac over the years.
I don't think the return to analog formats is about trying to have worse audio quality. I just think people are getting sick of a lot of the annoyances and anti-user behaviors of streaming services and these physical formats bring novelty.
Sure, but I can't say I've ever heard anyone talk about cassette degradation being charming. When someone drops a needle on a record and you hear the little pops from dust and stuff, you know it's...
Sure, but I can't say I've ever heard anyone talk about cassette degradation being charming. When someone drops a needle on a record and you hear the little pops from dust and stuff, you know it's a record and there's a sort of nostalgia that comes with it. When someone hits play on a cassette and I hear hiss, I think "lousy audio system".
Less so cassettes and their awful hiss, but reintroducing reel to reel tape characteristics in digitally produced music is a huge thing in music. I want to say "most." Mild distortions (aka "tape...
Less so cassettes and their awful hiss, but reintroducing reel to reel tape characteristics in digitally produced music is a huge thing in music. I want to say "most." Mild distortions (aka "tape saturation") and even wow and flutter are added through emulations to make track sound less clean and digital. Tube distortion too.
Another function of this is it adds upper harmonics that help increase perceptual loudness at lower volumes.
That may be a function of being in your generation. I grew up in the 90s and our house didn’t have records until my father married someone who owned a turntable. In the meanwhile I have many good...
That may be a function of being in your generation. I grew up in the 90s and our house didn’t have records until my father married someone who owned a turntable. In the meanwhile I have many good memories of using cassette tapes.
As someone who didn’t really have vinyls in the house growing up, but did have I disagree. Hearing those pops and crackles I would just think “i guess that’s how physical media goes” and when I...
As someone who didn’t really have vinyls in the house growing up, but did have I disagree. Hearing those pops and crackles I would just think “i guess that’s how physical media goes” and when I hear the cassette tape warping the pitch and speed, “ah yes this tape has been played many times”
If you have the right hardware, you can hear the music from vinyl without using electricity. It is true analog way as the music is "saved" on the medium as "bumps" that make up sound when the...
If you have the right hardware, you can hear the music from vinyl without using electricity. It is true analog way as the music is "saved" on the medium as "bumps" that make up sound when the needle comes over them.
Cassette isn't analog in this way anymore. It still isn't digital format (I think; citation needed), yet you need electronics to read the sound out from the tape.
That’s conflating “digital” with “electronic”. It is not a digital format. The audio waveform is directly imprinted onto the tape via an electromagnetic coil when recording, and that waveform is...
That’s conflating “digital” with “electronic”. It is not a digital format. The audio waveform is directly imprinted onto the tape via an electromagnetic coil when recording, and that waveform is read back when playing.
For something to be digital, it means that the waveform is quantized - you split it into discrete values at specific times. The line y = x^2 can be quantized as the following pairs
(1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9)
That is distinctly not what’s occurring with cassettes.
I don’t see how using electricity as part of the encoding and decoding mechanism would make it any less true. That seems like an extremely arbitrary criteria.
This is the case when the idea doesn't come through translation :-) I mean that vinyl is mechanical. It stores the sound mechanically and it reads (and is able to play it aloud) mechanically. Thi...
This is the case when the idea doesn't come through translation :-)
I mean that vinyl is mechanical. It stores the sound mechanically and it reads (and is able to play it aloud) mechanically. Thi is what I meant by analog.
I didn't know how the sound is stored on tape (or rather I couldn't remember), yet I somehow felt it isn't digital. The thing is you can't read cassette in the same pure mechanical way as you can do with vinyl. That's all I wanted to say.
Both vinyl and cassettes degrade as you use them, cassettes are superior in many ways (ie. compact, physically more durable, can store more on them etc.), yet they somehow doesn't speak to me. While I can admire people who made it work back in the day, I still like turntable (or should I say phnograph?) more due to mechanical nature.
It's like having analog watch (you have to wind them up or have auto-winding ones) or quartz-driven electrical watch with standard hands (not digital). The first one is turntable, the second one is cassette.
Idk, what makes it not mechanical? Are magnets not things? Is a magnet not a mechanical device? In a vinyl, the audio waveform is recorded as the amplitude of the grooves. Groove go up, waveform...
Idk, what makes it not mechanical? Are magnets not things? Is a magnet not a mechanical device?
In a vinyl, the audio waveform is recorded as the amplitude of the grooves. Groove go up, waveform go up and so forth.
In a casette, the audio waveform is recorded as the strength of the magnetic field of the tape. Magnetic field stronger, waveform louder, and so on.
You can see the exact same effect used to play magnetic tape recordings when you drop a permanent magnet through a coil. The falling magnet induces a current in the coil, causing the magnet to seemingly magically slow down.
The magnetic tape is run past a coil, and the varying magnetic field strength induces the audio waveform into the coil as a current.
I don't see how one is more or less "mechanical" than the other. As far as I know, the electromagnetic field is still considered a mechanical action, and indeed, if you were to wear earrings in an MRI machine your earlobe would certainly feel some mechanical force applied to it.
To play a cassette tape requires the magnetic analog signal on the tape to be converted into an electronic signal, which is then electronically amplified to drive an electronic transducer such as...
Exemplary
To play a cassette tape requires the magnetic analog signal on the tape to be converted into an electronic signal, which is then electronically amplified to drive an electronic transducer such as a dynamic driver.
The early recording technologies which eventually evolved into the vinyl record, such as Emile Berliner's phonograph, reproduced sound through an entirely mechanical process with no electricity at all.
Here's a picture of Berliner with his first phonograph in 1878, three years before the first practical incandescent light bulb was invented. You can fairly easily make out how it works. The turntable is hand-cranked, no need for an electric motor. The pickup needle directly actuates a transducer, with the physical sound waves it produces getting amplified by the cone.
Modern vinyl records still operate on the same principal. And although we've enhanced everything around the record by replacing most of these parts with electronic alternatiaves, there's still no reason you couldn't build a purely mechanical phonograph capable of playing a freshly pressed Billie Eilish record from Target. You would just find out very quickly why electronics make the whole experience way, way better.
I imagine the same could be true of cassette tapes, with many of the same limitations. You could hand-crank the reels to feed the cassette tape through the reading bit, and have wires nearby to...
I imagine the same could be true of cassette tapes, with many of the same limitations.
You could hand-crank the reels to feed the cassette tape through the reading bit, and have wires nearby to have a current induced directly in the wires, and have that induced current physically move the magnet in a speaker, with no external electrical power used in this process. It would just be very quiet unless you had incredibly sensitive components at each step of the way.
IIRC this is not the case with the vinyl that we've used for decades. It's probably still going to make some sound, just like when you put a sewing needle into the bottom of a paper/plastic cup...
If you have the right hardware, you can hear the music from vinyl without using electricity.
IIRC this is not the case with the vinyl that we've used for decades. It's probably still going to make some sound, just like when you put a sewing needle into the bottom of a paper/plastic cup and run it along the groove, but I believe these gramphones were only used for old shellac records in which the grooves were cut differently.
The primary difference is the difference in a speed. The EP records that people prize are meant to run at 33-1/3 RPM, while those gramophones are meant to run at something like 80 to my memory....
The primary difference is the difference in a speed. The EP records that people prize are meant to run at 33-1/3 RPM, while those gramophones are meant to run at something like 80 to my memory.
The material might also make a difference because the older ones put a lot more force on the needle. Shellac is more rigid than vinyl.
I think these even used steel needles. And the spund must have been horrible in comparison with what we have today. Yet it was purely mechanical device.
I think these even used steel needles. And the spund must have been horrible in comparison with what we have today. Yet it was purely mechanical device.
I don't normally do posts that link to Reddit, but as I'm so far out of the audiophile sphere I started looking around for if there were any good answers to quality of vinyl vs cassette and...
I don't normally do posts that link to Reddit, but as I'm so far out of the audiophile sphere I started looking around for if there were any good answers to quality of vinyl vs cassette and stumbled upon: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/68dk2q/cassettes_vs_vinyl. Most of the claims there seem to be about a hiss that's unique to cassettes.
The real reason I posted it though has less to do with that dubiously sourced answer and more to do with being amused by conversation similarities with that 9 year old post. The comments back then claim cassettes were in as some sort of passing fad and this video is (at least based on the title since I haven't watched it) about them coming back.
Have they been coming back for all these years? If so, why are they still in the coming back phrase? If not, did that resurgence already die off and yet another is starting? Apologies if any of that is answered in the video.
Additionally both comment sections feel like they have a majority vibe of "why would I ever pick a cassette?"
I think the "coming back" phase lasts for as long as sales volume keeps growing, and doesn't end until it plateaus, goes back into decline, or somehow makes it all the way back up to where it was...
I think the "coming back" phase lasts for as long as sales volume keeps growing, and doesn't end until it plateaus, goes back into decline, or somehow makes it all the way back up to where it was in the '80s.
The generation that renewed vinyl was of an age to inherit records from uncles and aunts and parents who were teens in the 60s and 70s. The generation renewing interest in cassettes is inheriting...
The generation that renewed vinyl was of an age to inherit records from uncles and aunts and parents who were teens in the 60s and 70s.
The generation renewing interest in cassettes is inheriting tapes from parents who were teens in the 70s and 80s.
Soon, when 90s kids’ children become teenagers, CDs will come back too.
It all comes down to what a curious youth finds in the old junk drawers.
VHS is already back, just as a heads up. Lots of people are thrifting VCRs and dragging out boxes of Disney classics and stuff to show their kids. It's already happening. Classic gaming too. I've...
VHS is already back, just as a heads up. Lots of people are thrifting VCRs and dragging out boxes of Disney classics and stuff to show their kids. It's already happening.
Classic gaming too. I've already shown my kid SNES, Sega, and N64 on a CRT TV in the basement. Streaming is super convenient, but physical media that you own that can't be taken away by licensing agreements and can play years later - that's the good stuff.
I totally agree on physical media being great! But I kinda think we should take only the good quality ones nowadays. VHS had its prime and shouldn't be brought back for many reasons. Used tapes...
I totally agree on physical media being great! But I kinda think we should take only the good quality ones nowadays. VHS had its prime and shouldn't be brought back for many reasons. Used tapes and VCRs are fine, but new movies shouldn't come out on it.
It is coming back a bit, but I think it’s inhibited by the fact that working players are sincerely hard to come by. Also I think the quality difference is WAY more apparent between SD and HD video...
It is coming back a bit, but I think it’s inhibited by the fact that working players are sincerely hard to come by. Also I think the quality difference is WAY more apparent between SD and HD video to the point where it’s actually hard to tolerate VHS quality once you get used to better.
That said, now that physical media is primarily the domain of geeky collectors, I actually think a format that is more like laserdisc sized is probably better suited for collector needs than DVDs and BluRays. Just have a disc big enough to fit an entire season of a TV show on a single disc at 4k UHD quality + Dolby atmos and all of that. And press it onto a material that is durable and resistant to disc rot for like 100 years, which is easier to do when you don’t need to cram as much compressed data into a tight space.
That and laserdisc sized discs means you can have bigger, cooler art and inserts packaged in with it and makes it more usable as a display piece.
In the case of cassetee sized hard drive - just use NAND (like USB flash drive or SSD if you're fancy) and make it cassette looking. Why use HDDs for that (prone to errors, failures and so on). I...
In the case of cassetee sized hard drive - just use NAND (like USB flash drive or SSD if you're fancy) and make it cassette looking. Why use HDDs for that (prone to errors, failures and so on).
I am that geeky collector, but not of niche products. I do have ZIP floppy, I have vinyl, I probably even have some audip cassettes and I also own VCR with 20-30 cassettes, but I don't use any of that. I still buy CDs and DVDs and Blu rays and rip them to my Jellyfin server then store the physical media in a closet, basically.
Laserdisc is cumbersome, too big to be that useful. But you are right that if it contained full season or a few of them in high quality and it could also contain nice inserts, it could be viable as a product. It would be niche, but there wpuld be adopters for that I believe.
To my knowledge the issue with NAND is data integrity becomes poor if it’s not used somewhat frequently. IIRC the NAND gates leak electrons over time if not periodically refreshed by being plugged...
To my knowledge the issue with NAND is data integrity becomes poor if it’s not used somewhat frequently. IIRC the NAND gates leak electrons over time if not periodically refreshed by being plugged in, meaning a card that’s been sitting for years will likely have developed corruption and if it’s been long enough, will have become unreadable.
I really wish there were a type of NAND based storage format that is designed specifically for longevity, perhaps trading off some speed or capacity in the process. There’s a big hole in the storage matrix there, particularly where magnetic media isn’t a good fit.
I didn’t mean actual laserdiscs, just a laserdisc sized format. It is big but I imagine you could have all sorts of artsy designed players for something like that. Like a Video Burger or a scaled...
I didn’t mean actual laserdiscs, just a laserdisc sized format. It is big but I imagine you could have all sorts of artsy designed players for something like that. Like a Video Burger or a scaled up version of the various types of weird B&O CD players they’ve made over the years.
As for archiving, I think what we’d really need is that crystal matrix storage thing where the data is stored in glass pucks that have lasers carve grooves inside the crystal. The problem is all the research and money seems to go to being super space efficient and cram as many terabytes or petabytes into as little space as we can. But we don’t actually need that for distributing physical media, we don’t need that much storage just something that’s cheap to produce, and easy to transport and store, that lasts forever and is easy to use.
Whilst not hi-fi tape decks, this did remind me of a Verge video I watched a while back about why new portable cassette players are so bulky compared to late 90's ones....
Whilst not hi-fi tape decks, this did remind me of a Verge video I watched a while back about why new portable cassette players are so bulky compared to late 90's ones.
For the most part it's fairly surface level, but the summary is that none of the tooling from then exists now so the processes are having to be redeveloped. I'd imagine the same would also apply within the hi-fi space?
Cassettes for me are a nice relatively small physical "trinket" / memorandum / merch piece (like a shirt or otherwise) if I want to have a physical copy of an album that isn't as expensive as...
Cassettes for me are a nice relatively small physical "trinket" / memorandum / merch piece (like a shirt or otherwise) if I want to have a physical copy of an album that isn't as expensive as vinyl. So for certain records I'll sometimes get the cassette (which very often comes with a digital copy anyway- since most of my purchases are from bandcamp or similar).
I doubt I will ever play my cassettes but I leave the option open. I've thought about getting a decent used cassette deck for the purpose, but for older-style physical media that I'd actually play, I'll probably stick to vinyl for the occasional physical experience. Most of my music listening is digital regardless, but I do like physical (and analog) media, but I definitely prefer vinyl for that. Tapes just aren't in general a great experience in a number of ways, but I could see myself "enjoying it for what it is" with a cassette deck. Sometimes the jankiness is part of the joy.
I do these days (while having YT Premium and rarely using streaming that comes with it with YTM) almost always play mp3 files when I want to listen to music. On PC or any device in the house it is local mp3s streamed from a in-home music server or on the device directly. In my car, it's a USB SSD full of mp3s. On the go, I often save a subset of my library to my phone/device and use that directly. I definitely like the experience more sans streaming, but occasionally it can come in handy, especially if I don't feel like sailing the high seas for a quick listen or something, if it's not something I've yet decided to purchase.
I always buy music or merch as my way of supporting the (especially smaller) artists I want to support, knowing a single album purchase is worth thousands of song streams in terms of revenue. Feels much better to throw them a few bucks they'd never remotely see if I'm streaming it
This channel has been one of my favourites for the last while. The host, Brandon, is a knowledgeable and talented musician / DJ, and his production quality is extremely high - I'd say it rivals...
This channel has been one of my favourites for the last while. The host, Brandon, is a knowledgeable and talented musician / DJ, and his production quality is extremely high - I'd say it rivals some low-end Netflix shows.
He previously put out another series of videos examining the benefits of using an iPod or mp3 player rather than just listening to a streaming service on your phone. The process of purposefully purchasing / acquiring music and then consciously selecting what songs and albums you bring with you dramatically changes the listening experience, and your connection with the music. The entire series was fairly thought provoking and slightly philosophical, and I really enjoyed it.
I am quite excited to see where the rest of this look into cassette tapes and the related music history goes. I was involved in the mp3 and iPod era, but was too young to get the full tape experience back when they were actually in use!
Like many 80s/90s kids, my first portable misc player was a Walkman, so while I get that cassettes are nostalgic for many I don’t really see the appeal. Their sound is somewhat underwhelming, even...
Like many 80s/90s kids, my first portable misc player was a Walkman, so while I get that cassettes are nostalgic for many I don’t really see the appeal. Their sound is somewhat underwhelming, even assuming a decent player (e.g. an actual Sony) and a brand new cassette. I was happy to upgrade to an iPod if only to get rid of the audio quality issues associated with cassettes.
Even though I didn’t own a player until quite recently, I think that MiniDiscs scratch the same itches that cassettes do without the downsides and are generally better. The only con is that a lot of music didn’t get an official MD release in the US.
A true revival of that format is however unlikely given that the rights belong to Sony and I doubt anybody would be willing to hand over the amount of cash they’d be asking for it (if they’re even willing to sell). The closest possible would be a new minidisc-like format that’s open and doesn’t violate any patents.
I would say that SD cards are the closer equivalent, but you’re probably right. Flash based media has terrible longevity though, unlike MD, which is unfortunate since long-unused flash can’t...
I would say that SD cards are the closer equivalent, but you’re probably right. Flash based media has terrible longevity though, unlike MD, which is unfortunate since long-unused flash can’t function as a time capsule like MD can.
I had a MiniDisc for a few years in the mid 2000s. I really liked it, but they were definitely not common in Canada. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing considering how awful Sony's...
I had a MiniDisc for a few years in the mid 2000s. I really liked it, but they were definitely not common in Canada. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing considering how awful Sony's software was, how unreliable transfers were, and how mine died after like 2 years.
They were super popular in Japan, which is where most of the used MDs and a couple of the players I own originally came from. A lot of people never used the computer transfer functionality (which...
They were super popular in Japan, which is where most of the used MDs and a couple of the players I own originally came from. A lot of people never used the computer transfer functionality (which came late in MD’s lifecycle) and instead recorded CDs and radio to MDs similar to how people in NA did with cassettes.
I still have a MIDI system MD component and 3 portable players, one of which works still. It was good being able to squash 4 albums on to one MD with long play, even if the quality suffered a tad,...
I still have a MIDI system MD component and 3 portable players, one of which works still.
It was good being able to squash 4 albums on to one MD with long play, even if the quality suffered a tad, it was still better than compact cassette
I didn't like cassettes when they weren't retro. It was just a handy way to record songs from the radio. In fact, it was the only way. They were also portable. No one cried when tapes went out of...
I didn't like cassettes when they weren't retro. It was just a handy way to record songs from the radio. In fact, it was the only way. They were also portable. No one cried when tapes went out of fashion. Certainly not me. Even before iPods, most people wanted Discmans. If I were on a retro kick, I would probably favor MP3s and an old iPod or Zune.
In another reality, the MiniDisc could have been a thing.
And these trendy new Walkmans's that might be cool to carry around are not really something a Brazilian can buy.
Making a mixtape for someone was great, though. I have made mix CDs for girls and such. I have also made mix-Spotify-playlists. You can't beat the personal touch of making a mixtape for someone you fancy.
No, but we could probably all do with fewer subscriptions, and good-enough audio quality, a portable format, and a relatively mechanically and tactile medium can be a nice change when everything...
No, but we could probably all do with fewer subscriptions, and good-enough audio quality, a portable format, and a relatively mechanically and tactile medium can be a nice change when everything else has switched to digital and touch-based.
Please forgive my sarcasm, but for lack of better phrasing : I'm sure the people losing decades of their life expectancy processing e-waste in developing countries like Ghana are glad that they...
Please forgive my sarcasm, but for lack of better phrasing : I'm sure the people losing decades of their life expectancy processing e-waste in developing countries like Ghana are glad that they can move away from Spotify.
I agree with the notion that digital media distribution is more than a bit broken nowadays, but this isn't really the way... Save for the tactile medium part, you can get everything you're looking for by just buying digital albums from Bandcamp and putting them on your SD card or whatever else.
If anyone feels inspired to get a walkman now - you can probably find broken used ones for quite cheap. more often than not the fix is quite easy - just find the right belt and put it on there. If...
If anyone feels inspired to get a walkman now - you can probably find broken used ones for quite cheap. more often than not the fix is quite easy - just find the right belt and put it on there. If you look for used ones, check that the description says something like: "The thing makes a noise, but it doesn't spin the tape"
Also, if you decide to get one and want to talk one, feel free to send me a message. Love to help
I bought 2 different ones this year and got some cool cassettes too. They're surprisingly cheap for cool albums (I bought a Nujabes Album last year in Japan, and got 2 Pink Floyd and a Rolling Stones album for like 5 Euro each)
Also, since it's such old tech, you sometimes still find detailed manuals telling you about the circuits and how to repair it. It's a really fun hobby in my opinion. I also just really love the aesthetic of the 80s/90s technologies. I'll take a photo in a bit and add it here
I also filmed myself while repairing mine this summer if anyone is interested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weKPd06YJzs
Thanks for sharing! I have considered buying a walkman or something similar for years now, more or less entirely inspired by the artist AMULETS. I love the idea of experimenting with synths and...
Thanks for sharing!
I have considered buying a walkman or something similar for years now, more or less entirely inspired by the artist AMULETS. I love the idea of experimenting with synths and pedals with infinite loops like this:
I’ve been looking forward to this since he announced it on Patreon a few months ago. Digging The Greats is one of my favorite YouTube channels (though I never watch the videos there, since YouTube...
I’ve been looking forward to this since he announced it on Patreon a few months ago. Digging The Greats is one of my favorite YouTube channels (though I never watch the videos there, since YouTube doesn’t let him include the songs he talks about).
I went through a phase like this around ten years ago. At the time I wanted my living room to be completely disconnected from the internet. I am old enough to have started collecting music on...
I went through a phase like this around ten years ago. At the time I wanted my living room to be completely disconnected from the internet. I am old enough to have started collecting music on physical media, so music-wise I had a good start, and at the time secondhand CDs and even vinyl were cheap.
But what I did miss was listening to my collection of concerts and DJ mixes ripped from YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. So I did the other thing I knew from my youth, and that was recording them on cassette tapes. I was able to score a couple of ridiculously expensive blank tapes. (5 euros for a normal Type I 60 min tape. Type I! My younger self would never forgive me for that.) The first one I opened was a magical experience. It was like my hands suddenly found an old lost friend again. I am not kidding, the physical sensation of opening the case felt exactly like that.
But alas, it did not stick. I recorded about ten tapes and occasionally listened to them, but it took too long to make new ones. On one hand I miss it, on the other hand I know that digital music is simply too convienient. I still am in control of my soundtrack though. I rebought the Logitech Squeezebox Duet I once had, installed Lyrion on my NAS and installed squeezelite on all my computers. Now I have a seamless, unified listening experience everywhere, free from the internet and algorithms. And the quality... well, even with Type II tapes it is simply no match.
I kept the cassette player. I looks cool next to my other stereo equipment.
I get the vibe of vinyl, as it is the true analog/mechanical
way to play music.
I get CDs as it is truly lossless way to play digital music (CD doesn't wear out when you use it).
I don't get cassettes though. They wear out and they don't really come up to CD level quality. They lack the mechanical aspect of turntable and they lack quality. I understand why they existed, I don't get why they are returning.
A bit spin-off: Are they making new cassette drives/decks yet?/I remember Techmoan saying that only some really cheap chinese deck exist nowadays with all the major players discontinuing manufacture long ago. This doean't add up to cassette's comeback as even if you get one, there is only cheap decks to play it on. If you don't spend way too much money on decades old hi-fi hardware...
Not to mention, they get eaten pretty frequently. My last cassette was around 2005 or so and it worked great until my car ate it.
I'm with you, I don't understand why anyone would ever want to go back to cassettes.
I just really like how they sound. They have the warm, lo-fi feel to it. I don't care about perfect quality. It just sounds so nice when the tape is being read a bit faster, a bit slower depending on how you move. I recently bought a couple of walkmen and fixed them and I really enjoyed listening to music with them
What makes vinyl more “true” than cassettes? They’re both analog formats.
The appeal is that vinyl is very cumbersome. Vinyl discs are huge and fragile. Cassettes are compact, in a protected form factor, and survive more plays.
Vinyl and cassettes degrade differently. Records may get dusty, but you can clean them. But even with some dust, scratches, pops, and whatever, the degradation is kind of seen as acceptable and somewhat charming. Cassettes on the other hand tend to get noisy and hissy, and get drop outs and flutter. Cassettes, back when I used them, seemed to be going bad the day you recorded on them, although commercially recorded tapes less so. Records can wear out, but I don't recall ever doing it. I certainly warped a few in a hot car.
This matches my experience pretty well. My middle kid has been getting cassettes and using them, which is all fine and well, but let's not kid ourselves. It was popular at the time because it was compact and portable, not because of the audio quality.
While I am not about to get back on the cassette train, I did end up buying a new (old stock) cassette from a vintage store of a band I liked. The album came out in the early '89, so I was impressed to see it I had to get it. I feel like that gives it some tricket/collectible status.
And we went through all kinds of hoops to improve the audio quality, lower the noise floor etc. I went through Dolby B (would rather live without that), C - better but niche, dbx - fantastic but even more niche, and Dolby S, the pinnacle. There were tape types, bias, azimuth, levels, lots to mess with.
Kind of wish I still had my decks now, but also not really. High maintenance items now, and you probably can’t get high quality compact cassettes any more.
I dabbled with DCC for a while too, that was good, but again … nicher than a niche thing on niche day.
Oh for sure, but as someone that could not afford a truly hi-fi system at the time, CDs were a massive and noticeable step up in audio quality at the time. Not to mention not having to rewind tapes anymore or being able to listen to tracks in arbitrary order.
The only thing that saddened me was needing to rebuy albums.
Oh no doubt. I remember vividly getting my first CD player. A colleague was emigrating and I bought his “entire collection”. Which by the the time it came around was one CD player, and one entire CD. Maiden’s Somewhere In Time.
I still have that CD, and the difference in quality, in sheer heft, is quite something. That’s one heavyweight CD.
Yeah, early CDs were quite a bit more hefty. They definitely became flimsier after they became the default physical format. Your story is funny because it reminds me of when I first asked for a CD player for Christmas. CD players were still very expensive, so my parents decided a record player would be better. And they picked up a bunch of "cool" used records from a garage sale. Said cool records were all Iron Maiden heh.
These noise reduction tricks would also cause consumer frustration and confusion. Tapes mastered for any of the Dolby noise reduction systems and played back on decks without support will not only keep the high natural noise floor of the recording medium, but also make the music itself sound wrong in various ways.
It's no wonder that Dolby S never took off despite how good it was. CD was rapidly maturing and inherently free of this mixed bag of competing proprietary standards as well as the underlying problem they were all designed to solve.
Dolby C was pretty darn good. I never had Dolby S, but I read that it approached CD quality. I did have some of my old decks stored in the garage but the rubber belts inside went bad rendering them useless. I couldn't possibly see getting back into cassettes today, even as a retro hobby sort of thing. Vinyl is another story.
If you still have the decks, you can replace the belts fairly easily. They’re simple rubber things you can order online; it’s not like a complex timing belt in an automobile.
I still buy vinyl today (or rather, returned to it).
Best way to support bands and stuff these days is to buy their merch, including vinyl, direct from their website, and so I do.
One day, I'll buy a turntable again. But right now they just sit shelved, looking nice.
...while they're not high-speed reel-to-reel, ceramic cassettes with type IV metal tape and dolby S noise reduction managed reasonably high fidelity and saturated soooo gracefully...
I mean, if it's audio quality you're after, lossless digital audio is unbeatable, mathematically. In some sense, the return to analog formats is about explicitly trying to have worse audio quality.
You won't get an argument for me about lossless digital audio being the best path, I have spent far too much time ripping albums to flac over the years.
I don't think the return to analog formats is about trying to have worse audio quality. I just think people are getting sick of a lot of the annoyances and anti-user behaviors of streaming services and these physical formats bring novelty.
Can’t you accept that others find the qualities of cassettes degrading charming as well?
Sure, but I can't say I've ever heard anyone talk about cassette degradation being charming. When someone drops a needle on a record and you hear the little pops from dust and stuff, you know it's a record and there's a sort of nostalgia that comes with it. When someone hits play on a cassette and I hear hiss, I think "lousy audio system".
Less so cassettes and their awful hiss, but reintroducing reel to reel tape characteristics in digitally produced music is a huge thing in music. I want to say "most." Mild distortions (aka "tape saturation") and even wow and flutter are added through emulations to make track sound less clean and digital. Tube distortion too.
Another function of this is it adds upper harmonics that help increase perceptual loudness at lower volumes.
That may be a function of being in your generation. I grew up in the 90s and our house didn’t have records until my father married someone who owned a turntable. In the meanwhile I have many good memories of using cassette tapes.
As someone who didn’t really have vinyls in the house growing up, but did have I disagree. Hearing those pops and crackles I would just think “i guess that’s how physical media goes” and when I hear the cassette tape warping the pitch and speed, “ah yes this tape has been played many times”
If you have the right hardware, you can hear the music from vinyl without using electricity. It is true analog way as the music is "saved" on the medium as "bumps" that make up sound when the needle comes over them.
Cassette isn't analog in this way anymore. It still isn't digital format (I think; citation needed), yet you need electronics to read the sound out from the tape.
That’s conflating “digital” with “electronic”. It is not a digital format. The audio waveform is directly imprinted onto the tape via an electromagnetic coil when recording, and that waveform is read back when playing.
For something to be digital, it means that the waveform is quantized - you split it into discrete values at specific times. The line y = x^2 can be quantized as the following pairs
(1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9)
That is distinctly not what’s occurring with cassettes.
I don’t see how using electricity as part of the encoding and decoding mechanism would make it any less true. That seems like an extremely arbitrary criteria.
This is the case when the idea doesn't come through translation :-)
I mean that vinyl is mechanical. It stores the sound mechanically and it reads (and is able to play it aloud) mechanically. Thi is what I meant by analog.
I didn't know how the sound is stored on tape (or rather I couldn't remember), yet I somehow felt it isn't digital. The thing is you can't read cassette in the same pure mechanical way as you can do with vinyl. That's all I wanted to say.
Both vinyl and cassettes degrade as you use them, cassettes are superior in many ways (ie. compact, physically more durable, can store more on them etc.), yet they somehow doesn't speak to me. While I can admire people who made it work back in the day, I still like turntable (or should I say phnograph?) more due to mechanical nature.
It's like having analog watch (you have to wind them up or have auto-winding ones) or quartz-driven electrical watch with standard hands (not digital). The first one is turntable, the second one is cassette.
Idk, what makes it not mechanical? Are magnets not things? Is a magnet not a mechanical device?
In a vinyl, the audio waveform is recorded as the amplitude of the grooves. Groove go up, waveform go up and so forth.
In a casette, the audio waveform is recorded as the strength of the magnetic field of the tape. Magnetic field stronger, waveform louder, and so on.
You can see the exact same effect used to play magnetic tape recordings when you drop a permanent magnet through a coil. The falling magnet induces a current in the coil, causing the magnet to seemingly magically slow down.
The magnetic tape is run past a coil, and the varying magnetic field strength induces the audio waveform into the coil as a current.
I don't see how one is more or less "mechanical" than the other. As far as I know, the electromagnetic field is still considered a mechanical action, and indeed, if you were to wear earrings in an MRI machine your earlobe would certainly feel some mechanical force applied to it.
To play a cassette tape requires the magnetic analog signal on the tape to be converted into an electronic signal, which is then electronically amplified to drive an electronic transducer such as a dynamic driver.
The early recording technologies which eventually evolved into the vinyl record, such as Emile Berliner's phonograph, reproduced sound through an entirely mechanical process with no electricity at all.
Here's a picture of Berliner with his first phonograph in 1878, three years before the first practical incandescent light bulb was invented. You can fairly easily make out how it works. The turntable is hand-cranked, no need for an electric motor. The pickup needle directly actuates a transducer, with the physical sound waves it produces getting amplified by the cone.
Modern vinyl records still operate on the same principal. And although we've enhanced everything around the record by replacing most of these parts with electronic alternatiaves, there's still no reason you couldn't build a purely mechanical phonograph capable of playing a freshly pressed Billie Eilish record from Target. You would just find out very quickly why electronics make the whole experience way, way better.
I imagine the same could be true of cassette tapes, with many of the same limitations.
You could hand-crank the reels to feed the cassette tape through the reading bit, and have wires nearby to have a current induced directly in the wires, and have that induced current physically move the magnet in a speaker, with no external electrical power used in this process. It would just be very quiet unless you had incredibly sensitive components at each step of the way.
IIRC this is not the case with the vinyl that we've used for decades. It's probably still going to make some sound, just like when you put a sewing needle into the bottom of a paper/plastic cup and run it along the groove, but I believe these gramphones were only used for old shellac records in which the grooves were cut differently.
The primary difference is the difference in a speed. The EP records that people prize are meant to run at 33-1/3 RPM, while those gramophones are meant to run at something like 80 to my memory.
The material might also make a difference because the older ones put a lot more force on the needle. Shellac is more rigid than vinyl.
I think these even used steel needles. And the spund must have been horrible in comparison with what we have today. Yet it was purely mechanical device.
I don't normally do posts that link to Reddit, but as I'm so far out of the audiophile sphere I started looking around for if there were any good answers to quality of vinyl vs cassette and stumbled upon: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/68dk2q/cassettes_vs_vinyl. Most of the claims there seem to be about a hiss that's unique to cassettes.
The real reason I posted it though has less to do with that dubiously sourced answer and more to do with being amused by conversation similarities with that 9 year old post. The comments back then claim cassettes were in as some sort of passing fad and this video is (at least based on the title since I haven't watched it) about them coming back.
Have they been coming back for all these years? If so, why are they still in the coming back phrase? If not, did that resurgence already die off and yet another is starting? Apologies if any of that is answered in the video.
Additionally both comment sections feel like they have a majority vibe of "why would I ever pick a cassette?"
I think the "coming back" phase lasts for as long as sales volume keeps growing, and doesn't end until it plateaus, goes back into decline, or somehow makes it all the way back up to where it was in the '80s.
The generation that renewed vinyl was of an age to inherit records from uncles and aunts and parents who were teens in the 60s and 70s.
The generation renewing interest in cassettes is inheriting tapes from parents who were teens in the 70s and 80s.
Soon, when 90s kids’ children become teenagers, CDs will come back too.
It all comes down to what a curious youth finds in the old junk drawers.
Time to bring back VHS! No, that isn't the way.
But your argument is right.
VHS is already back, just as a heads up. Lots of people are thrifting VCRs and dragging out boxes of Disney classics and stuff to show their kids. It's already happening.
Classic gaming too. I've already shown my kid SNES, Sega, and N64 on a CRT TV in the basement. Streaming is super convenient, but physical media that you own that can't be taken away by licensing agreements and can play years later - that's the good stuff.
I totally agree on physical media being great! But I kinda think we should take only the good quality ones nowadays. VHS had its prime and shouldn't be brought back for many reasons. Used tapes and VCRs are fine, but new movies shouldn't come out on it.
It is coming back a bit, but I think it’s inhibited by the fact that working players are sincerely hard to come by. Also I think the quality difference is WAY more apparent between SD and HD video to the point where it’s actually hard to tolerate VHS quality once you get used to better.
That said, now that physical media is primarily the domain of geeky collectors, I actually think a format that is more like laserdisc sized is probably better suited for collector needs than DVDs and BluRays. Just have a disc big enough to fit an entire season of a TV show on a single disc at 4k UHD quality + Dolby atmos and all of that. And press it onto a material that is durable and resistant to disc rot for like 100 years, which is easier to do when you don’t need to cram as much compressed data into a tight space.
That and laserdisc sized discs means you can have bigger, cooler art and inserts packaged in with it and makes it more usable as a display piece.
I suppose the other option is to literally just distribute write-protected cassette sized hard drives that the movie’s been written to. . . .the economics probably don’t make any sense but you could slap so many episodes of “Deep Space 9” in this bad boy.
In the case of cassetee sized hard drive - just use NAND (like USB flash drive or SSD if you're fancy) and make it cassette looking. Why use HDDs for that (prone to errors, failures and so on).
I am that geeky collector, but not of niche products. I do have ZIP floppy, I have vinyl, I probably even have some audip cassettes and I also own VCR with 20-30 cassettes, but I don't use any of that. I still buy CDs and DVDs and Blu rays and rip them to my Jellyfin server then store the physical media in a closet, basically.
Laserdisc is cumbersome, too big to be that useful. But you are right that if it contained full season or a few of them in high quality and it could also contain nice inserts, it could be viable as a product. It would be niche, but there wpuld be adopters for that I believe.
Just not VHS anymore, please :-)
To my knowledge the issue with NAND is data integrity becomes poor if it’s not used somewhat frequently. IIRC the NAND gates leak electrons over time if not periodically refreshed by being plugged in, meaning a card that’s been sitting for years will likely have developed corruption and if it’s been long enough, will have become unreadable.
I really wish there were a type of NAND based storage format that is designed specifically for longevity, perhaps trading off some speed or capacity in the process. There’s a big hole in the storage matrix there, particularly where magnetic media isn’t a good fit.
I didn’t mean actual laserdiscs, just a laserdisc sized format. It is big but I imagine you could have all sorts of artsy designed players for something like that. Like a Video Burger or a scaled up version of the various types of weird B&O CD players they’ve made over the years.
As for archiving, I think what we’d really need is that crystal matrix storage thing where the data is stored in glass pucks that have lasers carve grooves inside the crystal. The problem is all the research and money seems to go to being super space efficient and cram as many terabytes or petabytes into as little space as we can. But we don’t actually need that for distributing physical media, we don’t need that much storage just something that’s cheap to produce, and easy to transport and store, that lasts forever and is easy to use.
Whilst not hi-fi tape decks, this did remind me of a Verge video I watched a while back about why new portable cassette players are so bulky compared to late 90's ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DWtkSVNvTg
For the most part it's fairly surface level, but the summary is that none of the tooling from then exists now so the processes are having to be redeveloped. I'd imagine the same would also apply within the hi-fi space?
Cassettes for me are a nice relatively small physical "trinket" / memorandum / merch piece (like a shirt or otherwise) if I want to have a physical copy of an album that isn't as expensive as vinyl. So for certain records I'll sometimes get the cassette (which very often comes with a digital copy anyway- since most of my purchases are from bandcamp or similar).
I doubt I will ever play my cassettes but I leave the option open. I've thought about getting a decent used cassette deck for the purpose, but for older-style physical media that I'd actually play, I'll probably stick to vinyl for the occasional physical experience. Most of my music listening is digital regardless, but I do like physical (and analog) media, but I definitely prefer vinyl for that. Tapes just aren't in general a great experience in a number of ways, but I could see myself "enjoying it for what it is" with a cassette deck. Sometimes the jankiness is part of the joy.
I do these days (while having YT Premium and rarely using streaming that comes with it with YTM) almost always play mp3 files when I want to listen to music. On PC or any device in the house it is local mp3s streamed from a in-home music server or on the device directly. In my car, it's a USB SSD full of mp3s. On the go, I often save a subset of my library to my phone/device and use that directly. I definitely like the experience more sans streaming, but occasionally it can come in handy, especially if I don't feel like sailing the high seas for a quick listen or something, if it's not something I've yet decided to purchase.
I always buy music or merch as my way of supporting the (especially smaller) artists I want to support, knowing a single album purchase is worth thousands of song streams in terms of revenue. Feels much better to throw them a few bucks they'd never remotely see if I'm streaming it
This channel has been one of my favourites for the last while. The host, Brandon, is a knowledgeable and talented musician / DJ, and his production quality is extremely high - I'd say it rivals some low-end Netflix shows.
He previously put out another series of videos examining the benefits of using an iPod or mp3 player rather than just listening to a streaming service on your phone. The process of purposefully purchasing / acquiring music and then consciously selecting what songs and albums you bring with you dramatically changes the listening experience, and your connection with the music. The entire series was fairly thought provoking and slightly philosophical, and I really enjoyed it.
I am quite excited to see where the rest of this look into cassette tapes and the related music history goes. I was involved in the mp3 and iPod era, but was too young to get the full tape experience back when they were actually in use!
Like many 80s/90s kids, my first portable misc player was a Walkman, so while I get that cassettes are nostalgic for many I don’t really see the appeal. Their sound is somewhat underwhelming, even assuming a decent player (e.g. an actual Sony) and a brand new cassette. I was happy to upgrade to an iPod if only to get rid of the audio quality issues associated with cassettes.
Even though I didn’t own a player until quite recently, I think that MiniDiscs scratch the same itches that cassettes do without the downsides and are generally better. The only con is that a lot of music didn’t get an official MD release in the US.
A true revival of that format is however unlikely given that the rights belong to Sony and I doubt anybody would be willing to hand over the amount of cash they’d be asking for it (if they’re even willing to sell). The closest possible would be a new minidisc-like format that’s open and doesn’t violate any patents.
A revival of any legacy digital format is unlikely considering one can put a lossless digital file on a USB stick.
I would say that SD cards are the closer equivalent, but you’re probably right. Flash based media has terrible longevity though, unlike MD, which is unfortunate since long-unused flash can’t function as a time capsule like MD can.
I had a MiniDisc for a few years in the mid 2000s. I really liked it, but they were definitely not common in Canada. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing considering how awful Sony's software was, how unreliable transfers were, and how mine died after like 2 years.
They were super popular in Japan, which is where most of the used MDs and a couple of the players I own originally came from. A lot of people never used the computer transfer functionality (which came late in MD’s lifecycle) and instead recorded CDs and radio to MDs similar to how people in NA did with cassettes.
I still have a MIDI system MD component and 3 portable players, one of which works still.
It was good being able to squash 4 albums on to one MD with long play, even if the quality suffered a tad, it was still better than compact cassette
I didn't like cassettes when they weren't retro. It was just a handy way to record songs from the radio. In fact, it was the only way. They were also portable. No one cried when tapes went out of fashion. Certainly not me. Even before iPods, most people wanted Discmans. If I were on a retro kick, I would probably favor MP3s and an old iPod or Zune.
In another reality, the MiniDisc could have been a thing.
And these trendy new Walkmans's that might be cool to carry around are not really something a Brazilian can buy.
Making a mixtape for someone was great, though. I have made mix CDs for girls and such. I have also made mix-Spotify-playlists. You can't beat the personal touch of making a mixtape for someone you fancy.
I wish they didn't, we really don't need MORE mass produced plastic.
No, but we could probably all do with fewer subscriptions, and good-enough audio quality, a portable format, and a relatively mechanically and tactile medium can be a nice change when everything else has switched to digital and touch-based.
Please forgive my sarcasm, but for lack of better phrasing : I'm sure the people losing decades of their life expectancy processing e-waste in developing countries like Ghana are glad that they can move away from Spotify.
I agree with the notion that digital media distribution is more than a bit broken nowadays, but this isn't really the way... Save for the tactile medium part, you can get everything you're looking for by just buying digital albums from Bandcamp and putting them on your SD card or whatever else.
If anyone feels inspired to get a walkman now - you can probably find broken used ones for quite cheap. more often than not the fix is quite easy - just find the right belt and put it on there. If you look for used ones, check that the description says something like: "The thing makes a noise, but it doesn't spin the tape"
Also, if you decide to get one and want to talk one, feel free to send me a message. Love to help
I bought 2 different ones this year and got some cool cassettes too. They're surprisingly cheap for cool albums (I bought a Nujabes Album last year in Japan, and got 2 Pink Floyd and a Rolling Stones album for like 5 Euro each)
Also, since it's such old tech, you sometimes still find detailed manuals telling you about the circuits and how to repair it. It's a really fun hobby in my opinion. I also just really love the aesthetic of the 80s/90s technologies. I'll take a photo in a bit and add it here
I also filmed myself while repairing mine this summer if anyone is interested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weKPd06YJzsThanks for sharing!
I have considered buying a walkman or something similar for years now, more or less entirely inspired by the artist AMULETS. I love the idea of experimenting with synths and pedals with infinite loops like this:
https://youtu.be/bIbEelclwfI
I’ve been looking forward to this since he announced it on Patreon a few months ago. Digging The Greats is one of my favorite YouTube channels (though I never watch the videos there, since YouTube doesn’t let him include the songs he talks about).
I went through a phase like this around ten years ago. At the time I wanted my living room to be completely disconnected from the internet. I am old enough to have started collecting music on physical media, so music-wise I had a good start, and at the time secondhand CDs and even vinyl were cheap.
But what I did miss was listening to my collection of concerts and DJ mixes ripped from YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. So I did the other thing I knew from my youth, and that was recording them on cassette tapes. I was able to score a couple of ridiculously expensive blank tapes. (5 euros for a normal Type I 60 min tape. Type I! My younger self would never forgive me for that.) The first one I opened was a magical experience. It was like my hands suddenly found an old lost friend again. I am not kidding, the physical sensation of opening the case felt exactly like that.
But alas, it did not stick. I recorded about ten tapes and occasionally listened to them, but it took too long to make new ones. On one hand I miss it, on the other hand I know that digital music is simply too convienient. I still am in control of my soundtrack though. I rebought the Logitech Squeezebox Duet I once had, installed Lyrion on my NAS and installed squeezelite on all my computers. Now I have a seamless, unified listening experience everywhere, free from the internet and algorithms. And the quality... well, even with Type II tapes it is simply no match.
I kept the cassette player. I looks cool next to my other stereo equipment.