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Topic: Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett (Read 5050 times) previous topic - next topic
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Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #1 –
Audiofools are funny.... 

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #2 –
Not funny to me, and not really audiofoolish. At least the cassette guys tend to be honest with themselves about what they enjoy about the format -- there's a lot less woo in that camp compared to the vinyl camp. It's completely respectable to prefer a format because of its idiosyncracies (hiss, plasticky smell etc), rather than try and invent rationalizations out of whole cloth.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #3 –
I could not put it better or agree more, Axon.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #4 –
I growing up I had CDs, LPs and cassettes available but always chose cassette. It drove my dad nuts because he hated cassettes for the sound, packaging and inevitable decay. He went so far as to buy the first CD player in the neighborhood (1984) just to encourage me to buy CDs instead of cassettes, but I stayed on with cassettes because it was the most portable. Now that something better is available (i.e. smaller & portable-er), I see no need for cassettes. Don't miss them at all.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #5 –
I am one of the people who miss the "hiss".

I grew up listening to music on cassettes and even today, I think I enjoy music more on a cassette than in any current digital form.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #6 –
Me neither. I had a collection of around 450 tapes, mostly recorded from CDs or vinyls. Few originals. When mp3 first came, I was one of those people who argued that analogue sound is much better... well, that was in the era when only encoder was fraunhoffer's  with time, as I learned more, and encoders improved, I did ABX test, kept mp3 (and lately aac) and ditched all tapes away. Kept only a few rare tapes, TDK MA and such. Well, rare here, anyways.
I am amazed by these people who would rather have noisy and hissy sound instead of clean reproduction. Vinyls, when properly handled, are far better than tapes. I understand vinyl craze (I do not support technobabble around them), but tapes... come on.
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Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #7 –
Quote from: hlloyge on
I understand vinyl craze (I do not support technobabble around them), but tapes... come on.

I think it's all about nostalgia. If you grew up in the 80s, cassette tapes were part of your childhood. So listening to this kind of hiss and flutter today will bring back all those warm memories of your childhood days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6anvuA_H8

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #8 –
It's amazing they still sell pre-recorded tapes. Even in those tiny quantities.

HA regulars will enjoy page 3 of the comments section, where our old friend Michael Fremer says vinyl copied to top quality tape is better than CD.

Anyone who thinks cassette gives them anything like the original sound hasn't tried recording a semi-high-frequency sine wave on one, and playing it back.

I don't miss any of these things, because I still have them all. But I'm very thankful for solid-state / file-based media / cloud-based servers compared with everything that went before them. Even though I do still by records + CDs!

Cheers,
David.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #9 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
It's amazing they still sell pre-recorded tapes. Even in those tiny quantities.

HA regulars will enjoy page 3 of the comments section, where our old friend Michael Fremer says vinyl copied to top quality tape is better than CD.


Dude just loves his euphonic distortion.  He's not really about 'high fidelity' at all. 

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #10 –
I've transferred at least several hundred hours of CDs onto cassette for my daughter since audiobooks mostly stopped being available on cassette. When one is moving around, cassette has CD beat several ways from Sunday on general convenience and ease of use. For some years I campaigned in favor of a personal digital player, being that converting CD to mp3 is considerably less work than converting CD to tape.

She has just recently largely accepted the idea, and will probably get most of her new material already as computer files rather than CD (e.g. Audible.com) if it doesn't prove to be too frustrating, but still, none of the personal players are really as easy to use as walkman type cassette players.

A major consideration of spoken audio, especially non-fiction, but important with stories too, is being able to easily back-up and re-listen to a portion. With cassette players one just pushes a button, always the same obvious button and always in the same manner. Most often one only needs to step back few seconds, to before an interruption or some distraction broke one's concentration, or to pick up the thread after on has turned off playback for a night, or whatever length of time. The operation can easily be carries out almost without any conscious attention; the buttons are obvious by feel and their operation is simple and assured.

All the personal digital players I've used or examined make this significantly more difficult, when they provide for it at all. On has to watch tiny screens and multi-function bottons to make sure one is doing the right thing, is pressing on the correct area, and does not press a tenth of a second too long, or not long enough, which will produce some totally different result than one wants. This really is a pain since, unlike for instance sitting in front of a television, one is usually doing something else that requires attention

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #11 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
It's amazing they still sell pre-recorded tapes. Even in those tiny quantities.

HA regulars will enjoy page 3 of the comments section, where our old friend Michael Fremer says vinyl copied to top quality tape is better than CD.


Dude just loves his euphonic distortion.  He's not really about 'high fidelity' at all. 


Eh. Watcha gonna do? Mikeys be mikin'.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #12 –
@AndyH-ha, Anything loaded into a Sansa Clip / Clip+ as a podcast will have the "last listened to" position remembered, even if you switch it off, listen to something else, load new content etc. Very useful. Skipping back 10 seconds can be achieved by simply holding down the back button for a couple of seconds. It's a real physical button. Nothing fancy. Of course, too short a press, and it'll go back one track - but just skipping forwards one track will bring you back to exactly where you were (not the track start), so nothing lost.

This applies to anything stored in the "podcast" folder + sub-folders. Whereas anything stored in the "music" folder + sub-folders behaves like a normal player (i.e. no remembering the particular moment you were last listening to once you've skipped to something else. It remembers it through a power cycle though).

Clip+ does audible format, but I've never used that, so don't know how it behaves.

Cheers,
David.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #14 –
It's both satisfying and amusing to see that the most ardent cable 'believers' at your linked headfi thread entry point are tagged as 'banned'. 

Also, thanks for showing me where I can read Steve Eddy's latter-day posts...I remember him from rec.audio days.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #15 –
Quote from: rohangc on
I am one of the people who miss the "hiss".

I grew up listening to music on cassettes and even today, I think I enjoy music more on a cassette than in any current digital form.


I have several hundreds of cassettes, but rarely play them. Even my 3-head machine can't compare to my CDs and wave files.

Wall Street Journal: Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassett

Reply #16 –
Quote from: rohangc on
I am one of the people who miss the "hiss".

I grew up listening to music on cassettes and even today, I think I enjoy music more on a cassette than in any current digital form.


Wait! It gets better! Now, there is an iPhone app that gives you that warm fuzzy feeling:

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/10/aircassette/