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Topic: Cassette Revival (Read 10697 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #25 –
I can't see there being any reason to buy cassettes in this day and age other than nostalgia.  Discounting sound quality, since I can't ABX anything, just think of the convenience factor.  You need to FF and RW tapes.  You need to flip them over.  They wear out.  Tape machines eat them and destroy them sometimes.

I like the idea of owning physical media.  But my preferred choice of media is the CD.  Even in 2017, most cars still come with CD players.  And any home DVD/Blu-Ray player will play them.  They're easily losslessly ripped.  No rewinding or fast forwarding.  No flipping the disc over.

I just wish CDs were more scratch resistant, and CD players dealt with vibrations better.  Modern CD players are pretty good.  But I just refurbished an old Sony CDP-690 and it skips if there is any impact to the cabinet it sits on.

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #26 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
They wear out.  Tape machines eat them and destroy them sometimes.

This is probably 90% of the point.  Signaling theory would suggest this makes them a costly signal showing that you, the user of the cassette tape, aren't obsessed with the illusion of permanence and are accepting of the ephemeral nature of possessions.

In this day and age of the masses trying to record concerts with their cellphones instead of living in the moment the act of listening to cassettes helps demonstrate that you're living in the here and now and unconcerned with the future.
Creature of habit.

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #27 –
Quote from: Soap on
Quote from: apastuszak on
They wear out.  Tape machines eat them and destroy them sometimes.

This is probably 90% of the point.  Signaling theory would suggest this makes them a costly signal showing that you, the user of the cassette tape, aren't obsessed with the illusion of permanence and are accepting of the ephemeral nature of possessions.

In this day and age of the masses trying to record concerts with their cellphones instead of living in the moment the act of listening to cassettes helps demonstrate that you're living in the here and now and unconcerned with the future.


I used to buy vinyl and copy to tape, so I could listen in my car.  My parents had 8-tracks that I replace with CDs.  I know I replaced a good chunk of vinyl with CDs.  CDs and FLAC are the last format I will ever need.  CDs and FLAC allow me to make perfect lossless backups, and for the first time I can change the format of my music without needing to rebuy it.

When it comes to music, I'm a cheapskate.  I want what I buy to last forever.

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #29 –
I think it's foolish to expect permanence. The only way you can truly preserve an audio signal is by regularly refreshing the media used to store it, but it's only "permanent" as long as you put effort into maintenance. With digital audio, this is easy, you simply copy it to newer formats and make backups. With analog media, it's impossible.

I've come to the conclusion that nothing is permanent, and that I will enjoy what I have, while I have it. My music collection has lasted a long time, but a fire or simultaneous disk failure could wipe it out. Tools, cooking implements, clothes, shoes all wear out, glasses break, electronics burn out for no apparent reason, it's all temporary, and it's OK, as long as it wasn't a piece of crap that broke in a short time from only light use.

Always saving stuff from being used, not wanting to "wear it out" or risk breaking it or whatever, just means you never really get to fully enjoy it. I've decided that if something of mine breaks, I'm either going to fix it or replace it, not moan about how I should have used it less. Of course I'll be sad if it's something I've owned for a long time, but on the other hand I probably got a lot of good use out of it.

I do have a few things that I hang on to and am very careful with, for specific reasons. I have a bottle of Cragganmore whisky that was distilled literally the day before my birthday. I'm saving that for my 50th birthday, so I'm not saving it forever, just for a very specific future occasion.

Nothing is permanent, life became much less stressful for me when I realized that :-)

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #30 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
I used to buy vinyl and copy to tape, so I could listen in my car.  ... ... ...
Tape is what we had for copying and portability in those days. I also used to copy LPs to tape for playing in the house because the clicks and scratches bothered me less (lower dynamic range of tape?) and I didn't have to worry about what the scratches were doing to the stylus.

I eventually got one of my dream cassette machines: the Walkman Pro. The following month I got a mini-disk machine, and the Walkman-Pro never left the house again. Especially for recording.
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #31 –
Are these tapes actually played, or are they just merchandise? There is nothing wrong about selling/buying merch that also happen to carry a copy of the actual work.

For example, Bandcamp: My impression is that tapes sold on Bandcamp are usually bundled with the usual download-and-stream opportunity.

Yes I know there are some bands who do release on tape only, some out of nostalgia and others because that kind of obscurity/elusiveness is part of their artistic expression so to say - but is that even common?

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #32 –
One last point, used cassettes can be had for almost nothing these days. For instance, I'm buying entire albums for $0.50 or less, at my local thrift store.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #33 –
Cassette SQ?  I'll just throw in: azimuth alignment.  What a mess.  Every shell resulted in slightly different guidance and different az.  Every tape recorded, pre-recorded or home recorded, was slightly different.  When you don't have perfect az, you lose HF response...darn quickly, which causes you to lose noise reduction tracking, imaging, heck it all goes down hill pretty fast.  There were precious few decks that had any of that figured out, Nak comes to mind, 3 head manual and auto AZ...cool. 

And recording cal...switching tape types, you've just thrown everything out the window.  If you pick your type and cal to that (yeah, you needed test gear), you stood a fighting chance of consistent SQ (az not withstanding).  That mess gave rise to auto-calibration, like the Pioneer Auto BLE, which actually worked.  Without it, and without head alignment tweaking, the cassette is way down the stack of SQ/format lineup.

Apparently, dull is the new "warm". 

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #34 –
Quote from: 2tec on
One last point, used cassettes can be had for almost nothing these days. For instance, I'm buying entire albums for $0.50 or less, at my local thrift store.

That may apply to physical media. Going rate for digital physical media around here at estate/moving/divorce sales is CD's $1-3, DVD & BDs $3. Those are "first day"  prices with 33-50% coming off on each of the second and third days.  Sometimes boxed sets sell for the price of the disks, and sometimes there is a nominal premium.

I've been buying maybe an average of 10 pieces a week, which adds up to about 500 items a year,

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #35 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2tec on
One last point, used cassettes can be had for almost nothing these days. For instance, I'm buying entire albums for $0.50 or less, at my local thrift store.

That may apply to physical media.

Hmmm, I don't understand, exactly what are you trying to say here?

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Going rate for digital physical media around here at estate/moving/divorce sales is CD's $1-3, DVD & BDs $3. Those are "first day"  prices with 33-50% coming off on each of the second and third days.  Sometimes boxed sets sell for the price of the disks, and sometimes there is a nominal premium. I've been buying maybe an average of 10 pieces a week, which adds up to about 500 items a year,

With all due respect, I fail to see what this has to do with a "cassette revival"? Perhaps you're just trying to have  the last word? ;~)

Thanks
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #36 –
Quote from: 2tec on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2tec on
One last point, used cassettes can be had for almost nothing these days. For instance, I'm buying entire albums for $0.50 or less, at my local thrift store.

That may apply to physical media.

Hmmm, I don't understand, exactly what are you trying to say here?
I think he's implying that cheap prices can be had all around for used physical media, while the download market has no such thing as a "used" marketplace, as that would be impossible to regulate in a way that would satisfy the media moguls.

Which, as you're correct, has nothing to do with whether or not there is a so-called "Cassette Revival".

Statistics would matter more if they reflected a major upswing in percentage of total sales, when factoring in both downloads and digital media, as well as other forms of analog media, such as records.

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #37 –
Quote from: 2tec on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2tec on
One last point, used cassettes can be had for almost nothing these days. For instance, I'm buying entire albums for $0.50 or less, at my local thrift store.

That may apply to physical media.

Hmmm, I don't understand, exactly what are you trying to say here?

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Going rate for digital physical media around here at estate/moving/divorce sales is CD's $1-3, DVD & BDs $3. Those are "first day"  prices with 33-50% coming off on each of the second and third days.  Sometimes boxed sets sell for the price of the disks, and sometimes there is a nominal premium. I've been buying maybe an average of 10 pieces a week, which adds up to about 500 items a year,

With all due respect, I fail to see what this has to do with a "cassette revival"?

It seems obvious to me that there is a market for used media in general, the sales of LPs and cassettes being part of it.

This begs the question as to whether people are buying used cassettes because they are more like decorative antiques that meet a psychological as opposed to a musicological or audiophile interest, or are they buying them as useful tools for the enjoyment of music?  Given the SQ which is probably even worse than vinyl in good condition, its probably more of the former.

Quote
Perhaps you're just trying to have  the last word? ;~)

Perhaps you are just trying to employ one of Schoipenhauer's strategems? ;-)

To clarify - a variation on Strategem 1,  you appear to be denying my general argument its obvious domain of influence in order to attack it and then further the attack by demeaning the motivation for making it.

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #38 –
On a semi-related topic...

The last VCR was made about 6 months ago.  You can still find a VCR/DVD combo unit, but when they are sold-out, that's it.

A couple of months ago I was going to get-back to digitizing my VHS tapes (the ones I wanted to keep) and I discovered by VCR was no longer working.     So, I replaced it and now I'm back on the project... before it's too late!

Re: Cassette Revival

Reply #39 –
A couple of years back my 8mm movie projector was too far gone, so I sent my movies out to be digitized. I'm sure there will be an equivalent service for VHS for awhile to come.