# Do you still use Cassette tapes?



## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

With all the talk lately about the different analog audio devices that used to be popular, I was just looking at my A/V rack in our living room and realized that I have not used my tape deck at all since we moved into this house 2 years ago. A cousin of mine still has his Nakamichi Dragon tape deck that is regarded to be the best Tape recorder/player ever made.
Do any of you still use yours regularly or at least once in a while or has the cassette gone the way of the VHS player?


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## brucek (Apr 11, 2006)

> Do any of you still use yours regularly or at least once in a while or has the cassette gone the way of the VHS player?


Funny you should ask. I recently removed my dual cassette deck and my VCR from my main system shelves about a month ago, since I hadn't used them in at least a year.

I last used the cassette deck for creating tapes for an old car I had that only had a cassette with no CD player, but that car is gone now.
I last used the VCR for its tuner to provide the ability of watching one program and PVR-ing another, before I had a dual tuner HD-PVR.

It was time................. I put them in their boxes in the basement. I guess I should just trash them...

brucek


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## Mike P. (Apr 6, 2007)

I still have a cassette deck in my rack system that hasn't been used in at least 4 years. As Bruce did, I should remove it as I don't imagine ever using it again.


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

I'll still pop one in occasionally when I'm driving. The home cassette player has been in the basement for many years now.


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## bonehead848 (Jan 21, 2007)

I just bought a car that has one, its the first cassette related device I have owned in something like 10 years. I cant imagine why they are still putting cassettes into cars...


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Still good for 4-track recording on the cheap, but other then that, away with them, I say.


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## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

Why do you want to store them???

Is nice to have a piece of history in your equipment....:whistling:


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## eaglerider94 (Mar 19, 2008)

Funny you should ask. My wife and I took drive :drive: in a late model Buick LaSabre to a wedding yesterday which oddly enough had a AM/FM cassette deck so I grabbed a shoe box full of tapes I recorded a while back. She gave me this odd look and asked "what the is that"? I told her. She again looked at me with this "your a sick man" look. But when I loaded a tape of Pat Matheny's "Falcon and a Snowman" featuring David Bowie she had to admit it sounded pretty good. Next thing I know, she was going thru all of my recordings looking for other music to play as we reminisced on the good old 80's & 90's. 


I also have a pair of DCM Time Window speakers hooked up to to my old Pioneer VSX-9500S receiver in my garage with a nice Yamaha tape deck and sometimes pop in my cassette recordings and I've got to tell you, tell sound pretty good.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

I recorded a bunch of mixed tapes from CD to cassette when I only had a cassette player in my car. I only used the Sony Metal 100min tapes and they always sounded great. My Yamaha tape player/recorder works fantastic and sounds really good for analog. In my opinion better than most mp3's that are available on the net.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

salvasol said:


> Why do you want to store them???
> 
> Is nice to have a piece of history in your equipment....:whistling:


I agree..Plus it looks like you have more operational gear than you really do!! 
On that point, my rack would be 8' high if I put all my old gear in there !!! :bigsmile:


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## Strype (Feb 17, 2009)

I have one that is in my DJ equipment rack (not my theater rack) only so I can make digital copies of any tapes I come across that I want to copy and save .... one copied the tape goes to the dump to join all the AOL cds I threw out over the years.


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## BrianAbington (Mar 19, 2008)

I have not used a cassette since my first CD player installation in my old dodge omni back in 1998.

funny thing though....i do have a lot of fun memories involving cassettes. 
I had a walkman that if you dropped it while it was playing the door would pop open and the cassette would fly out leaving most of the tape in the player. 
I had that happen to my copy of No Doubts Tragic Kingdom...so I took the pencil stuck it in the sporckets and rolled it back in...well I didn't notice it but there was a fold in the tape...so as you would listen to the tape half way through you would hear this weird scratchy sound as the fold passed over the head...then you would hear the opposite side of the album...backwards.

Another one...this kid next door to me stole a copy of a snoop dogg cassette...he wanted me to hear it. So he drags me over to his back yard...brings out his tape player and nothing happens...guess the motor was burned out...so he goes back inside and grabs his brothers Teddy Ruxpen.
For those of you who don't know Teddy Ruxpen was this bear who had a tape player built into his back. His cassettes would play stories about adventure and like that and this would help kids learn to read because there were books that had word for word what the cassette story was. 
Well his mouth was cordonated to move with the sound of his voice....well turns out it moves with any sound.

I tell you what...there is nothing funnier than teddy ruxpens mouth moving to...one two three and too the four...snoop doggy dog and dr dre is at yo door.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

> I tell you what...there is nothing funnier than teddy ruxpens mouth moving to...one two three and too the four...snoop doggy dog and dr dre is at yo door.


That is funny.

Toshiba, and I believe some other manufacturers had a DBX record feature on there decks that added some sort of dynamic headroom that once recorded did not play back on other decks properly. Worked great but did not allow for compatibility particularly if the intention was to use them in the car.


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

My old Dodge Dynasty has a Cassette player/am/fm radio, so i use it all the time. I haven't cleaned it though for a long time, so it doesnt sound quite as good as it used to. I use it with a tape to 3.5mm head-phone jack for my iPod.

Sounds great in some aspects, some aspects it isnt so great.


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## BrianAbington (Mar 19, 2008)

they were originaly great for portability.

if you copied your lps to metal tapes using a highquality tape deck then the SQ wasn't to bad for what it was at the time.


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## Fabricator (Apr 19, 2009)

they were great when i was in 8th grade ( 1979). other than that = junk.


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## Daniela01 (Apr 8, 2012)

I still frequently use audio tape. There are sections of the population that are getting left behind by the complexity of MP3 players and even CD players. Elderly people, mentally challenged people and physically challenged people still benefit from the simplicity of tape and it will be a shame when that disappears completely. 

What I do is the reverse of what is commonly done--I record audiobooks from digital to analog. I have a Sony TC-WE625 that I originally attached to my computer to digitize tape sources. So I just reversed the connections to record from PC.

The cassette tape audiobook selections in the libraries around here are not that great. And I have access to a lot of digitized audiobooks. So I volunteer transferring them to this easier-to-use format. Primarily for individuals in nursing homes. The process is even much simpler than it sounds, I don't have to deal with file sources of varying lengths fitting evenly onto 60, 90, etc minute sides. I just combine all the files into one large file and then use an audio editor to automatically add cue points at 30 or 45 minute intervals, quickly check the cue points and align them into areas of silence then split the file into separate 30 or 45 minute sizes. Then just play and record and go about my business, check in once in awhile to flip or replace a tape and go to the next file, etc.

And the fidelity is excellent of course 

-Daniela


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## MUCHO (Aug 26, 2006)

Stopped buying cassettes in 1989. Had a cassette player until 1996 but hadn't used it in years. Had a VCR until 2005 when I ditched the TV for a PJ.

Have you seen this?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/children-link/


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## ozar (Feb 12, 2012)

tonyvdb said:


> Do any of you still use yours regularly or at least once in a while or has the cassette gone the way of the VHS player?


No, I believe it's probably been around 10 years or more since I last put a cassette tape into a player, so it has certainly taken the VHS route for me.


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

Do they still make casettes?:scratch: What about decks for playing them?:rolleyesno:


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Ive still seen some places selling tapes, Haven't seen a deck in years for sale other than on ebay or Kijiji. Ive got a really nice Yamaha deck but hardly use it now


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## jweed (Dec 26, 2011)

I agree, my metal tape cassettes sound better than mp3's i hear. Only issue I have is tapes ware out, cleaning and demagnetizing heads, and of course the tapes getting eaten. But I sure do miss the ease and convince of making my own tapes.


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

Wow, I have a box of tapes in my closet but no player. Will have to try and find one.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

bxbigpipi said:


> Wow, I have a box of tapes in my closet but no player. Will have to try and find one.


eBay is a great place to look, You can get a really good deck for around $30 My top pick goes to Yamaha. They quite often got great reviews in Consumer report.


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

Thanks good to know.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

My SUV has a cd player as well as a tape deck. Every now and then we put in the oldies (80s music) which we had on tape on long car trips. The sound is still good. It takes us back to the memories of our youth..


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

My 2000 GMC has a CD/Cassette combo. About 2 months ago my kids found a new use for it. They bought an adapter that looks like a cassette tape. You push it into the player just as you would a tape & then the wire that is coming out of it hooks up to their I-phone & they play all their songs through it. So I don't have to upgrade the head unit just yet! Kids have so easy now days!


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

The Cassette adapter has been around for many years but is way better quality than using an FM transmitter like I am stuck using in my van.


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## planetnine (Mar 3, 2009)

Like a previous poster here, I just keep a cassette player for converting customer cassettes to digital. I have some my dad recorded that are nearly 45 years old.

I have used cassette for the hissy and thumpy effects as the head passes over the leader, and for the muddy, distorted sound as a track introduction. Weird to think that for many of us, for years, that was the only way of self-recording 


>


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## ericzim (Jun 24, 2012)

tonyvdb said:


> That is funny.
> 
> Toshiba, and I believe some other manufacturers had a DBX record feature on there decks that added some sort of dynamic headroom that once recorded did not play back on other decks properly. Worked great but did not allow for compatibility particularly if the intention was to use them in the car.


My old Teac has the DBX feature with Parametric EQ which if recording with either feature turned on made listening to tapes in a car unbearable. The unit is still in use for playing back store bought tapes from Goodwill.


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