Audio cassette tapes are making a comeback.

[Mr.Marion]

I honestly missed vinyl and happily brought it back into my life this year. Tapes are an old friend I outgrew, we had some great times but I ain't yearning for a lunch date.

I see vinyl Albums with a digital code being the future of music collecting.
Downloads being the easiest way to carry music and Vinyl being the oldest and most endearing physical from.

[acrovader]

Plus with going digital, I can create playlists. I did tons of mix tapes back in the day and still have them out of nostalgia reasons. But a playlist is so versatile where I can create one for mellowing out, or working out, etc, with ease. Until the price of vinyl goes down, I can't afford it. I miss the gatefold covers and colored vinyl, but until I can find a job that will allow for such luxuries, it's digital for now. Of course, I can also make a MP3 file out of vinyl, too, if need be.

[huedell]

I honestly missed vinyl and happily brought it back into my life this year. Tapes are an old friend I outgrew, we had some great times but I ain't yearning for a lunch date.

I don't see how Anyone could yearn.

It's like buying a rotary phone, but worse, as, at least, a rotary phone has a unique aesthetic quality to it.


I don't see a cassette revival truly happening---at least not with any longevity NEAR the rebirth of vinyl.

There's absolutely nothing notably advantageous about them.

At least with 8-tracks there were thicker better sounding tapes that broke less often and which you could traverse 2x faster than a cassette tape with the unique player options.

[4NDR01D]

A couple years from now "the kids" will be all about VHS. Yawn.

[ZMOQ]

Yuck! I can't imagine *wanting* cassette tapes to return. At the time (pre-iPod/iTunes), cassette tapes made sense so you could tape your albums and remove all the duds, or have something to play in your car or at the beach. Or if there was a live Cheap Trick concert being broadcast on the radio, like on KSAN FM. But, I can't see why anyone would even want cassette tapes to return, given their limitations:

Tape head azimuth problems. A lot of cassette decks don't have exactly the same azimuth adjustment, so what was recorded on one tape deck might sound 'watery' or dull on another.

Tape speed. Sure, the official cassette tape speed is 1-7/8 ips, but there is considerable variation in the actual playback speed of different tape players.

Noise, noise, noise. Even Dolby noise reduction can't completely remove the additional noise (mostly tape hiss) that gets introduced into the tape.

Loss of high frequencies. No way to get around that. Even if you used the best quality tape, there would still be a certain amount of high frequency drop off.

Only sequential access. Why would one want to press a 'rewind' or 'ffw' button ever again to find the song you want to hear now?

I was a tape enthusiast from my teen years (late 70's) up until the time I bought my first iPod (2004). Once I went digital, I never looked back. Eventually, all those tape compilations that I spent hours making were tossed in the trash. The Cheap Trick live radio shows were transferred to CD.

At least one good thing came about from my intense interest in cassettes. Remember when there were serious legal proposals to add additional taxes on cassette tapes (circa 1990), to allegedly recompense record companies for "loss of revenue from illegal taping"? Well, I bought cases of my favorite standard bias (Type 1), high grade cassette tapes at the time. Maxell UD-1, Maxell UD-XL1, TDK AD-X and TDK AD, etc. I later sold them on ebay, sometimes at a good profit. I had not realized that sealed, Type 1 high grade cassette tapes from the 90's were still in demand!

[acrovader]

Yuck! I can't imagine *wanting* cassette tapes to return. At the time (pre-iPod/iTunes), cassette tapes made sense so you could tape your albums and remove all the duds, or have something to play in your car or at the beach. Or if there was a live Cheap Trick concert being broadcast on the radio, like on KSAN FM. But, I can't see why anyone would even want cassette tapes to return, given their limitations:

Tape head azimuth problems. A lot of cassette decks don't have exactly the same azimuth adjustment, so what was recorded on one tape deck might sound 'watery' or dull on another.

Tape speed. Sure, the official cassette tape speed is 1-7/8 ips, but there is considerable variation in the actual playback speed of different tape players.

Noise, noise, noise. Even Dolby noise reduction can't completely remove the additional noise (mostly tape hiss) that gets introduced into the tape.

Loss of high frequencies. No way to get around that. Even if you used the best quality tape, there would still be a certain amount of high frequency drop off.

Only sequential access. Why would one want to press a 'rewind' or 'ffw' button ever again to find the song you want to hear now?

I was a tape enthusiast from my teen years (late 70's) up until the time I bought my first iPod (2004). Once I went digital, I never looked back. Eventually, all those tape compilations that I spent hours making were tossed in the trash. The Cheap Trick live radio shows were transferred to CD.

At least one good thing came about from my intense interest in cassettes. Remember when there were serious legal proposals to add additional taxes on cassette tapes (circa 1990), to allegedly recompense record companies for "loss of revenue from illegal taping"? Well, I bought cases of my favorite standard bias (Type 1), high grade cassette tapes at the time. Maxell UD-1, Maxell UD-XL1, TDK AD-X and TDK AD, etc. I later sold them on ebay, sometimes at a good profit. I had not realized that sealed, Type 1 high grade cassette tapes from the 90's were still in demand!

Aah. A Cheap Trick fan! They were nominated for the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame today. Go vote!

[Mikey]

As a kid of the mid 70's the only cassette player I had was the classic cassette recorder with microphone.

Music cassettes always sounded nasty on them so I assumed that's the best quality cassettes were.

It wasn't until I got my first true stereo in 1978 that I discovered cassettes actually sounded decent - dependeing on what player you played them on.

For a short time around then I had a battle of the cassette vs 8-track.

In the end I picked 8-track as best sound quality after records and larger reel to reel tape.

Besides sound quality with a cassette it was always a pain in the azz going to a particular song you wanted to hear.