6 ms·

I go to one or two shows a month with smaller touring bands, generally shows with less than 100 people. Almost all of them have at least one tape now, some are

I go to one or two shows a month with smaller touring bands, generally shows with less than 100 people. Almost all of them have at least one tape now, some are tape only. I think it's kind of silly, like no one remembers what a pain rewinding is. I even have a friend who runs an all tape label. Edit: I bet that's what people older than me thought when I was buying vinyl in 1999.

mikeash 11y ago
Is there some advantage to it, or are they just being weirdly retro?
- dec0dedab0de 11y ago
  One time I was ranting to a guy selling tapes about how I hate tapes, and he said yeah me too, but the kids love it.
  - msandford 11y ago
    The previous generation talks about how vinyl sounds better ("warmer") than CDs. Tape is our generation's vinyl. Eventually when CDs are no longer widely produced (44.1kHz sample rate isn't ideal for the high end) and everyone has switched over to 96kHz or 192kHz at 24 or 32 bits or whatever the 4K TV equivalent in audio is, the next generation will wax nostalgic over CDs and the horrendous loudness wars that made everything sound "better" through dynamic range compression. I mean, I wouldn't bet THAT much money on it. But it definitely seems like the next cycle of the trend.
    - earlz 11y ago
      CDs are digital though.. I mean, sure there is the mastering, but you don't get the same analog subtleties that everyone pines for, be it tape or vinyl. I don't think CDs will ever be regarded as a "better format" for listening. I'm surprised tape is, since it's more limited than vinyl. Vinyl can theoretically encode higher quality audio than CDs in it's own analog way.. of course, it'll all vary with the actual precision it was cut with as well as the precision of the turntable needle. On top of this, some inherit restrictions in Vinyl actually made the loudness wars impossible. I don't recall the exact thing that causes it, but apparently if the signal is poorly mastered for vinyl (ie, too loud), the needle can literally jump out of the groove of the record.
      - msandford 11y ago
        I believe the driving force of this phenomena is nostalgia and envy of the experiences that those older than you had. I don't think actual superiority makes any sense at all, because during the early days of CDs they were mastered well and sounded amazing; The Dark Side of the Moon is an album that hasn't embraced the loudness wars and it's clearly superior to tape or vinyl. But if you really like some "historic" band that your elders got to listen to on the radio and go to their shows as they were coming up, and listen to their albums as they were released, you're never going to be able to have those experiences. But you can listen to them on the same format that they originally released their work. It might be argued that the band, producer, studio, mastering guys, etc would have optimized the album for the media it was originally released on, but I suspect that the differences are fairly small. As your ability to reproduce sound gets better, no information is lost. It's lost during mastering for a lower fidelity medium, not in the transfer from a lower fidelity medium to a higher one. This is a psychological phenomena not a technical one.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Can vinyl really encode higher quality audio even in theory? I seem to recall that the noise floor for vinyl is around 60dB, while the quantization noise imposed by a CD is 96dB. It looks like the grooves on a record are a few tens of micrometers tall. If we say they have 65µm of potential variation, then you'd need to be able to resolve features down to a single nanometer to match a 16-bit digital source. I don't think a needle can get anywhere close to that, and I don't even know if the molecules would be that small.
        msandford 11y ago
        If you played it with a laser, maybe. But I suspect that as soon as the needle's been over it a few times it's polished any of the really fine details right off. These machines exist, but they are NOT cheap. http://elpj.com/ltfeaturesandspecs/ http://elpj.com/ltfeaturesandspecs/
    - bweitzman 11y ago
      ~44kHz is actually pretty ideal, anything significantly higher can actually be harmful to the audio quality: http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
      - msandford 11y ago
        > All signals with content entirely below the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate) are captured perfectly and completely by sampling. Not even close to the truth. It captures the presence of the signal, but only through blind luck does it capture the correct amplitude of the signal. Why? The phase angle of the signal versus the phase angle of the sampler actually matter as you approach the Nyquist frequency. Why is this? You have a sine wave. You sample it once at the top, and once at the bottom, which is just in line with Nyquist. Perfect. This is because your sampling phase angle and your signal phase angle are aligned so that you get accurate amplitude. But what if you then shift the relative phase angles by 90 degrees? Suddenly your signal is gone completely! Because you happen to be sampling when the sine wave is crossing zero. This is the inaccurate amplitude I talked about earlier. The range of amplitudes is between 0 and the real amplitude. But if you 2x oversample instead of using the Nyquist frequency, what's the worst-case scenario? You sample at 45, 135, 215 and 305 degrees and don't quite capture the full amplitude of the signal. But at this point you're off by at most 30% or so. And of course it might be spot on, but the max error is 30%. Now what happens when you 4x oversample? The max possible error goes down again. People who suggest that 192kHz audio is worse than 44.1kHz or 48kHz need further education in actual signal processing. Also using equipment that was designed to properly low-pass the 192kHz DAC output properly (you don't really need to do this with 44.1!) would eliminate the theoretical problems that are outlined in the article.
        bweitzman 11y ago
        I don't know enough about DSP to get into a debate about this, but I'm going to trust that Monty, who is one of the foremost experts on digital audio, is correct with what he's talking about. Plus the wikipedia article on the nyquist-shannon sampling theorem [0] suggests the same. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- eastbayjake 11y ago
  I have a 1988 BMW 325i with the original stereo + cassette deck. I don't want to replace the stereo because I'd like to keep it in original condition, so I've been in the market for cassettes! There are a surprising number of older cars -- and some not that old -- where cassette decks were the base model option unless you paid for a CD changer.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Those fake cassette tapes that have a headphone plug work pretty well, though. Then you can use the audio source of your choice. The real problem is cars made in the few years after CDs completely took over but before the iPod did. A lot of those only do CD and radio and there's nothing good to hook in to for other audio sources, besides using an FM transmitter, or jacking directly into the FM antenna. I owned a car like this and I wished it had tape player!
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      If your car has a stereo with just CD and radio, but with a CD changer option, you can get aftermarket kits that let you hook up your ipod/phone/mp3 and play music. Some can even pass the steering wheel next/back/pause etc. commands to your device.
    - kw71 11y ago
      A lot of those cars have a changer option on the factory stereo which means an emulator can provide an aux input. There are some adapters on the commercial market for this and lots of arduino-style projects published on the web. So far this year I built two such adapters for family and friends.
  - kw71 11y ago
    I think you are smart to not have hacked one of those aftermarket stereos that kids buy into such an awesome car. You aren't stuck with cassettes - you can upgrade without looking like a retard. The radios that came in e32 and e34 match the colors and legend typefaces. Then you can make or buy an aux input adapter that emulates alpine mbus.
toxican 11y ago
I don't get it. Wouldn't it be easier/cheaper for them to produce CDs? Or is it an "indie cred" type thing?
- dec0dedab0de 11y ago
  I think there is the general feeling that CDs are the same thing as a download, and if you're going to buy something physical it should be different than the download. Along that line of thinking tapes are much cheaper than vinyl, at least in short runs.
  - toxican 11y ago
    I follow that logic, but I don't necessarily agree with it. If they want to give an album a little more umpf, maybe include some stickers, exclusive tracks, etc. with the CD? If I went to a concert and they only had cassette copies of their albums, I wouldn't be walking out of there with a copy of their album because I don't own anything capable of playing it anymore. edit: spelling
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Wont surprise me if most people buy it as a collectible doo-dad to display rather than actually listen too, pretty much anyone i know that bought the Guardians of the Galaxy tape thing just has it on their display wall of geekdom heck I'm not sure most of them even thought that it would actually play.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Consider that tapes require more materials and that the production capacity is near non-existent there is no way they are cheaper than CD's they are probably several times more expensive than CD's these days. Early on CD's were more expensive but you have completely different fabrication process and royalties to deal with, but today nope. So it is nothing more than an "indie" thing and like many comments on YT said thank the hipsters and they are kinda right. I also wonder if there are any bands that do analogue recording since i don't think a single studio exists that isn't digital these days and if it does then considering the price of that rare gear and the expertise needed to operate it it would also be much much more expensive than traditional recording.
OneOneOneOne 11y ago
Vinyl makes more sense to me. I monkeyed around with cassettes for a little while but type II always sounded muted. Never played with type IV. Also, my older cassettes seemed to degrade. Even older commercial tapes sounded bad with time.
- oqnet 11y ago
  I was told they demagnetize over time, not sure if that's BS or not though.
dghughes 11y ago
They should release it on wax cylinders with a bonus bowler hat.

mikeash 11y ago

Is there some advantage to it, or are they just being weirdly retro?

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
One time I was ranting to a guy selling tapes about how I hate tapes, and he said yeah me too, but the kids love it.
- msandford 11y ago
  The previous generation talks about how vinyl sounds better ("warmer") than CDs. Tape is our generation's vinyl. Eventually when CDs are no longer widely produced (44.1kHz sample rate isn't ideal for the high end) and everyone has switched over to 96kHz or 192kHz at 24 or 32 bits or whatever the 4K TV equivalent in audio is, the next generation will wax nostalgic over CDs and the horrendous loudness wars that made everything sound "better" through dynamic range compression. I mean, I wouldn't bet THAT much money on it. But it definitely seems like the next cycle of the trend.
  - earlz 11y ago
    CDs are digital though.. I mean, sure there is the mastering, but you don't get the same analog subtleties that everyone pines for, be it tape or vinyl. I don't think CDs will ever be regarded as a "better format" for listening. I'm surprised tape is, since it's more limited than vinyl. Vinyl can theoretically encode higher quality audio than CDs in it's own analog way.. of course, it'll all vary with the actual precision it was cut with as well as the precision of the turntable needle. On top of this, some inherit restrictions in Vinyl actually made the loudness wars impossible. I don't recall the exact thing that causes it, but apparently if the signal is poorly mastered for vinyl (ie, too loud), the needle can literally jump out of the groove of the record.
    - msandford 11y ago
      I believe the driving force of this phenomena is nostalgia and envy of the experiences that those older than you had. I don't think actual superiority makes any sense at all, because during the early days of CDs they were mastered well and sounded amazing; The Dark Side of the Moon is an album that hasn't embraced the loudness wars and it's clearly superior to tape or vinyl. But if you really like some "historic" band that your elders got to listen to on the radio and go to their shows as they were coming up, and listen to their albums as they were released, you're never going to be able to have those experiences. But you can listen to them on the same format that they originally released their work. It might be argued that the band, producer, studio, mastering guys, etc would have optimized the album for the media it was originally released on, but I suspect that the differences are fairly small. As your ability to reproduce sound gets better, no information is lost. It's lost during mastering for a lower fidelity medium, not in the transfer from a lower fidelity medium to a higher one. This is a psychological phenomena not a technical one.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Can vinyl really encode higher quality audio even in theory? I seem to recall that the noise floor for vinyl is around 60dB, while the quantization noise imposed by a CD is 96dB. It looks like the grooves on a record are a few tens of micrometers tall. If we say they have 65µm of potential variation, then you'd need to be able to resolve features down to a single nanometer to match a 16-bit digital source. I don't think a needle can get anywhere close to that, and I don't even know if the molecules would be that small.
      - msandford 11y ago
        If you played it with a laser, maybe. But I suspect that as soon as the needle's been over it a few times it's polished any of the really fine details right off. These machines exist, but they are NOT cheap. http://elpj.com/ltfeaturesandspecs/ http://elpj.com/ltfeaturesandspecs/
  - bweitzman 11y ago
    ~44kHz is actually pretty ideal, anything significantly higher can actually be harmful to the audio quality: http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
    - msandford 11y ago
      > All signals with content entirely below the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate) are captured perfectly and completely by sampling. Not even close to the truth. It captures the presence of the signal, but only through blind luck does it capture the correct amplitude of the signal. Why? The phase angle of the signal versus the phase angle of the sampler actually matter as you approach the Nyquist frequency. Why is this? You have a sine wave. You sample it once at the top, and once at the bottom, which is just in line with Nyquist. Perfect. This is because your sampling phase angle and your signal phase angle are aligned so that you get accurate amplitude. But what if you then shift the relative phase angles by 90 degrees? Suddenly your signal is gone completely! Because you happen to be sampling when the sine wave is crossing zero. This is the inaccurate amplitude I talked about earlier. The range of amplitudes is between 0 and the real amplitude. But if you 2x oversample instead of using the Nyquist frequency, what's the worst-case scenario? You sample at 45, 135, 215 and 305 degrees and don't quite capture the full amplitude of the signal. But at this point you're off by at most 30% or so. And of course it might be spot on, but the max error is 30%. Now what happens when you 4x oversample? The max possible error goes down again. People who suggest that 192kHz audio is worse than 44.1kHz or 48kHz need further education in actual signal processing. Also using equipment that was designed to properly low-pass the 192kHz DAC output properly (you don't really need to do this with 44.1!) would eliminate the theoretical problems that are outlined in the article.
      - bweitzman 11y ago
        I don't know enough about DSP to get into a debate about this, but I'm going to trust that Monty, who is one of the foremost experts on digital audio, is correct with what he's talking about. Plus the wikipedia article on the nyquist-shannon sampling theorem [0] suggests the same. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
eastbayjake 11y ago
I have a 1988 BMW 325i with the original stereo + cassette deck. I don't want to replace the stereo because I'd like to keep it in original condition, so I've been in the market for cassettes! There are a surprising number of older cars -- and some not that old -- where cassette decks were the base model option unless you paid for a CD changer.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Those fake cassette tapes that have a headphone plug work pretty well, though. Then you can use the audio source of your choice. The real problem is cars made in the few years after CDs completely took over but before the iPod did. A lot of those only do CD and radio and there's nothing good to hook in to for other audio sources, besides using an FM transmitter, or jacking directly into the FM antenna. I owned a car like this and I wished it had tape player!
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    If your car has a stereo with just CD and radio, but with a CD changer option, you can get aftermarket kits that let you hook up your ipod/phone/mp3 and play music. Some can even pass the steering wheel next/back/pause etc. commands to your device.
  - kw71 11y ago
    A lot of those cars have a changer option on the factory stereo which means an emulator can provide an aux input. There are some adapters on the commercial market for this and lots of arduino-style projects published on the web. So far this year I built two such adapters for family and friends.
- kw71 11y ago
  I think you are smart to not have hacked one of those aftermarket stereos that kids buy into such an awesome car. You aren't stuck with cassettes - you can upgrade without looking like a retard. The radios that came in e32 and e34 match the colors and legend typefaces. Then you can make or buy an aux input adapter that emulates alpine mbus.

toxican 11y ago

I don't get it. Wouldn't it be easier/cheaper for them to produce CDs? Or is it an "indie cred" type thing?

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
I think there is the general feeling that CDs are the same thing as a download, and if you're going to buy something physical it should be different than the download. Along that line of thinking tapes are much cheaper than vinyl, at least in short runs.
- toxican 11y ago
  I follow that logic, but I don't necessarily agree with it. If they want to give an album a little more umpf, maybe include some stickers, exclusive tracks, etc. with the CD? If I went to a concert and they only had cassette copies of their albums, I wouldn't be walking out of there with a copy of their album because I don't own anything capable of playing it anymore. edit: spelling
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Wont surprise me if most people buy it as a collectible doo-dad to display rather than actually listen too, pretty much anyone i know that bought the Guardians of the Galaxy tape thing just has it on their display wall of geekdom heck I'm not sure most of them even thought that it would actually play.
dogma1138 11y ago
Consider that tapes require more materials and that the production capacity is near non-existent there is no way they are cheaper than CD's they are probably several times more expensive than CD's these days. Early on CD's were more expensive but you have completely different fabrication process and royalties to deal with, but today nope. So it is nothing more than an "indie" thing and like many comments on YT said thank the hipsters and they are kinda right. I also wonder if there are any bands that do analogue recording since i don't think a single studio exists that isn't digital these days and if it does then considering the price of that rare gear and the expertise needed to operate it it would also be much much more expensive than traditional recording.

OneOneOneOne 11y ago

Vinyl makes more sense to me. I monkeyed around with cassettes for a little while but type II always sounded muted. Never played with type IV. Also, my older cassettes seemed to degrade. Even older commercial tapes sounded bad with time.

oqnet 11y ago
I was told they demagnetize over time, not sure if that's BS or not though.

dghughes 11y ago

They should release it on wax cylinders with a bonus bowler hat.