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With the right tape deck and the right tape formulation, cassettes could get incredibly good, with SNRs over 60dB. Not bad at all considering that vinyl also de
by anyfoo 5y ago
With the right tape deck and the right tape formulation, cassettes could get incredibly good, with SNRs over 60dB. Not bad at all considering that vinyl also degraded much faster from playing than tape did.
It's just that a lot of people had cheap tape decks and even cheaper tapes, hence the bad reputation nowadays.
- throwawayboise 5y agoBut the cassettes that the major record labels produced for the consumer market were not that good.
- stormbrew 5y agoYou say that like a lot of records weren't cheap and shitty too. Outliers are always more memorable. In the end I think portability had more to do with both the reputation and the success of cassettes. Doesn't matter how good the tape is, a walkman in the 80s was never going to sound as good as a hifi, but that's what people wanted.
- anyfoo 5y agoConvenience, too. This overlaps a lot with portability, but cassettes made it feasible to listen to your music in, say, the kitchen, a picnic, or, most critically I think, the car. If good sound quality is also within reach then (the various Dolby NR systems helped with that), cassettes made a lot of sense overall.