3 ms·

Rose colored glasses history and all that, but goddam, were cassettes awful, even when brand new.

by dist-epoch 3y ago

criddell 3y ago
Late 70’s and early 80’s vinyl was pretty awful too.
pupppet 3y ago
Just going to crank up my favourite song… HSSSSSSSS
- resolutebat 3y ago
  It's the second one, so FFWD FFWD, nope looks like it's the 3rd one, FFWD FFWD, crap too far, REWIND REWIND, shit, this is the wrong cassette, EJECT, aagh the tape got stuck and now it's everywhere, I need to find an octagonal pencil so I can spool it back
Spivak 3y ago
I think this argument is interesting because the people buying them are largely young people who never had them as kids so there's some aspect of it that isn't nostalgia. I have a modest collection of vinyl and it's mostly just me not needing another band t shirt and wanting to throw some money at bands I like.
- wilsonnb3 3y ago
  It's just your standard back to basics, reject modernity part of the cycle that always comes after technological advancement
the_third_wave 3y ago
Good-quality cassettes on a reasonable cassette deck sounded "good enough", especially when played on the same equipment as they were recorded on. They may not have given 100% reproduction of the input signal and may have introduced some noise - although Dolby B/C noise reduction mostly dealt with that problem - but that did not matter. Cassettes made it possible to record what you heard - music from the radio, those LP records you borrowed from friends or the library, later even data - and reproduce it more or less as often as you wanted, when you wanted it. To this day I remember which song came after some random song I hear played somewhere because I happened to tape that on my cassette deck when I was in my teens, fingers poised on the play + record buttons on my cassette deck, waiting for that song to start. I do not remember the less than 100% fidelity, tape hiss, wow and flutter or other similar defects because they mattered far less than the fact that I got to record 'my own music'. I still have those tapes in the barn somewhere as well as the cassette deck I used to record it, it'll need new rubber belts before it can play anything again but one day I'll get those and play those old tapes again. Not for the fantastic reproduction but because of the fact that these are my tapes. Cassettes made that possible. Now pre-recorded cassettes, yes, those were less than optimal. They were not popular where I lived (the Netherlands) and I never got one, preferring to buy LP records which sounded better and came in nice sleeves etc.

Rose colored glasses history and all that, but goddam, were cassettes awful, even when brand new.

criddell 3y ago

Late 70’s and early 80’s vinyl was pretty awful too.

pupppet 3y ago

Just going to crank up my favourite song… HSSSSSSSS

resolutebat 3y ago
It's the second one, so FFWD FFWD, nope looks like it's the 3rd one, FFWD FFWD, crap too far, REWIND REWIND, shit, this is the wrong cassette, EJECT, aagh the tape got stuck and now it's everywhere, I need to find an octagonal pencil so I can spool it back

Spivak 3y ago

I think this argument is interesting because the people buying them are largely young people who never had them as kids so there's some aspect of it that isn't nostalgia. I have a modest collection of vinyl and it's mostly just me not needing another band t shirt and wanting to throw some money at bands I like.

wilsonnb3 3y ago
It's just your standard back to basics, reject modernity part of the cycle that always comes after technological advancement

the_third_wave 3y ago

Good-quality cassettes on a reasonable cassette deck sounded "good enough", especially when played on the same equipment as they were recorded on. They may not have given 100% reproduction of the input signal and may have introduced some noise - although Dolby B/C noise reduction mostly dealt with that problem - but that did not matter. Cassettes made it possible to record what you heard - music from the radio, those LP records you borrowed from friends or the library, later even data - and reproduce it more or less as often as you wanted, when you wanted it. To this day I remember which song came after some random song I hear played somewhere because I happened to tape that on my cassette deck when I was in my teens, fingers poised on the play + record buttons on my cassette deck, waiting for that song to start. I do not remember the less than 100% fidelity, tape hiss, wow and flutter or other similar defects because they mattered far less than the fact that I got to record 'my own music'. I still have those tapes in the barn somewhere as well as the cassette deck I used to record it, it'll need new rubber belts before it can play anything again but one day I'll get those and play those old tapes again. Not for the fantastic reproduction but because of the fact that these are my tapes. Cassettes made that possible. Now pre-recorded cassettes, yes, those were less than optimal. They were not popular where I lived (the Netherlands) and I never got one, preferring to buy LP records which sounded better and came in nice sleeves etc.