Does anyone collect old cassetes?

darkdubh

Just wondering.People are always collecting old vinyl records.But does the same hold for cassetes?I have a cassete copy of Rory Gallagher Live in Europe from 1972 and it might just pass as a collectors item.

partyatmygaff

Cassetes are pretty much the lowest of the low when it comes to quality. Vinyl would probably be the only thing you could call collectable. The sound quality of Vinyl is still better than CDs because its analog.

Run_to_da_hills

I dumped my entire collection a few years back. In the 80's & 90's I invested in the best equipment to play these things on, including the Sony D6C Pro Walkmann.

When I would buy a new release I would keep the master and record it on to a blank for use.

Sound quality wouldn't be a patch to the basic Mp3 player of today. Dolby N R used to take the background hiss away but would also sacrafice sound quality, they also became stretched and distorted.

It was also a very quick format to be dropped by DJ's as navagating was a nightmare alligning numbers.

Good riddence to the system. The sleeves make up a nice collage for framing on a wall.

nlgbbbblth

Started buying music in 1981 - always vinyl, never cassettes. To this day I still buy records weekly - along with CDs.

Only cassettes I had were ones I got through the NME.

Cassettes did serious harm to vinyl sales from 1982 onwards - a fact that a lot of people conveniently fail to remember. Instead they point the finger at CDs.

Could never understand the attraction with cassettes - fine for taping LPs or making mixtapes but not for buying.

Ironically my self-imposed lifetime cassette ban was broken earlier this year. I ordered a second hand CD copy of Billboard's Rock'n'Roll Hits 1958 on Amazon Marketplace - but I mistakenly ordered from the cassette listing so one arrived instead of a CD. Sealed.

Still haven't opened it.

Physical formats rule.

bonerm

I grew up with music (and computer games!) on cassette so I'll always have a soft spot for the the little plastic boxes of magnetic tape. Same goes for video cassettes. Love just the feeling of holding them in my hands (you can't get that buzz with an mp3 - even a DVD/CD/HDD etc). Takes me right back to childhood.

The only "original" stuff I ever had on cassette tho a partwork storybook series called "Story Teller" so I'll have them for keeps forever on cassette. Most of my cassettes were copys or recordings so they were just thrown out when the replacement cd/mp3 was obtained.

Plus I finally digitised my last vcr tape just today so otherwise I am offically digital from this day onwards!

carchaeologist

Vinyl FTW!!:)

lord lucan

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

Started buying music in 1981 - always vinyl, never cassettes. To this day I still buy records weekly - along with CDs.

Only cassettes I had were ones I got through the NME.

Cassettes did serious harm to vinyl sales from 1982 onwards - a fact that a lot of people conveniently fail to remember. Instead they point the finger at CDs.

Could never understand the attraction with cassettes - fine for taping LPs or making mixtapes but not for buying.

Once the walkman became widely available that sounded the death knell for vinyl. Being able to buy a tape,play it as soon as you'd bought it on the way home from town on the bus,that was what people wanted. Only serious audiophiles continued buying vinyl. Portability and functionality ruled over sound quality.

BostonB

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

....Could never understand the attraction with cassettes - fine for taping LPs or making mixtapes but not for buying.....

Have to remember there was no other portable format. You can't carry Vinyl around with you. I remember having a cassette walkman than took 4 AA batteries and still wouldn't last 3 hours. By the time the Discman arrived the Walkman could fit in your pocket, and a Discman couldn't. TBH CD players were never that portable they are constrained by the size of the CD. Likewise Not everyone, had space in a bedroom for a Vinyl player and loads of records but you would for a cassette player. MiniDisc was probably the best alternative, but it was too expensive and the DRM killed it.

So cassettes ticked a lot of boxes.

I had loads of them and kept them for years. But eventually I had to accept they had degraded to a point they were unlistenable. Also getting decent Cassette walkmen by then was impossible. no one made them, and all mine had broken eventually. I digitised the best/rarest cassettes to MP3 and dumped the lot.

Incidentally a good cassette can sound much better then a poorly mastered reissue CD's on a bad CD player or MP3 player. A lot of portables these days have dire sound and tweaked EQ's to give you too much bass. You notice it if you play old classic rock stuff that you know well and half the music is missing because of the EQ.

kelle

I hate CDs, the slightest scratch or mark makes them inoperable, while a cassette can take a lot more abuse. I never had any problem with the sound from cassettes - guess I'm not too fussy. I have stacks of cassettes, and play them from time to time. They've lasted a lot longer than a lot of my CD's.
I miss not being able to buy albums on cassettes.

Dyr

CD's are what made me so happy about digital formats, I hate CD's inability to take abuse (anyone remember the boasts about CD's robustness when they first came out?) but more importantly, I hate the sh*tty brittle cases that they come in. My old cassetes are still hanging in there, I can't say the same for most of my CD's of the same vintage.

carchaeologist

lord lucan wrote: »

Once the walkman became widely available that sounded the death knell for vinyl. Being able to buy a tape,play it as soon as you'd bought it on the way home from town on the bus,that was what people wanted. Only serious audiophiles continued buying vinyl. Portability and functionality ruled over sound quality.

True,but you can still by lots of modern albums on vinyl,whereas tapes have been consigned to the rubbish bin of history.

lord lucan

carchaeologist wrote: »

True,but you can still by lots of modern albums on vinyl,whereas tapes have been consigned to the rubbish bin of history.

Vinyl has had a resurgence recently,a lot of bands are releasing new material on vinyl as well as download and remastering old albums for release on vinyl.

Good article here:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1702369,00.html

DublinWriter

lord lucan wrote: »

Vinyl has had a resurgence recently,a lot of bands are releasing new material on vinyl as well as download and remastering old albums for release on vinyl.

Which is sad because they are initially recording and mastering on digitial...

...it's CD-gate all over again!

Ah Well

kelle wrote: »

I hate CDs, the slightest scratch or mark makes them inoperable, while a cassette can take a lot more abuse. I never had any problem with the sound from cassettes - guess I'm not too fussy. I have stacks of cassettes, and play them from time to time. They've lasted a lot longer than a lot of my CD's.
I miss not being able to buy albums on cassettes.

That's where MiniDiscs if they had taken off/got cheaper would have been cool ... I still have a very limited collection of MiniDiscs and a JVC with MD player which I love ... MDs, far tougher than and much smaller than CDs .... a great concept that never got there

chakotha

I had loads of tapes and they went into the bin a few years ago too.

I have found that CD's that are scratched and jump when played are usually fine when ripped and played off the computer.

So now.

partyatmygaff

DublinWriter wrote: »

Which is sad because they are initially recording and mastering on digitial...

...it's CD-gate all over again!

Depends on who's doing the producing. A lot of people still record with analog. In fact, analog mixers and analog equipment is still sold alongside digital recording equipment.

nlgbbbblth

chakotha wrote: »

I had loads of tapes and they went into the bin a few years ago too.

I have found that CD's that are scratched and jump when played are usually fine when ripped and played off the computer.

So now.

This is true. Won the Beg! Scream! Shout! soul box on ebay a few years back just before it started going for silly money. Discovered a nasty scratch on one of the discs. All my players skipped that track. Burned a CDR that plays perfectly.:P