Cassettes making a comeback?

This is wild...remember my "Cassettes are still a great format" post from a couple of weeks ago? Well, I honestly had no idea that according to some people, cassette tapes are actually having somewhat of a resurgence in popularity. Check out this article from the Telegraph in the UK...

Rewind to the 1980s as the cassette tape makes a comeback

I wonder if this means someone will start making decent cassette decks again. Not likely though. I mistakenly attempted to buy a "new" cassette deck several years back. What a mistake that was...I figured that since cassette deck parts wear easily over time, it might be good to get a newer one with zero miles on it. I know, I can't believe I'm even admitting this. It was awful! Amazing amounts of noise coming from the deck, terrible S/N ratio, and audible wow & flutter. Cost me $100, but I returned it. Bought an old Technics deck for $40 and it blew the pants right off the other deck (which will remain nameless). Actually, then I found at second Technics deck at the dump for free, and that was also far superior to the newer deck.

Anyway, back to the tapes themselves...it will be interesting to see whether other manufacturers besides TDK and Maxell will get back in the game. I saw a still-sealed Maxell Metal tape at a thrift store recently that had to be from the early 90s...maybe I'll go back and see if it's still there.

Cassettes are still a great format

I know, call me crazy, but I think there is still a lot to like about cassettes. People complain about the sound quality and durability and, fair enough, they don't approach the sound of a good LP. But I've owned some tapes that sounded pretty darn good, and found a lot of them in cutouts bins for about three bucks. Like a bunch of Frank Zappa tapes...Uncle Meat, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Absolutely Free, Sleep Dirt, One Size Fits All...these cost me next to nothing, and not only is the music great, they sound good! I remember years ago when suddenly all of David Bowie's Ryko cassettes were showing up in the 3 dollar bin and I was in heaven.

And that's just pre-recorded tapes. Boy, I'll tell you...I recorded some great TDK SA-90s in my day. Man, if you got the levels just right...hoo boy! You ended up with one good sounding copy of your favorite LP or radio broadcast. There was something so satisfying about the process, and then when the final result made it all worthwhile...just pure magic. You just can't have the same experience burning a CD, I'm sorry. I mean, I still do it, and I'm not a total anti-CD audio purist, but I can really get into cassette culture.

Plus, the blank cassettes just looked so cool. How many blank CDs look cool? I can't think of one. Check out tapedeck.org and if you're not drooling over the array of beautiful multi-colored audio artifacts from yesteryear...well, then I guess you're on the wrong blog. ;-)