Sex, Lies and Audiotape

[Beck]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7302589677

The seller says this is like Quantegy 457. This is Radio Shack's budget tape -- really awful stuff. Why they called it Concertape I'll never know. It sold for about $2.99 new. I wouldn't take all 40 of these for the opening bid.

Radio Shack did make a really respectable reel-to-reel tape. It was distributed in a blue box labeled "Supertape" and a purple/pink/white box just labeled "Studio Quality Recording Tape." It was still on shelf for $10.00 or so until last year. Radio Shack even once sold a nice open reel deck called the TR-3000. It was an X-3 clone made for them by TEAC.

 

[analogelectric]

Any tape medium I've gotten from Radio Shack over the last "X" years (either cassette or small open-reel) had been the worst crap ever - HISSSSSS central.

General maintenance parts (standard resistors and other common component level parts) are okay if they happen to be in-stock (in-store) but that's pretty much it.... (okay with the exception of the sweet bullhorn I picked up several years ago).

Other than that it seems like a "buy it now" for $250 is someone that thought it would be a good idea to sell tape based on "the panic" but really it is too late.

So yeah, Beck - I'm agreeing with you, basically... backing it up.

-- Adam Lazlo

 

[Beck]

Any tape medium I've gotten from Radio Shack over the last "X" years (either cassette or small open-reel) had been the worst crap ever - HISSSSSS central.

General maintenance parts (standard resistors and other common component level parts) are okay if they happen to be in-stock (in-store) but that's pretty much it.... (okay with the exception of the sweet bullhorn I picked up several years ago).

Other than that it seems like a "buy it now" for $250 is someone that thought it would be a good idea to sell tape based on "the panic" but really it is too late.

So yeah, Beck - I'm agreeing with you, basically... backing it up.

-- Adam Lazlo

The Shack has gone down hill fast since I was young. I'm not sure how they plan to stay in business now that they've abandoned their traditional base -- electronic hobbyists and ham radio crowd. The parts selection is deplorable --getting smaller every day. The cassette supertape was terrible. The higher quality reel tape was once comparable to other non-backcoted Japanese and German offerings. That may have changed since I was buying it. I still have some in the blue box that isn't bad at all compared with UD35-90 or BASF LP35. But I wouldn't compare even that to 457.