So…I apologize but I lost track about page 4 of this thread…too much going on...Wanted to chime in but was worried I’d not have the time to say what I want to say. So I make this post in light of a lot of catching up to do.
Let’s all just admit the Philips Compact Cassette format is limited okay? But let’s also, please, consider certain manufacturers took it…way…further than the original instigators of the format intended or thought possible. And even the consumer format far exceeded what historical standards of the consumer open-reel formats achieved. It is portable, it’s analog, and was the shit for a long time. The Philips Compact Cassette is arguably the most accessible format of analog tape recording. And though it is NOT an open-reel format, it is still analog tape and I can recall after years of having Compact Disc and other digital formats available, still enjoying being able to listen to my mix tapes in the cassette deck in my early 1990s car. I am a child of the very early 1970s, so I know plenty of years before there was a consumer digital format. I grew up making faux radio shows with my brother on a Sony TC-630, and dubbing to cassette…doing whacky shit with the SOS functionality…had a Radio Shack portable cassette recorder with built-in condenser microphone. And we were into music. And contrived songs using acoustic drums and my brother’s MicroMoog analog synthesizer…and captured these ideas on analog tape…I was, like. 7 or 8 years old. My ears are tuned to analog recording of the 1970s and 1980s. So if the fact that I have boxes of analog Philips Compact Cassette tapes comprised of mix tapes I made, LP dubs, and a whole lotta recordings off the console at live gigs at which I played drums makes me some sort of audio troglodyte, well, screw you. It sounds good. If your ears are tuned to something different, go ahead and do you. I remember after listening to a lot of CDs and doing early multitrack production using a Digidesign AudioMedia III PCI card…basically being around a lot of early digital audio…putting a dubbed cassette copy of Fleetwood Mac’s “dreams” in the cassette car stereo and thinking “How can that sound so nice? How can I just turn that up on this shitty factory car stereo and it sounds so nice?” Yes, it’s limited. Yes there is tape hiss. Oh no, you’re going to get cancer from the tape hiss (sincere apologies to anybody experiencing cancer treatment or loss of a loved one from cancer…I don’t want to offend, I’m just trying to make an obtuse point). Can we stop arguing about a format that has some limitations and get to the really important question “How does it sound?” This is the most important question pertaining to many things, including this thread, and the answer is variably different for everybody and that’s okay…it’s subjective. But if cassette sounds like ass to you consider what it is you are listening to and to what it is you are using to listen. Realize not everybody hears things the same. @famousbeagle has some amazing 4-track productions…he’s probably tired of me tagging him in this, but he and his wife have some, as far as I’m concerned, “it’s the shit” stuff they did on a Tascam 414. Cassette. So…if you think it’s garbage then go to your happy place and leave the folks that dig the format alone. Like, seriously…if you want to troll and say it sucks then you just look like a total douchebag doing that amidst people that enjoy the format. I have high quality digital interfacing at my disposal…and 1/2” 8-track and 1” 8-track/2” 16-track available. I *still* maintain multiple cassette formats in my midst because I like how it sounds in conjunction with how easy it is to use. Sure…some of it is nostalgia. But that’s not the entirety of it and if you want to minimize it to that, then maybe you’ve got other things you need to talk through.
My current stable of Philips Compact Cassette compatible machines:
Tascam 122B
Tascam 244
Audio Technica AT-RMX64
Tascam 238