How Many People Are Using Cassettes Here?

Random minidisc related comment.... because I still find this story fun.....

In 1998 I had done my homework and was ready to jump back into multi-track recording after taking a few years off. I loved my Porta-One. But the digital era was here and I was super excited about the new tech. Pretty sure it was the Sony MDM-x4 that I had settled on. So me and my checkbook headed down to the closest GC at the time with the intention of leaving with the Sony. The salesperson walked to the back and brought this thing up and was getting ready to check me out when this dude walks up next to me rolling a bunch of boxes on a dolly. The guy point blank askes me.... "You getting ready to buy that?". Long story short... it was the local Roland rep who was just bringing in the brand new Roland VS840. So he and I get into a discussion about features and comparisons to the Sony. It was a no brainer. The Roland was a far superior machine. It was the amazing amount of on-board effects that was the HUGE difference. Done. I left with the Roland.:-)

I still have that first gen. VS840. Works perfectly. But it is funny to consider that even that machine recorded to the now extremely limited 100MB zip discs. Of course it had bounce and V-track capability - but you had to be careful about how much data your track contained. But still... that machine was remarkable for the time. To me anyway.
 
I know I'm being harsh. It just seemed like a lot of tech was thrown at MD to make it sound good. It was a niche market for that format. DAT was less popular than MD however. Ive seen a lot of the Sony ES MD Decks and they are impressive. It just didn't wow me enough to want to buy a deck and research the format more. I'm sure in the right circumstances MD would be a nice format to own. It just doesn't have the allure of cassettes, but this is just me.

Yes I do work on cassette decks, and im in California. Shipping from the UK would be not cost effective. I'm working on 16 decks currently in the shop

Paul
 
Thank you Paul. To go back to the previous question? Yes, I WOULD still use cassette for Radio 3 grabs if I had a deck that worked!
Hmm...I should really get lazy A in gear and plumb in one of my MD machines. The discs never got dirty or scratched and NEVER tangled and jammed a mechanism! MD was THE media for ICE, only Big Business Politics stopped its growth IMHO.

Dave.
 
I had cassette recorders from about age 12, first portables, then upgraded. Had Dolby B, then C, also Dbx II, the whole journey of getting better sound....
Later, doing my own music, I went into digital Tascam units like the 2488. Currently using a DP24SD with outboard gear.

Along the way, I worked with Teac/Otari/Tascam decks, Nagra field recorders, recorded on a Scully 1-inch 8-track for one project and got to hear 24-track machines through studio monitoring systems, so my "base" of comparison is consumer/pro tape sound from the 70s on.
I currently own a two-track Studer 807, MkII; I also still have about 75 cassettes, most of which have been digitized.

To the point:
It's fine to like something, like a format of tape or film. It's fine to think warm thoughts about where you used to....and so on.
I do it when I hear the stereo cassette recordings of my grandmother's 75th birthday party from '75, clear as a bell, because it is a voice recording.
I don't do it when I listen to a piano recording I made with my (then) Teac-510. The deck was fairly new and in peak shape, the cassette high grade, yet the wow/flutter was still too much. Re-did the recording with a beaten-up Sony 850 two-track reel-to-reel, and even with that old deck, the speed stability was greatly improved.
The physical realities of tape sizes/speeds are what they are, yet many seem to disagree, even though the facts are as old as tape itself.

It would make for a more balanced and pleasant conversation if folks would more readily acknowledge the "food-chain of quality" along with their own preferences (and ears). Not talking about just here, other forums as well.
As wonderful as the top Nakamichi decks are, a number of their owners seem to be like pit bulls if you dare suggest that anything better could possibly exist, regardless of the laws of Physics.

My 807 is not a point of boasting; I bought it for the sound quality and tape handling, having had a Teac X-1000 before. The 807 is the bottom of the line for Studer; it is dwarfed by machines like the A80 mastering deck, yet the 807 still made the Teac feel like a pretty toy by comparison. Everything has its place.

The ideal cassette format, the one that could honestly lay higher claims, was the Elcaset. Higher speed, wider tape...now that could have been fun.
As usual, convenience won over quality.

After all this, yes, I like my old cassettes for occational listening in the car. It's the same reason I can watch and enjoy my Super-8 home movies from the '70s and marvel at the quality of German lenses and 24 fps in that format, without getting carried away and starting to argue that "it's as good as 16/35 mm"!
I like pleasant memories as much as anyone, but unlike the Lovin' Spoonful, I don't believe in magic... :P

C.
 
I hear you Cosmic. I still think Fireball XL-5 was the ultimate in sci-fi. Star Wars, Close Encounters or Avatar don't come close to invoking the memories being 10 yrs old and sitting on the floor in front of a B/W 15" TV with rabbit ears on a Saturday morning.
 
Random minidisc related comment.... because I still find this story fun.....

In 1998 I had done my homework and was ready to jump back into multi-track recording after taking a few years off. I loved my Porta-One. But the digital era was here and I was super excited about the new tech. Pretty sure it was the Sony MDM-x4 that I had settled on. So me and my checkbook headed down to the closest GC at the time with the intention of leaving with the Sony. The salesperson walked to the back and brought this thing up and was getting ready to check me out when this dude walks up next to me rolling a bunch of boxes on a dolly. The guy point blank askes me.... "You getting ready to buy that?". Long story short... it was the local Roland rep who was just bringing in the brand new Roland VS840. So he and I get into a discussion about features and comparisons to the Sony. It was a no brainer. The Roland was a far superior machine. It was the amazing amount of on-board effects that was the HUGE difference. Done. I left with the Roland.:-)

I still have that first gen. VS840. Works perfectly. But it is funny to consider that even that machine recorded to the now extremely limited 100MB zip discs. Of course it had bounce and V-track capability - but you had to be careful about how much data your track contained. But still... that machine was remarkable for the time. To me anyway.
Click to expand...
Recently, a video of a complete upgrade of the Roland vs-840ex device appeared.


 
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