Jump to content

I Got You on Tape - Getting Started with Cassette Tapes

You guys have no idea how many times I mistyped ´tape´ as ´rape´. It's not a good idea to play rape. Especially if you're the only one aware that you're doing it. 

 

So you've decided that vinyl records are too mainstream and the sound quality was simply too good? 

All of your friends are now into records, so now you're looking for the next, best thing they've never heard off?

Cassette tapes have heard your calling! Grab your Walkman and let's go on a journey together

 

Ever since the rise of websites like Bandcamp and concepts like Cassette Store Day there has been an increasing interest in cassette tapes as a music format. 

A faux sense of nostalgia is probably also fueling the fire quite a bit.

However, there seems to be a lot of lacking and/or scattered information online. For that reason I decided to gather all of the information and present it to the best of my ability. 

 

What are my reasons for doing this, you probably aren't asking?

Well, I was sick and tired of seeing various pop-news outlets having millennials either fawning over the "rich, analog sound produced by cassette tape" or have them laugh at "old technology". 

I know this won't stop them, but at least it can be a work of catharsis for me. A work that stand so that I can at least say I've done what I could.

It also seemed like all the concrete information is buried in strange corners on the internet, places rarely visited by anyone but nostalgic enthusiasts. 

I'm also one of the few people that never abandoned the cassette tape format for various reasons. In many ways i also hate the format with a burning passion. 

 

So, in this topic I will go through the ins and outs of analog audio cassette tapes. Reel-to-reel tape, Elcaset, Microcassette, Victor Cartridges and digital tape formats have to wait for another day and another thread.

The overall topics will be:

  • The cassette tape itself
  • The cassette player and recording onto tape
  • Digitizing cassette tapes
  • Why cassette tapes might be relevant

 

1. The Cassette Tape

 

1.1 A Bit of History


Cassette tapes were introduced in 1962 by Philips. Due to the low fidelity and very audible hiss it was marketed towards and used in dictation devices.
However, innovation did what innovation does best, so the cassette tape was soon to improved enough upon to recreate music in a satisfactory manner. 
The first pre-recorded music cassette tapes were released in 1965 and in the US in 1966. 
During the 1970's the cassette tape became the portable format of choice in a lot of markets (although, 8 track tapes ruled the early '70s in North America). 
By the late 1980s the cassette format had become the dominate format for music consumption, but that would change fast with the rising market share of CDs.
And that pretty much brings us up to the present day, where cassette tapes are experiencing a small revival after having been dead for several years (atleast in the West). Not as big a revival as vinyl records, but a revival non the less.

1.2 How Does a Cassette Tape Work?


Within the cassette caddy there is a spole of metal coated plastic tape. The metal coating stores the music via magnetic information. 
When the tape in the player, the tape is moved from one spole to another at 1⅞ in/sec. and with this movement the tape is moved past a read head that's capable of translating the magnetic information into an electrical signal. 
That electric signal can then be used to recreate music when passed through an amplifier and speakers.
The tape itself is separated into four tracks, usually translating into having two stereo programs on the tape. One going in one direction and one in another. 
This is why you need to flip the tape half-way through playing the album. 

1.3 Different Types of Cassette Tapes


Now, cassette tapes aren't just one thing. There are many different types of cassette tapes, all different in the material used and the length of the play time. I will try to categorize these as best I can.

Materials
The difference in material refers to the formula of the metal used on the tape. Different materials are used due to cost and certain advantages and disadvantages of different formulas. 
These are the most common formulas.

 

  • Ferric, ferric oxide, Normal or Type I tape: The earliest, cheapest and most common tape type. It uses a coating of, strangely, ferric oxide. While cheap and easily accessible it is also not great for music reproduction. The frequency response rate of a ferric tape is only 50Hz - 16.000Hz, which means that higher frequencies won't be reproduced. To add insult to injury, ferric tapes also have an audible hiss when playing. Ferric type was also fairly low bias, meaning that it would record from all types of home recorders. Most tapes you'll buy today, be they new or old releases, will be on ferric tape.
  • Chrome, chromium dioxide or Type II tape: A later invention that brought some advantages over ferric tape. The frequency response is raised to 20.000Hz, but suffers in the other end with a minimum response of 200Hz, making the bass suffer. However, the tape hiss is greatly reduced. Compared to ferric tape, chrome tape has a fairly high bias, meaning it requires more power to make a satisfactory recording, limiting the amount of recorders that could record to it. 
  • Ferrochrome, ferro-chrome or Type III tape: This was a very short lived cassette type. It tried to remedy the problem inherently present in ferric and chrome tape by combining the two. However, it ran into a varity of issues due to the difference in bias between ferric and chrome. This made it very difficult to record to and therefor difficult to use for anything. In all practical applications, the ferrochrome tapes did reproduce both treble and bass rather well, but ended up muddling the mid-range.
  • Metal or Type IV tape: The last, best and most expensive tape type. Metal tapes uses a pure metal coating rather than the oxidized coating of the previous tape types. This translates to the tape being able to accept a louder signal, meaning that the tape hiss will be a lower volume and therefor closer to being inaudible. However, the disadvantages were many. First and foremost the price of a metal tape was many times higher than the price of ferro or chrome tapes, and the metal coating made tape wear on the read head much worse than previous formulations. 
  • Cobalt tape: A later innovation that sought to fix the tape hiss. In most ways it's similar to ferric tape, but it can record a signal that's 4db louder, meaning a decrease in audible hiss. 

There were also formulation that don't fall into any of these categories. Every tape manufacture from BASF to TDK tried and tested different formulation with differing success.
The different tape types will also have different names from the one I've listed. While I list the most common you can still find them with different names.
Due to the bias differences between tapes, blank tapes will have knockout holes determining what type of tape it is.
FLA2EBVHH2VMRIC.MEDIUM.jpg
From top to bottom: Ferric, chrome, metal, metal without write-protect notches.

Tape length
You can of course get cassette tapes in pretty much every length imaginable, but there were (and still are) certain standards of length. These standards will only be relevant for blank cassette tapes, since pre-recorded tapes will usually be spoled for the length of the album. 

  • C46: A 46 min. tape, translating to 23 min. on each side of the tape.
  • C60: 60 min. of playtime. 30 min. on each side.
  • C90: 90 min. of playtime. 45 min. on each side. 
  • C120: 120 min. of playtime: 60 min. on each side. It should be noted that due to physical limitation, any tape that's longer than C90 need to be physically thinner. Making them more fragile. If you're running a C120 tape it's not recommended to fast forward or rewind the tape.
  • C180: 180 min. of playtime. 90 min. on each side. This format came out during the end of the cassette format and was very short lived. Mainly due to the time it came out and partially becuase it was very fragile. 

You can also get tapes with an infinite playing time. These tapes will loop over and over again, usually in a 2-5 min. loop. 

 

1.4 Noise Reduction


I was debating whether or not to put this here or in the section dedicated to the players. But it ended up here.
While one way to combat tape hiss was to change the tape formulation, another way was to boost different frequencies and mask others during the duplication and playback process. 
There were countless ways manufactures tried to do this, some more successful than others, but I'll try and go through the most popular ones. Listing all of them would be an exercise in futility, so I will be missing some. 
It should also be said that most, if not all, modern cassette releases won't have any kind of noise reduction on it. For some reason that got lost when cassette tapes began its comeback.
 

Dolby noise reduction
This was by far the most common type of noise reduction. It was widely supported by both cassette duplication plants and equipment manufactures. 
Basically put, Dolby noise reduction works by pre-emphasizing low volume frequencies above 1KHz during the duplication and then de-emphasizing the same frequencies during playback.
This translates into the dynamic range being sacrificed during duplication to raise the recording over the noise floor of the tape, but the dynamic range will then be reestablished during playback along with the tape hiss being lowered. 

For home use there were four main types of Dolby noise reduction: Dolby B, C, S and HX/HX Pro (which was licensed from Bang & Olufsen).
Dolby B, C and S work in the same way, but offered gradual improvement. Dolby C was better than B and Dolby S was better than C. 
The improvements were mainly in how much the signal could be pre-emphasized during duplication and de-emphasized during playback. 
Dolby B offered a 9db noise reduction while Dolby S offered 24db of noise reduction. 

The main issue with Dolby noise reduction is that it requires compatible equipment in both ends. The duplication plant need to use Dolby when duplicating and the end users cassette player needs to be able to "decode" Dolby. 
If you playback a Dolby C cassette tape in a non-Dolby player it will sound sound bright and hollow. This is not that prevalent on Dolby B, which meant that Dolby B ended up as the standard for more than 20 years.

HX/HX Pro (HX being short for Headromm EXtention) is different from the other Dolby noise reduction methods, since it doesn't require the end user's player to be compatible. 
All the noise reduction is done by the duplication plant. 
HX/HX Pro works by lowering the bias on higher frequencies of the signal being put on the tape, meaning the signal can be a higher volume without saturating the tape. 

This then translates to the overall music volume being comparably louder than the tape hiss.

DBX noise reduction
DBX noise reduction worked in much the same way as Dolby's noise reduction system. 
However, DBX worked through the entire frequency spectrum, not just on frequencies above 1KHz. DBX also offered up to 30db of noise reduction.
But a DBX encoding system was expensive to implement in a duplication plan and required specialized equipment to be played back. Without the specialized equipment the cassette tape will just sound like noise, which is why it never took off.
DBX later found limited success with their DBX Discs, which were specially encoded vinyl records. 


High Com, High Com II and High Com III
This was a noise reduction system developed by Telefunken and then licensed out to a variety of equipment manufactures. 
High Com works on the same principle as Dolby and DBX, but made use of companding instead of specialized encoding and decoding. 
This meant that the noise reduction worked with all cassette tapes, not just tapes that were specially encoded. 
Since it required specilized circuitry within the playback device, it translated into more expensive cassette players. 
All of the iteration of High Com were prone to audio artifacts, although, the three band companding High Com III iteration did eliminate a lot of the artifacting. 

1.5 Tape Degradation and Destruction


Tape will degrade over time, that is an unfortunate fact of life. However, I will argue that the rumors of tape degradation have been exaggerated.
It is true that tapes will lose a little bit of it's information each time it's played, This is due to the tape rubbing against the play head, thereby rubbing off a bit of the metal coating. 
But it's not like this is going to kill your tapes after 10-15 play runs. Personally, I have tapes that have been played way over 100 times in various players, and all of them still play fine. They might not sound as good as they did, but they are still perfectly listenable.

 

If you decide to copy a cassette tape to another, there will also be a degradation of the sound quality. 

That is just the nature of copying analog media. 

Another topic that gets brought up a quite a bit is tapes being eaten by the cassette players
Again, I will argue that this is highly exaggerated. Consider this: For almost 10 years cassette tapes was the highest selling audio format in the US. Would people have keep returning to cassette tapes if their machines kept eating the tape?
I would say no. 
The stories most people have about their tapes being eaten have some common denominators. The player is usually in a car (or other hot area) and/or it haven't been cleaned for ages.
This leads to the pinch roller (smaller rubber roller that guide the tape in the tray) to become sticky and therefor grab the tape instead of guiding it. 
If you just keep your tapes in your home, out of the sun and put them in a clean-ish player your tapes won't get eaten. 

 

1.6 Digital Bin

 

What is this? A talk of digital in a topic on analog cassette tapes?

Hear me out. 

 

When cassette tapes were nearing their end, innovation was needed to persuade the consumer to buy cassette tapes rather than CDs. 

One of these innovation was the digital bin at the duplication plant.

 

A digital bin simply refers to the duplication plant using a digital master recording rather than an analog master tape.  

This might sound like a small thing, but it was a rather big deal. 

When a duplication plant uses a an analog master tape, the master tape itself will degrade each time it's played.

The master tape used will also be a copy the original master tape (or maybe even a copy of a copy). 

All of this lead to prerecorded cassette tapes not always sounding the same. Person A's tape might sound noticeably better than Person B's.

 

This is eliminated when a digital bin is used, since a digital master file won't degrade each time it's player nor will it degrade if copied. 

 

2 The Cassette Player

 

Cassette players luckily aren't that complicated, but most of them are old. Therefor this part will shorty describe cassette players in a generalized manner, go into more special features found on some cassette players, go into things to look out for when buying old, used cassette players and lastly how to record to cassette blank tapes. 

Although, you can still find cassette players that are being produced today, but those are rarely worth getting. 

2.1 The Cassette Player: An Overview

The basic idea of a cassette player is to translate the magnetic information on a cassette tape into an electric signal that can be used to produce sound. 
This is done by a read head in the cassette player, which is capable of creating an electrical signal from a magnetic pulse. 

A lot of older cassette decks (stationary cassette players) will advertise having more than one head. They will either advertise as having 2 or 3 heads. 
Now, only one of those heads will be a play head, the second will be a record head for recording to black tapes and the third head will be an erase head meant for erasing cassette tapes.  

In relation to the play head is auto reverse. Autoreverse is, shocker, a feature that allows the tape to be played on both sides with you having to manually fli it. 
This has been done in a variety of ways in the past. Humans are nothing if not lazy.
There was the Philips cassette chute or the Akai mechanical arm, which is a marvel of engineering.
The most common autoreverse method was simply rotating the play head 180° and play the tape in the opposite direction.
However, just rotating the play head does come with some disadvantages. Having the play head rotate can cause it to become misaligned with the tape, meaning the audio quality will suffer. 
When looking at old, used cassette players I would advice against players with autoreverse. Not only can the play head be misaligned, but an autoreverse feature will also mean more moving parts, and more moving parts mean more points of failure. 

Another thing often advertised on cassette players will be the type of noise reduction the machine is capable of processing (see section 1.4).
This will more than likely be different types of Dolby, or maybe even just Dolby B.  

Another option to look for is a bias selector. Although, this is only relevant if the player will be used for recording. 
A bias selector will let you set the type of tape that will be recorded to and let the record head use the adequate amount of power for that tape type. 

An important thing to mention is the drive type. Some cassette player will use a direct drive system, where the spols of the cassette are being turned directly by a motor. However, most players will make use of a belt drive system. 
The problem with belt driven systems are the frailty of the belts, especially old belts. That's why a lot of '70s and '80s cassette players are sold as not working. The belts in them have either become slack or have disintegrated entirely.
But belt are more or less easy to replace.

On certain higher-end or late era machine you can also find track skip features and blank skip features. 
Track skip will allow the user to skip to a certain track on the tape. This is achievable by fast forwarding the tape will letting the play head ´listen´ for the silent parts between tracks and use that to determine which track it's on. 
Since some songs do contain silent, or at least very quiet parts, this is not an infallible system, but it's still a neat feature. 
Blank skip will allow the cassette player to skip the black spot that's usually present at the end of a tape, making a playthrough a bit faster. 

On some high-end decks an auto adjust and auto calibration is also an option.
These will allow the deck to automatically set the recording level based on the type of tape and the volume of the audio stream. 
Most decks, especially later era decks, will have a selector switch. 

The last thing to know is about is cleaning the cassette player. 
The most important thing to clean is the tape tray itself and the head(s) in the tray. This should be done with isopropyl alcohol.
Some people will also adhere to demagnetizing your tape heads and other metal parts in the tray. 
In theory, this should have an effect since the magnetic tape will magnetize the metal and this can cause ´false´ signal to be created in the play head. 
I have tried this in the past and I haven't heard any noticeable difference, but I guess it's worth trying.

2.2 Recording to Cassette Tapes

There are a few things that will be needed for recording on cassette tapes.

  • A cassette player with an input. 
  • Blank cassette tapes. You could theoretically record to prerecorded tapes if you break off the record protect notches.
  • A line-level analog signal or dual tray cassette player. 

When recording unto cassette tapes, you'll need to manually wind the tape to the recordable part. Else you'll miss the beginning of the first song. 
You will also need to adjust the recording levels (unless you deck has auto adjust or auto calibration). If you don't, then the signal might come in too hot and saturate the tape, which won't make for a good recording. 
Other than that timing will be your friend. You will need to press play on the device you're recording from and the play and record button on the cassette player at roughly the same time. 
Some dual tray cassette players will also have have a ´high speed dubbing´ feature. This will allow the tape in tray 1 to be duplicated to a blank tape in tray 2 very quickly, but the sound quality usually suffers a lot from this. 

It is also important to select the right bias for the tape you're recording to. Some cassette players will be able to do this automatically, while other will rely on a manual selection.

A lot of cassette players will also have microphone inputs, allowing you to either create a spoken word recording or talk over music you're recording. 

 

3 Digitizing a Cassette Tape

 

So, you've decided to buy cassette tapes but not a Walkman? And you still want to listen to your tapes on the go? 
Well...

 

Digitizing cassette tapes isn't overly complicated. 
If you have a cassette player, be it a portable Walkman-style player or a cassette deck you will be able to plug it directly into the line-in on your PC or Mac and record from there using Audacity (or similar recording program).
All you need is an RCA-to-TRS cable for a deck or a TRS-to-TRS cable for a portable player. 
However, if you're using a portable player to digitize your cassette tape you might need to play around with the volume on the player and the recording volume on your computer.
The output on the player might be amped and therefor it will be louder than line-level. 

There are also dedicated equipment for digitizing cassette tapes. 
Every generic audio equipment manufacture will have have small USB cassette player, that can connected directly to a computer via a USB cable. 
Some of these players will also be able to make digitized versions of a cassette tape and store it on internal storage or an SD card. 
The quality of these players varies a lot. I have limited experience with them, but some have been OK and some have been atrocious.
I still do prefer to do it from an actual player.

 

4 The Relevancy of Cassette Tapes

 

So, this whole write up started out with me saying that cassette tapes were making a comeback, we then took a sharp turn into boring technical details and now we're back to were anyone should care. 

Why should we, you, I care about cassette tapes? Why should we use a format that, for the most parts, has a terrible frequency respons, that people have created catapults to make practical and that engineers spend 30 years making somewhat as good as vinyl records?

Well, here are some reasons.

4.1 The Audio

Looking past all the noise reduction techniques and all the different types of tapes.
I'm going to talk about ferric tape with no noise reduction. Just like God intended. 
Any recording made this way will have a hiss, but that hiss can be a good thing. Yes, you heard me right, but it will depend on the music.

If you're listening to noise music or ´necro´ - style metal, a ferric hiss can be thought into the recording, mixing and mastering of the album and help build up the atmosphere. 
But this reason only goes that far. It's not a reason as applicable to, say, Vivaldi as it is to Darkthrone.

4.2 The Price and Convenience

This will be compared to other physical media. Nothing really beats the price and convenience of a digital download (Damn you, iTunes!) 

The price of a duplicated cassette tape is still quite a lot cheaper than the price of a professionally pressed CD. Why? Mainly due to the music industry still overcharging for CDs and not doing the same for cassette tapes.
So tapes does give you a cheaper way to get a physical copy of an album. 
It also make it cheaper for independent artist to have their music distributed on a physical medium. 

What about the convenience? Well, I'm mostly talking about transportation. Be it by mail or in a car. 
Both the cassette tape itself and the cassette case are quite a lot more sturdy than a CD or a jewel case, making shipping more secure.

4.3 Cassette Culture

Strange as it may sound there is an entire culture centered around cassette tapes. 
As previously mentioned, there is a noise scene that tend to release on cassette tape exclusively. but it doesn't end there. There's an entire scene of electronic artists releasing their music exclusively to tape. 
Everything from techno, over industrial to dungeon synth can only be found on cassette tape. 
There's an entire culture of music and people to be discovered. 

And this is not to mention the demo culture that's prevalent in metal.
A lot of smaller bands and sables are still releasing demos exclusively. If you want a physical copy (not that there is an official digital version) of Rouges Chapelle by Chambre Froide you're pretty much forced to buy it on cassette tape. 

I guess there's also the hipster cred that comes with cassette tapes, so if you're into that then go for it, tiger!

 

5. End of Side 1

 

Well, here's the end. I'm glad you made it this far, or maybe you just scrolled down. Either way I'm happy I could waste some of your time.  

Have we learned anything? Probably not. 

Has it been entertaining? You got to be kidding me, of course it haven't. 

 

Edit: Wow, reading back I must have been in a really bad mood when i started writing this. There's a stunning lack of my usual Northern sarcasm. Oh, well....

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I prefer Betamax...

Cor Caeruleus Reborn v6

Spoiler

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K

CPU Cooler: be quiet! - PURE ROCK 
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste 
Motherboard: ASRock Z370 Extreme4
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ RGB 2x8GB 3200/14
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive 
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage: Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: EVGA - 970 SSC ACX (1080 is in RMA)
Case: Fractal Design - Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 750W with CableMod blue/black Pro Series
Optical Drive: LG - WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit and Linux Mint Serena
Keyboard: Logitech - G910 Orion Spectrum RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech - G502 Wired Optical Mouse
Headphones: Logitech - G430 7.1 Channel  Headset
Speakers: Logitech - Z506 155W 5.1ch Speakers

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

thumbs up

 

you answered my question on HX PRO

Ryzen 5 3600 stock | 2x16GB C13 3200MHz (AFR) | GTX 760 (Sold the VII)| ASUS Prime X570-P | 6TB WD Gold (128MB Cache, 2017)

Samsung 850 EVO 240 GB 

138 is a good number.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, ARikozuM said:

I prefer Betamax...

actually I prefer laserdisc

Ryzen 5 3600 stock | 2x16GB C13 3200MHz (AFR) | GTX 760 (Sold the VII)| ASUS Prime X570-P | 6TB WD Gold (128MB Cache, 2017)

Samsung 850 EVO 240 GB 

138 is a good number.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

I prefer Betamax...

Betamax ain't got nothin' on an Edison Cylinder.

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Volbet said:

You guys have no idea how many times I mistyped ´tape´ as ´rape´. It's not a good idea to play rape. Especially if you're the only one aware that you're doing it.

NGL, I had to stop reading this and take a break because this sentence killed me. :P

Main rig on profile

VAULT - File Server

Spoiler

Intel Core i5 11400 w/ Shadow Rock LP, 2x16GB SP GAMING 3200MHz CL16, ASUS PRIME Z590-A, 2x LSI 9211-8i, Fractal Define 7, 256GB Team MP33, 3x 6TB WD Red Pro (general storage), 3x 1TB Seagate Barracuda (dumping ground), 3x 8TB WD White-Label (Plex) (all 3 arrays in their respective Windows Parity storage spaces), Corsair RM750x, Windows 11 Education

Sleeper HP Pavilion A6137C

Spoiler

Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.4GHz, 4x8GB G.SKILL Ares 1800MHz CL10, ASUS Z170M-E D3, 128GB Team MP33, 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 320GB Samsung Spinpoint (for video capture), MSI GTX 970 100ME, EVGA 650G1, Windows 10 Pro

Mac Mini (Late 2020)

Spoiler

Apple M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB, macOS Sonoma

Consoles: Softmodded 1.4 Xbox w/ 500GB HDD, Xbox 360 Elite 120GB Falcon, XB1X w/2TB MX500, Xbox Series X, PS1 1001, PS2 Slim 70000 w/ FreeMcBoot, PS4 Pro 7015B 1TB (retired), PS5 Digital, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo Wii RVL-001 (black)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I had a feeling that you would make this topic at some point and you did it very well :) 

Before you buy amp and dac.  My thoughts on the M50x  Ultimate Ears Reference monitor review I might have a thing for audio...

My main Headphones and IEMs:  K612 pro, HD 25 and Ultimate Ears Reference Monitor, HD 580 with HD 600 grills

DAC and AMP: RME ADI 2 DAC

Speakers: Genelec 8040, System Audio SA205

Receiver: Denon AVR-1612

Desktop: R7 1700, GTX 1080  RX 580 8GB and other stuff

Laptop: ThinkPad P50: i7 6820HQ, M2000M. ThinkPad T420s: i7 2640M, NVS 4200M

Feel free to pm me if you have a question for me or quote me. If you want to hear what I have to say about something just tag me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

NGL, I had to stop reading this and take a break because this sentence killed me. :P

I'm glad my time was not completly wasted. Atleast I can make people laugh or make the uncomfortable (I'm not sure which).

 

6 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

I had a feeling that you would make this topic at some point and you did it very well :) 

Yeah, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I did promise to make it today and I always keep my promises:

https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/5244-volbet/?status=166157&type=status

 

And thank you.

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Volbet said:

Yeah, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I did promise to make it today and I always keep my promises:

https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/5244-volbet/?status=166157&type=status

 

And thank you.

 

wonder if they are going to pin it, there is some quite useful info here.

Before you buy amp and dac.  My thoughts on the M50x  Ultimate Ears Reference monitor review I might have a thing for audio...

My main Headphones and IEMs:  K612 pro, HD 25 and Ultimate Ears Reference Monitor, HD 580 with HD 600 grills

DAC and AMP: RME ADI 2 DAC

Speakers: Genelec 8040, System Audio SA205

Receiver: Denon AVR-1612

Desktop: R7 1700, GTX 1080  RX 580 8GB and other stuff

Laptop: ThinkPad P50: i7 6820HQ, M2000M. ThinkPad T420s: i7 2640M, NVS 4200M

Feel free to pm me if you have a question for me or quote me. If you want to hear what I have to say about something just tag me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Dackzy said:

wonder if they are going to pin it, there is some quite useful info here.

Nah. I highly doubt it will be pinned. Cassette tapes aren't that big of a market. I also think this is the first thread on cassette tapes I've seen on the forum, so I don't think the demand is there.

 

I also don't really care if it gets pinned. The information will still be there and I have it linked in my ´About Me´ section, so people can still find it if they're intersted. 

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Volbet said:

Nah. I highly doubt it will be pinned. Cassette tapes aren't that big of a market. I also think this is the first thread on cassette tapes I've seen on the forum, so I don't think the demand is there.

 

I also don't really care if it gets pinned. The information will stil be there and I have it linked in my ´About Me´ section, so people can still find it if they're intersted. 

 

You could put it in your signature, but yeah cassette tapes aren't really a huge thing like vinyl records have become lately, maybe they will be if hipsters start "hyping" them

Before you buy amp and dac.  My thoughts on the M50x  Ultimate Ears Reference monitor review I might have a thing for audio...

My main Headphones and IEMs:  K612 pro, HD 25 and Ultimate Ears Reference Monitor, HD 580 with HD 600 grills

DAC and AMP: RME ADI 2 DAC

Speakers: Genelec 8040, System Audio SA205

Receiver: Denon AVR-1612

Desktop: R7 1700, GTX 1080  RX 580 8GB and other stuff

Laptop: ThinkPad P50: i7 6820HQ, M2000M. ThinkPad T420s: i7 2640M, NVS 4200M

Feel free to pm me if you have a question for me or quote me. If you want to hear what I have to say about something just tag me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Dackzy said:

You could put it in your signature, but yeah cassette tapes aren't really a huge thing like vinyl records have become lately, maybe they will be if hipsters start "hyping" them

Ohh, the hipster hype is already happening. 

 

I guess I could put it in my signature. I have signatures disabled on my profile, so I keep forgetting that they exist. 

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Volbet said:

Ohh, the hipster hype is already happening. 

 

I guess I could put it in my signature. I have signatures disabled on my profile, so I keep forgetting that they exist. 

 
 

oh really, I didn't know they were hyping them. Guess it hasn't happened in my neck of the woods yet.

You do know that your signature says "Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere", right?

Before you buy amp and dac.  My thoughts on the M50x  Ultimate Ears Reference monitor review I might have a thing for audio...

My main Headphones and IEMs:  K612 pro, HD 25 and Ultimate Ears Reference Monitor, HD 580 with HD 600 grills

DAC and AMP: RME ADI 2 DAC

Speakers: Genelec 8040, System Audio SA205

Receiver: Denon AVR-1612

Desktop: R7 1700, GTX 1080  RX 580 8GB and other stuff

Laptop: ThinkPad P50: i7 6820HQ, M2000M. ThinkPad T420s: i7 2640M, NVS 4200M

Feel free to pm me if you have a question for me or quote me. If you want to hear what I have to say about something just tag me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

oh really, I didn't know they were hyping them. Guess it hasn't happened in my neck of the woods yet.

You do know that your signature says "Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere", right?

They were selling new mainstream-ish releases on cassette at my local record store the last time I was there. 

There's also Cassette Store Day, various cassette-only lables releasing hipster fooder and Forbes Magazine is writting articles about the rising sale numbers of cassette tapes. 

The hype is real. 

 

Yeah, I do know my signature says that. Ir's an old inside joke I had with a friend of mine.

I disabled signatures last year, since a lot of signatures were annoying me right after the forum update. 

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Volbet said:

They were selling new mainstream-ish releases on cassette at my local record store the last time I was there. 

There's also Cassette Store Day, various cassette-only lables releasing hipster fooder and Forbes Magazine is writting articles about the rising sale numbers of cassette tapes. 

The hype is real. 

 

Yeah, I do know my signature says that. Ir's an old inside joke I had with a friend of mine.

I disabled signatures last year, since a lot of sigamtures were annoying me right after the forum update. 

 

huh, guess it is just my city... You learn new things every day :) 

I think I get what you mean, those signatures with a lot of colors and just in your face are kinda annoying to me. I don't mind signatures if they have relaxed faded colors.

Before you buy amp and dac.  My thoughts on the M50x  Ultimate Ears Reference monitor review I might have a thing for audio...

My main Headphones and IEMs:  K612 pro, HD 25 and Ultimate Ears Reference Monitor, HD 580 with HD 600 grills

DAC and AMP: RME ADI 2 DAC

Speakers: Genelec 8040, System Audio SA205

Receiver: Denon AVR-1612

Desktop: R7 1700, GTX 1080  RX 580 8GB and other stuff

Laptop: ThinkPad P50: i7 6820HQ, M2000M. ThinkPad T420s: i7 2640M, NVS 4200M

Feel free to pm me if you have a question for me or quote me. If you want to hear what I have to say about something just tag me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×