What do you think of the quality of various brands of cassettes that you have kept for decades? It was not what I expected when I bought them......Ampex brand squeel.....Memorex jam.....Radio Shack Supertape is very good but Concertapes sound muddy, more so over the years....Kmart cheapo 3 for $2.97 are good......some off brands like that were super cheap still sound good. So why are some of the more expensive tapes so bad? TDK and Maxell are still sounding good but since they cost more I expected that.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Quality of cassettes brands over the years
- Thread starter stevations
- Start date
Prais said:
Nothing ever sounds "great" on AM. The best you can get from AM is "OK".
I won't dispute that MAXELL top-of-the-line cassettes are very good, and are equal to or better than anything else on the market. But if you're playing the music on AM radio, what difference does it make if you have great cassettes or only good cassettes? Once the sound goes out the AM tower, it's pretty much reduced to mediocre at best.
talk_dude asked "what difference does it make if you have great cassettes or only good cassettes?"
Plenty. ENDURANCE. The monke, er, a, broadcasting school graduates
we had working could try to abuse them, drop them, slam them, and
otherwise subjected them to their usual slobbering - but the Maxell's played well for about 5 years. Then we sold the place and the new owner went satellite.
I would say they were "idiot proof," but didn't want to convey any
disrespect to idiots.
Plenty. ENDURANCE. The monke, er, a, broadcasting school graduates
we had working could try to abuse them, drop them, slam them, and
otherwise subjected them to their usual slobbering - but the Maxell's played well for about 5 years. Then we sold the place and the new owner went satellite.
I would say they were "idiot proof," but didn't want to convey any
disrespect to idiots.
Reel-to-reel tapes have some of the same issues. I've seen tapes that, because of the backing/manufacture went bad pretty fast, squeeking on the machine and leaving lots of residue on the heads and capstans. Then, at one of the stations I'm at, they digitized old program tapes from the early 1950s, and kept the tapes. The tapes still sound great, although they must be handled with care. When I get around to putting music on CD-R's, I'm going to put them on CDs specifically made for music and not generic data discs. You are flirting with loss of content over time with the data discs.
johnbasalla said:
Would that it were so easy, John.
The only difference between "data" CD-Rs and "music" CD-Rs is that the "music" ones had a royalty fee paid on them (thus allowing them to be burned in standalone CD recorders.)
But both still use the same dye-based CD-R technology that's allegedly now having problems with longevity.
The only way to put your music on the kind of "music CDs" you're thinking of is to have them produced the same way commercial CDs are, stamped from metal masters. I doubt that's within your budget!
H
hornet61
Guest
Scott Fybush said:johnbasalla said:
Would that it were so easy, John.
The only difference between "data" CD-Rs and "music" CD-Rs is that the "music" ones had a royalty fee paid on them (thus allowing them to be burned in standalone CD recorders.)
But both still use the same dye-based CD-R technology that's allegedly now having problems with longevity.
The only way to put your music on the kind of "music CDs" you're thinking of is to have them produced the same way commercial CDs are, stamped from metal masters. I doubt that's within your budget!
I thought they had fixed the Bleed thru problem with CD's, by the late-90's.
When I was in college I didn't have much money so I bought a bunch of K-Mart 90 minute cassettes in the 3-pack for recording shows and airchecks at my college radio station. Cheap tapes, but I kept them in boxes and they still play fine after 25-30 years. ;D
The worst were Memorex from the seventies and early 80's because the foam pressure pad breaks down over time. Plus the shells are sealed together. So to fix those tape you had to carefully glue it back together or put it in a new shell. Same with Scotch, those Highlanders were sorry tapes.
Best ones were TDK, Maxell, BASF and Sony. But its a shame cassette quality has really gone downhill in the past 10 years. I cant find high bias tape anymore, just normal bias TDK D's, Maxell UR's and Sony HF.
The worst were Memorex from the seventies and early 80's because the foam pressure pad breaks down over time. Plus the shells are sealed together. So to fix those tape you had to carefully glue it back together or put it in a new shell. Same with Scotch, those Highlanders were sorry tapes.
Best ones were TDK, Maxell, BASF and Sony. But its a shame cassette quality has really gone downhill in the past 10 years. I cant find high bias tape anymore, just normal bias TDK D's, Maxell UR's and Sony HF.
Many of my old cassette tapes went through the Tennessee flood of 2010, yet they still play!
I'm having a pre-senior moment here...Does anyone remember the el cheapo brand of cassette (I think they made videotapes, too) that had sort of a rainbow pattern on the label? As I type, I'm thinking it might have been called Certron. Does that sound right?
LibertyNT said:
I don't know if Polaroid made audio cassettes, but if my memory serves, they sold audio cassettes under their brand name. I'm not sure whose audio cassettes they had private labeled, but I do recall seeing audio cassettes with the Polaroid brand name for a while. I seem to recall that was back in the 1980s', when every company that sold any line of tape products had to have a complete product line or distributors wouldn't touch them. The thing is, the 80's were a long, long time ago, so I wouldn't bet money on my memory being 100% accurate.
Talk_Dude said:
I never saw Polaroid audio cassettes growing up in Oklahoma Kansas and Texas. You might have got them mixed up with Memorex or another company. But I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Before they went into bankruptcy they made TV sets (mostly re-branded ones made by Funai, who makes Emerson and Sylvania TV's) for a few years.
I bought a lot of Polaroid VHS tape back in the mid 80's because you could get a 2 pack for 4-5 dollars at Wal-Mart. They worked fine back then, but when I play those 20+ year old tapes (to archive them on DVD) I see a lot of bad video noise with faded colors. It might be my HD TV pulling a lot out of the video signal. But its a shame because I recorded a lot of MTV concerts, USA's Night Flight and many videos on them. Sony, Maxell, TDK and Scotch (which were made in the USA then) have held up better.
- Status