News Possible Cassette tape comeback.

[Kendo]

Some interesting news.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22533522

 

[Cras]

Well...vinyl has been getting stronger over the past few years, so I guess it isnt too out of the park to think about cassettes, but I would bet against it. The industry is getting away from tape in all parts of production, so I see it a bit of a stretch to think that it will all of a sudden be embraced for content delivery again.

 

[Ghostrider]

Tape? No. Absolutely. Tape is not vinyl, it sounds bad and it is bad. Especially cassette tape. Moreover it's frail, it breaks, it degrades everytime it is used.
I have bought tapes. I have listened to tapes. I have recorded on tapes. I have loaded programs from tapes. I have saved programs on tapes. They're cumbersome, they lack random access, they are the stuff of nightmares rendered unto magnetic media.

(mimicking Kirk) TAAAAAAAAAAPEEEEEEE!!!

 

[RisingFury]

Cassette tape comes back? Yea, that makes total sense. Instead of recording 1000 songs on something the size of my finger nail and playing it from a device smaller than my finger, I'll drag with me a walkman and a train car filled with tapes.

Now I'll go spend the rest of my evening looking for my favorite song. Cya tomorrow!

 

[Artlav]

Well, there are people who only like the sound from a vacuum tube amplifier, there are people who insist that the audio cables must be insulated with gold to keep the sound good, there are people who think taking a photo of them steals their soul, there are people...

After all, if tape sells, why not start selling it again?
It's a free market, and it's their choice.

 

[Kendo]

I have to agree with you guys. On saying that, the actual tape would have to be much stronger than it was, and with modern materials it should be.
Sound wise should also be far superior due to modern electronics etc, and of course ply longer.
But you still have to carry a cassete player around with you.
Some things now, are getting too small for comfort.
Still seems pretty pointless though.
I don,t like CD,s for one reason, the sound is too clear. Great for certain music such as classical etc, but for example. I had Deep Purple,s Made in Japan Live years ago on tape and vinyl, you could feel the atmosphere, and smell the sweat and the smoke etc, which finally wore out, so I bought the CD version, it lost all of those things, it was too clean.

Maybe a decent cassette player may be very useful for home use to sit and listen too, and keep your other stuff you have to use as you do.

 

[statickid]

Lets see if we can get any more money out of this old junky equipment! Quick! hire a bunch of hip looking kids to stand in a line outside and talk about bringing back old technology because its so much better!!

 

[Keatah]

Well, there are people who only like the sound from a vacuum tube amplifier, there are people who insist that the audio cables must be insulated with gold to keep the sound good, there are people who think taking a photo of them steals their soul, there are people...

Electronic homeopathy

---------- Post added at 02:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 PM ----------

Would it be possible to do a digital cassette? Not that mini-crap from sony, but perhaps run a standard audio cassette at higher speed and do everything digitally? You would get cd quality sound that way.

 

[Notebook]

I like tape, it employed me for years, and never complained. Nice to see it making a comback,,,,

N.

 

[Ghostrider]

there are people who think taking a photo of them steals their soul

You mean it doesn't???

Darn, there goes a good part of the reason I like to snapshoot people.

 

[Andy44]

Would it be possible to do a digital cassette? Not that mini-crap from sony, but perhaps run a standard audio cassette at higher speed and do everything digitally? You would get cd quality sound that way.

When I was growing up there was a brief competition between CDs and Digital Audio Tape (DAT). DAT records digital sound, so as long as you can read it it sounds as good as a CD.

CDs won for a number of reasons, mainly because a cassette tape is still less robust than a CD. If you leave it in your car on a hot summer day it may be ruined, and the very act of playing it causes physical wear due to the tape being in contact with capstans and guide rollers.

But there was also a political reason for DAT's demise: the record companies were alarmed by the fact that you could make high quality digital tape copies of vinyl records (or CDs for that matter). At that time, you could not yet write to a CD, and nobody even had CD drives on computers yet. Analog taping of music was tolerated because it always loses fidelity in the process, so there wasn't any great pressure to make it illegal.

But nowadays, what's the point? If you're using a cassette because you purposely want to make analog recordings, then fine. But if you're using tape to make digital copies, just use a thumb drive. There's nothing to be gained. DAT was a neat idea in the 80s, but it's been overcome by digital hardware.

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------

Well, there are people who only like the sound from a vacuum tube amplifier,

If you play an electric guitar, the difference between a tube amp and a solid state amp is striking, mainly when the amplifier is being overdriven into distortion. There is no way to objectively discuss how "good" something sounds in words; but having experienced both I am a believer.

Now if we're talking about home audio equipment for listening to records, then solid state makes more sense to me. You don't want to hear distortion when you're trying to recreate recorded music.

 

[Ghostrider]

Analog taping of music was tolerated because it always loses fidelity in the process, so there wasn't any great pressure to make it illegal.

Oh, there was: remember "home taping is killing music"? They tried to ban double-deck tape recorders, they tried to ban VCRs, they're still actively trying to ban anything that allows replicating information, including human memory.

Make no mistake: record companies are the enemy of progress, the enemy of mankind. They're bullying entire nations into changing laws for their benefit. They must be fought and destroyed, and salt be poured onto the smoking ruins. Curse their descendants until the seventh generation.

/BIBLICAL RANT

Damn them. Damn them all to Hell!

/CHARLTON HESTON

 

[jedidia]

In a time where most people listen to MP3s in an awfull compression (not to say that you can't make an MP3 sound good, but the usual compression rates in which you get the things are criminal), and the sample rate to which the industry still holds itself is that of the 50 minutes CD, it is quite understandable that purists would find appeal in the good old analogue, because, like with photographs, that's still the best quality you can technically get.

The problem here comes in at several points, however: Analogue is difficult to work with during production, and if you record digitally, you lose the main advantage. This can still be circumvented to any relevant degree, as recording software nowadays can record at insane sampling rates, but oftentimes still sticks to the outdated 16 bit/44kHz, because that's what you'll get on the CD, and because dittering down from a higher sampling rate can be tricky at times and sometimes needs post-editing.
If you want your sound in true analogue, you'll have to find someone who'll record you in analogue, and the equipement for that is very much unaffordable nowadays compared to what you need for a solid digital setup.
And then there's the degradation... I'm quite glad we don't have that anymore.

But still, if there's any trend that might convince people to compress their MP3s sensibly (we don't need to put a hundred albums on one Gig anymore, after all, we have lots and lots of space. No reason for a song not to take up a megabyte per minute at the very least), I consider that a good thing.

 

[Urwumpe]

But still, if there's any trend that might convince people to compress their MP3s sensibly (we don't need to put a hundred albums on one Gig anymore, after all, we have lots and lots of space. No reason for a song not to take up a megabyte per minute at the very least), I consider that a good thing.

Even at the same bitrate (about 96 kbit), you can often do much better than that by using the right encoder settings (which then just take a few milliseconds longer for compression). But I have rarely seen less than 192 kBit today.

 

[jedidia]

Even at the same bitrate (about 96 kbit), you can often do much better than that by using the right encoder settings

It's a drummer deformation, I guess. People think drummers care about the encoding quality the least, but that's rarely true, because the first thing that suffers are the cymbals. If a drummer used some great cymbals worth several thousand dollars in the recording, I want to hear every penny of them... :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

It's a drummer deformation, I guess. People think drummers care about the encoding quality the least, but that's rarely true, because the first thing that suffers are the cymbals. If a drummer used some great cymbals worth several thousand dollars in the recording, I want to hear every penny of them... :lol:

It is a miracle that a drummer can still hear the difference there. :lol:

 

[jedidia]

It is a miracle that a drummer can still hear the difference there.

There's this wonderful invention called earplugs. After the first few years, almost everyone realises that they're a worthwhile investment. Everyone that cares, anyways.

Indeed, it's usually the guitarists that don't seem to get it. And sometimes the singers, because for them earplugs can actually present a problem if they're not very high-grade, and therefore very expensive.

 

[Pablo49]

Oh, there was: remember "home taping is killing music"? They tried to ban double-deck tape recorders, they tried to ban VCRs, they're still actively trying to ban anything that allows replicating information, including human memory.

Make no mistake: record companies are the enemy of progress, the enemy of mankind. They're bullying entire nations into changing laws for their benefit. They must be fought and destroyed, and salt be poured onto the smoking ruins. Curse their descendants until the seventh generation.

/BIBLICAL RANT

Damn them. Damn them all to Hell!

/CHARLTON HESTON

But are we all going to die?

I bought a tape not long ago, alhough not because of the format but because The Protomen are so awesome. I listen to vinyls though, and maintain a collection. Physical media is fun.

 

[Ghostrider]

But are we all going to die?

Yes. And since the catering service didn't take my credit card...

TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!!!

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes. And since the catering service didn't take my credit card...

TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!!!

Come to hell, we have BBQ.