this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Cassettes are making a comeback much like vinyl but to a lesser extent. I’ve got 600 or so cassettes and probably 3/4 of them were made in the past 8 years.
Vinyl made sense because of its high fidelity. Cassettes do not make sense unless you enjoy dogshit audio quality
Incorrect. I have three NAD 6300s and a Nakamichi Dragon, and with metal tapes it’s transparent to digital. Shit even good type II nearly transparent. Tapes do not sound “dogshit”. Unlike vinyl, you can easily experiment with the many varieties of tape out there and master your own cassette recordings. It’s like rolling tubes in an analog amplifier. Yes, it’s not perfectly transparent to digital on a cheap type I tape, but the warmth of a high end type I rounds off some of the harshness of modern tracks. YMMV, it’s not for everyone, but I think it’s pretty fucking cool.
This is a rare setup. Kind of vintage audio unicorn.
You still have a noticeable noise floor and medium limitations as equalizer, though ("warmer").
99.999% of decks and surviving tapes do sound like dogshit.
Nah, this is wrong. Cassettes don’t sound like dogshit and most vintage decks sound great when properly calibrated.
Modern $20 Chinese portables sound like ass, I’ll give you that.
OK, well, you have a lot more tolerance for tape hiss and compression artifacts and muted highs than I do, the only quiet tapes I’ve heard were big fat studio tapes when I had access to a research studio.
I spent so many years trying to get a decent field recording out of the best portable recording (cassette) decks that I may be a little traumatized. DAT recording was a revelation, even with horribly unreliable decks.
I mean reel tape kills vinyl and cassette. It surpasses or equals digital in high $$ situations.
*its mostly about the mastering
Yes, its clunky huge and expensive and has a limited catalog. But once you've heard one you'll want more.
Oh, no doubt. Reel to reel is the ultimate analog media.
I love showing it to people who havent heard great audio.
But yeah, its so expensive. The best part tho is unlike records, tapes are very robust if you keep them in normal temperatures and away from magnets. No surface noise, and most tapes the hiss is hardly noticeable especially on anything 15 IPS.
The good part about the limited catalog is you're going to always get super high quality from it because its so limited and expensive to do
Can’t walk the streets listening to vinyl.
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Speakers-Rechargeable-Turntable-Phonograph/dp/B0DJQXZNZY
Well... But you'd have to really steady on the hands. Maybe some jig would work?