[Dixielandjazz] Cassette Tapes

[Ulf Jagfors]

This is hilarious. For years people have complained about how bad digital
formats are to reproduce recorded sound, specially MP3. Now they turn their
eyes on analogue cassette techniques something that was introduced on the
market by Dutch Philips beginning of 1960´s. About reproducing quality sound
the analogue cassette technique is probably near as worse as the 78 rpm
shellac disks. The low speed of the tape, the low quality of the iron
material on the plastic tape introduced a high degree of back ground noise
and limited frequency response. That was something which created a number of
different techniques to overcome I.E the noise problem. The most well-known
was the Dolby B or C systems, an analogue compression technology which
reduced the dynamic of the recorded music. Another was to use other material
for the tape itself, like full metal, which was pretty expensive. On top of
that you have unreliable tape drive mechanics in the players which often
created a tape salad. And every time you played the tape you wear out the
iron surface on the tape.

I just see this as a marketing gimmick.

What will be the next " it was better before" trend. Digging nuclear bomb
shelters in your back yard??? 

Ulf Jagfors
Radio and TV engineer


>>This article about a renewed interest in prerecorded cassettes was in USA
Today today:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2011-10-02/mp3s-cassette-tapes
-vinyl-albums/50639144/1<<