Sound quality issues aside, could there be something to the concept mentioned in the WSJ article that listeners can't shuffle a cassette, and
have to listen to the tracks in the order the producers lay them down? A carefully assembled album can be more than the sum of its parts, and in the current shuffling world, that's lost. Imagine how much would be lost from the emotional journey if someone shuffled the movements of a symphony. ;-)
Cassette and vinyl have "serial delivery" in common, but fewer musicians have the money and following to produce LPs.
Dick Williams.
________________________________
From: Dennis Rooney <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] The revival of the audio cassette
The complaint seems to me to reside principally in the analogue cassette's
inherently poor audio quality rather than tape noise, except that noise in a
slow-speed medium is always more disagreeable. (Wire was never suitable for
anything other than speech.) That is why 78s and lacquers (please, not
"acetates"!) remain more interesting to work with. Noise reduction software
enables a lacquer in a good state of preservation to be quietened to the
point where system noise is the noise floor. Cassettes may not yet be
antiques, but they are obsolete.
DDR
On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Thatcher Graham
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> I am somewhat surprised to see felows who work with 78s, wire recordings
> and acetates complaining about a noisy medium. The content on certain
> cassettes is no more or less rare or treasured than what you'll find in your
> own collections. They're just not antiques yet.
>
>
> --
> Thatcher Graham
> Mediaguide
>
>
>
>
> On 10/20/2011 11:54 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> There is already a cult around that horrible-sounding medium. Blogs,
>> websites, the whole shebang.
>>
>> That WSJ article raised my hackles because one of the tin-eared fools it's
>> centered around claims to be an "audiophile," meaning he supposedly loves
>> good sound. Yet his favored cultish fetish is one of the worst sounding
>> mass-mediums ever foisted on the buying public. DIY taping could sound
>> marginally better (but clearly inferior to the source LPs or radio
>> broadcasts), but mass-duped tapes were inevitable terrible. I grew up in the
>> Walkman heyday. Been there, done that, never wasted my money on duped tapes
>> but I did roll my own.
>>
>> It's also ignorant to try and compare mass-duped cassette tapes with
>> well-made "vinyl revival" LPs. The new LPs are manufactured and packaged to
>> sell at a premium price point to a niche market where good quality is
>> expected. Mass-duped garbage cassettes were made as cheaply as possible and
>> sold as an LP replacement to those in the Walkman crowd who did not have the
>> skill, equipment or time to dub their LPs to better-sounding DIY tapes.
>>
>> BTW, there are some cassette-centric things still out there that are not
>> foolish and cultish. One of them is the guy with the blog of dubs of his
>> collection of African popular music tapes. Many of these albums are not
>> available except as cassettes in their native countries. Plus he generally
>> makes decent dubs.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis Rooney" <
>> [log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 11:39 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] The revival of the audio cassette
>>
>>
>> What can we expect next, an 8-track renaissance?
>>>
>>> DDR
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>>> **wrote:
>>>
>>> This is bizarre. I would surmise that Korea doesn't have wide use of
>>>> smart
>>>> phones with data plans or there aren't yet "all you can eat" streaming
>>>> music
>>>> services available. Duped cassettes are sonic junk. There's a
>>>> cultishness
>>>> about sticking with a bad-sounding old technology, it's like people
>>>> wouldn't
>>>> buy an LP player until no one pressed 78's anymore. Technology advances
>>>> are
>>>> slower to make it to low-income markets, but Korea is an up and coming
>>>> economy so this is surprising.
>>>>
>>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Crosthwait" <
>>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:25 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] The revival of the audio cassette
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Speaking of audio cassettes, a few months ago while working on an Asian
>>>> videotape transfer project, I came across this about Koreans and
>>>> cassette
>>>> popularity:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/****www/news/include/print.asp?****
>>>> newsIdx=92090<http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/**www/news/include/print.asp?**newsIdx=92090>
>>>> <http://www.**koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/**include/print.asp?newsIdx=**
>>>> 92090<http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/include/print.asp?newsIdx=92090>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>
>>>> David Crosthwait
>>>> DC Video
>>>> Archived Media Transfer and Re-mastering Services
>>>>
>>>> Offices located at:
>>>> 177 West Magnolia Blvd.
>>>> Burbank, CA. 91502
>>>> 818-563-1073
>>>> 818-563-1177 (fax)
>>>> 818-285-9942 (cell)
>>>>
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> www.dcvideo.com
>>>>
>>>> Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/**
>>>> pages/DC-Video/**123809690979731<https://www.**
>>>> facebook.com/pages/DC-Video/**123809690979731<https://www.facebook.com/pages/DC-Video/123809690979731>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 20, 2011, at 6:04 AM, Steve Ramm wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Interesting article in TODAY's Wall St Journal on the revival of the
>>>>> audio cassette:
>>>>>
>>>>> _http://tinyurl.com/3gbj3rx_ (http://tinyurl.com/3gbj3rx)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve Ramm
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dennis D. Rooney
>>> 303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
>>> New York, NY 10023
>>> 212.874.9626
>>>
>>>
--
Dennis D. Rooney
303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
New York, NY 10023
212.874.9626
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