The Cassette Tape Turns 50!

Dr. Chris Evil · 26 Jul 2006

http://www.click2houston.com/lifestyle/ ... index.html

The cassette tape turns 50
Plucky format made its debut in 1963
Author: By Todd Leopold
CNN
Published On: Sep 12 2013

The cassette should have died. Instead, it's turning 50 in an atmosphere of celebration.

Whether it's Cassette Store Day, new releases or simply nostalgia, the old tape cartridge isn't going gently into a good night that's already swallowed Edison cylinders, 78 rpm discs, Betamaxes and DATs.

That doesn't surprise Dale Wiggins, U.S. head of research for Philips, the electronics and technology company that invented the cassette back in 1963. He reminds people that the cassette was created on the heels of reel-to-reel taping, a bulky technology that required a lot of manual effort.

"All of a sudden you get this small form that you just plug into a player and it automatically achieves everything that used to be so hard and so cumbersome," he says. "It really was a precursor to a lot of the innovations that we have today."

The cassette actually made its debut a little more than 50 years ago, when the "compact cassette" tape and its player were introduced at a Berlin fair on August 30, 1963. But Philips dates the introduction to two weeks later -- September 13 -- when the format was launched in Amsterdam, the company's headquarters.

In the years since, the player and tape have seen highs and lows, from the 1980s ubiquity of personal players, boomboxes and mix tapes to its decline in the era of digital music and streaming radio. It's only in the past few years, with cassettes being seized upon by hipsters and metal bands, that it's entered a mild revival.

Mind you, not everybody is happy about this.

"Dear God, no," said commenter Patrick Butler on a Stereophile magazine article about Cassette Store Day. "I lived through cassettes once, and they sucked. But that's all we had. It was high school. Now it's just a bad joke."

Butler has a point.

Cassettes were originally invented for dictation, not high-fidelity music. And even with improvements over the years -- better magnetic oxides, Dolby noise reduction, high-quality tape players -- the medium was plagued by audio inconsistences, drop-outs and, for careless users, the dreaded tape snarl. (Get out your pencil and start spinning the spool -- it's going to be a long afternoon.)

Even Wiggins, who's 50 himself this year, admits that the cassette has its faults.

"My memory says it wasn't all that great," he chuckles.

But cassettes have also proved to be remarkably versatile, he says. You could record off the radio. You could share music with friends. You could make lovingly crafted mix tapes -- aural valentines -- for potential romantic partners.

Because Philips licensed the technology widely, it spread worldwide.

Today, the medium is prized for its low-fi capabilities and its ease of reproduction.

"It's still a common format for a lot of Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian street or folk music, too, because cassettes are so cheap to reproduce," record store owner Scott Seward told CNN.

Cassettes are even a fashion accessory. There are iPhone cases that look like cassettes, and one enterprising designer has woven ties out of old tape.

Philips' Wiggins adds that the ideas that company invested in cassette technology continue to be useful today. It's not just audio, either: One Philips technology, Magnotech, involves a medical diagnostic device that takes a small blood sample and, through magnetic nanoparticles, can determine markers.

"That's all based on the same magnetic principles that were used in that original cassette tape," he says.

Is the cassette boomlet peaking? That's anyone's guess. But, next year, there's another technology that's due to celebrate its golden anniversary. Maybe it's time to get ready.

Will anyone speak for the 8-track tape?

Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

JohnG · 03 Aug 2006

Yay Maxell tape! Which was your go to tape?

alantig · 20 Sep 2006

Wow - I'm a week older than the cassette (if you use the latter date)!

I still remember buying the K-Mart tapes that didn't even have cases - just three cassettes in a plastic bag. I eventually got educated and graduated to TDK Ds, then on to TDK-SAs and Maxells. I still have some unopened tapes that I never got around to using.

JohnG · 03 Aug 2006

One tape I never like were BASF tape. It was always TDK or Maxell for me too. Never really liked Memorex though they had good ads.

Charles · 19 Dec 2007

Kind of ironic that the cassette tape turns 50 the same day Ray Dolby passes away.

Dr. Chris Evil · 26 Jul 2006

My tape of choice was always Maxell XLIIs. Best one out there by a country mile.

And no noise reduction for me....that always sounded like a blanket was thrown over the speakers.

I learned to embrace the tape hiss.

JohnG · 03 Aug 2006

Kiss The Hiss.

ranasakawa · 26 Jan 2007

I used to work for Denon. Denon made great tapes. I have 100s of them still.

JohnG · 03 Aug 2006

We rarely saw Denon tapes in Queens but I agree, Denon makes great products.

Brainiac McGee · **Joined:** 10 Jun 2011 **Posts:** 2941

Dr. Chris Evil wrote:

My tape of choice was always Maxell XLIIs. Best one out there by a country mile.

And no noise reduction for me....that always sounded like a blanket was thrown over the speakers.

I learned to embrace the tape hiss.

I was all about the Maxell XLII's as well. Seems as though I was using them right up through about eight or nine years ago, as I still had a cassette player in my car. (Listening to audiobooks on CD is a pain in the neck compared to cassette.)

However, a few months back I discovered a TDK SA 90 out in the garage that I tossed on my desk. Apparently back on July 11, 1989, I used it to dub my vinyl copy of "A Quick One (Happy Jack)" and "The Who Sell Out" (it was the 2-on-1 edition from the 1980's). I have no idea if it still plays, but I painstakingly transcribed all the song titles with a blue ballpoint pen.

JosephC · **Joined:** 27 Jan 2011 **Posts:** 2660

I generally used the XLII's as well. However, when I wanted the best sounding transfer for those albums that sounded oh so good (Moving Pictures), I'd jump up to Maxell's metal tape.

alantig · 20 Sep 2006

XLIIs were what I used as well. Sometimes the metal tapes, but those were reserved for special occasions.

richman666 · 15 Nov 2006

I alternated between TDK & Maxell, although the latter ended up being my go-to cassette, specifically the XLII or XLII-S. I usually recorded with Dolby NR but played back without it, and was very happy with the sound. Although I had a decent home stereo for a teenager in the early 80s, that was mostly for LPs & radio. This is the gorgeous machine I played my cassettes on (so happy I found an image of this...thank you, internet):

Glenn S. · 30 Oct 2006

My first tape deck was fairly expensive and I had nothing but trouble with it. I swore off cassettes but later I decided to get a cheap (less than
$100) tape deck just for fun. Wouldn't you know the tapes I recorded on that one still sound good. As for tape brand, I started off with Maxell but later switched to TDK.

Hank · 01 Dec 2004

In high school, I, too, went back and forth between XLIIs and SA90s, but when I got to college, the student bookstore had Sony UX-S90s for like $1.75 apiece, so that became my go-to. I still had a stash of blanks when I got my first CD burner 2 years after I graduated.

The Cassette Tape Turns 50!

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