I was just in a store that had a huge pile of 90 minute blank tapes for $1.50 each. I almost took a picture.

I still have the Kenwood KX-W8030 dual deck I picked up (most likely from Best Buy) in the very early '90s (to replace a dead deck back then). I still have 3 or 4 boxes of cassettes, mostly personally recorded mixes and airchecks from college radio as well as some nightclub DJ sets (of mine) tho there are a few handfuls of store-boughts and label promos in there as well. I still use it from time to time to digitize stuff that I pull out of the boxes (not music generally, but radio promos from airchecks, etc.)

My 2000 Accord has a cassette deck and let me tell you, if you can't get a car with an iPod/mini stereo jack input on the stereo a cassette adapter beats the crap out of those things that will b'cast over an unused radio frequency. It also came in handy for my last 2 trips to C'dale Illinois for radio station reunions when I would bring along and listen to nothing but old mixes and radio shows for the 5.5 hour drive.

And apparently my copy of this is worth something:



Here's the full entry for it: NIN Cassette Sampler

For those who would claim that the cassette was the worst format ever (or what have you), you are simply too young to remember when it was great to be able to bring full album copies and custom mixes with you in the car when there were no other options. My cassette recollections from the mid-'70s thru the '80s are wonderful.

Nobody, thanks for starting this thread!

edit: oh yeah, I also have a Revox A-77 (reel to reel) in the closet.

Yep. Mine is apparently selling for $22 on ebay here.

The only thing I really did with tapes is get matchbox twenty bootlegs on them, though. I missed the tape age.

Deck arrived last week, along with a stack of blanks and I made my first mix tape in well over a decade over the weekend. Sure, there are a zillion reasons not to bother, but you know, it was a hell of a lot of fun so I'm happy with a new toy to play with.

Then in a final fit of some sort of post-modern ridiculousness I burned the mix tape to a cd so I could play it in my car, which no longer has a tape deck, after I made it and wanted to take it with me. I have finally gone completely off the deep end now.


By the way...a decent tape deck sounds pretty damn good after all. I get all the reasons they are a pain in the ass and with CD even easier to transport I completely understand their death. But, a good tape in a decent deck and you really can make a more than adequate sounding recording.