...when you buy some second hand cassettes and the music that's already on them is too good to record over. Yazz... The Only Way Is Up is the first track... and it's not the common radio edit either. It can only get better from here.
I have had the same experience. I usually look for used cassettes thinking I will re-record over the mix, but the music is too good to record over. Now, I purposely look for used tapes with interesting mixes. Here is a recent one I've been playing in the car. Nando.
I rarely find home recorded cassettes, I wonder if the thrifts around here don't just toss them out. A couple years ago I saw a large collection of Greatful Dead Bootleg tapes but I didn't splurge since they wanted a buck or two for the tapes. We still have a decent amount of commercial tapes but even those are getting harder to find.
Here is an example of tapes I bought at the local used goods store last summer. I bought the tapes with the tape case. Nando.
Awesome finds Elite-ist! I'll pick up commercial tapes once in a while but haven't scored anything in years, the last time I found cool stuff was at a thrift that was a couple blocks from the 3M Tape Manufacturing Building, I used to get boxes of hi-end 3M Stuff and other brands that I think they were using to compare to their products.
Now those are what you call some stunning finds. There's another case on ebay going with cassettes, but they appear to all be pre-recorded commercial tapes, so I didn't bother with it.
I had the same experience with quite some tapes. Last year Iwas given a big lot of high quality tapes from a hi-end store here at Barcelona where lots of SONY UX, UX-S, TDK MA and so on.. Most of them were labeled as "Naka Dolby C - artist - album" (replace artist album by the ones that correspond) so you can imagine the quality. I reused some because I didn't like the music into, but I carefully inspect the songs before doing, as the quality is pretty high.
I don't buy used/recorded cassettes from flea market, but i will definitely buy them from audiophiles
I tend to stay away from used as well but when I found a stack of Denon HD-M's I had to make an exception, plus they were around .10 cents a piece.
I used to work in the "head cleaning" industry for a short time. Instead of the normal clear leader, which light could shine through to shut the motor off, they are probably using a perforated cleaning tape for the first inch or two to clean the pathway. I never did any testing on these so I don't know how effective they are.
I only pick up used cassettes which appear well-taken care of - clean J-card, undamaged and clean cassette case and I look at the tape as best as I can see for irregularities. And there are times other friends are willing to give up a few of their old collections. Nando.
Try here- https://www.discogs.com/search/?limit=250&q=back+to+the+future&format_exact=Cassette&type=all&page=1
