That's Cassette Tape

In Bristol, where I lived in the 1980s Lasky's was in the main shopping area, close to C&A and opposite model shop Beattie's which had Model Railways and Tamiya cars, two other things I lusted after. Therefore, I would invariably pop in Lasky's when shopping in town to admire all the HiFi and probably buy a couple of cassettes. They were the biggest audio shop in town, bigger than Dixon's which had half their shop full of cameras, or Curry's which sold Music Centres and Washing Machines. I recall the main HiFi area in Lasky's had subdued lighting so that all the lights on the systems looked even prettier. My first cassette recorder came from them in 1976 but I don't recall buying anything else big from them. Customer service on things like repairs didn't have a good reputation.

The whole area got demolished to build a new shopping centre so there is no chance of finding the old shop on streetview

 

Longman. Living in Redditch for a number of years I was only a few miles from Birmingham. They had a Beaties there where I bought my Fleischan, roco locomotives and track. Still have them all but I cannot recall if there was a shop you mentioned earlier. I recall now the track was called profi or something like that. Made an interesting HO track layout in the late eighties.

 

Back to Tapes i think we should have both read the article which was about the launch of That's in Australia after great success in Europe particularly the UK.
1986 3% of the UK market, 1987 10% of the UK market, 1988, 30% of the market. By then, backed by heavy advertising and good reviews they became my tape of choice in place of TDK and Sony.

 

30% sounds as if it was written by the marketing department.

However, I found two differnt threads on Tapeheads about them with lots of praise

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=46921

and

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=18728

The conclusion was that they were very good when they came out but that other brands had caught up by the mid 1990s and they sort of faded away, as did many of the HiFi shops that sold them.

 

Hiya,
I used to use That's cassettes regularly when they became available in the UK sometime in the late 80's. They got favourable reviews in the magazines at the time hence my interest in them. Initially it was strictly metals I bought but tried the chromes and normal ones to try out later.
Loved the look of the shells although I found the labels very frustrating to use; either being too small or too short.
Favourites are definitely the Suono, MRX-PRO and MG-X versions. Least impressive versions were the clear shells of the later MG-X tapes and the AS and RX ones. The tapes recorded well but the shell were not as robust as the others so fared less well.
I still have some sealed ones in my collection that I use infrequently as I see fit.
Hope this helps.

 

At some time in the mid/late 90s I bought a copy of What Hi-Fi magazine, which came with a freebie That's cassette. Seemed an odd promo at the time, as cassette was very much in decline, but was handy as I still used a cassette Walkman on the walk to school!

Might even still have it somewhere, and I'm pretty sure I put a New Order album on that tape. Weird that I remember odd details like that from my teens but have barely any idea what I was doing at work last week...

 

Excellent advert info, continuing to enjoy this thread covering
That's / Triad / Taiyo Yuden cassettes ......

Also, many thanks to all of you for contributing your experiences.

Monsieur Dino, many to you particularly !!!

Bleusy

 

I had a sealed metal one but i think it was stolen, point though no way is a blank tape worth more than an original, i don't care what it is lol

 

I just found two That’s AS: type IV metal tapes at a small antiques/flea market shop! The TDK SA-X came with them! All for $1.00!

 

Nice fine Chinewalker