I've only been back into playing/recording cassettes for several months, and I enjoy it so much that I have purchased a lot of blank and what I hope is lightly used media. But I am a taper from my early childhood, and I started really noticing and enjoying music around 10 years old, my father bought me my first Sony a.m. radio, and I remember being unhappy that it was not FM also, and the rest is history as they say. My mom purchased my first record that I used to play on a console that they had downstairs. I used to make mixtapes on a cheap cassette recorder and putting it near a radio, talking about high tech right? Anyway I purchased a whole lot of used Maxell MA metal tapes, and I just purchased 20 Maxell XL II tapes. Of course we could never tell exactly how used these are, but I think I got pretty fortunate because the Maxell XL II tapes looks like they were used for archiving and they look virtually unplayed. Along with that I bought a old Radio Shack bulk tape eraser, this is the stronger one because I understand there's more than one and I'm at least one version will not erase Metal tapes, but this one does it very well. I also understand that I probably didn't have to erase them because all of our players have erase heads on them, but I decided to do it anyway. I've only used a couple of the metal tapes, and I find that my recording sound just as good as a NOS metal tape. I did notice that my Akai deck the Maxell XL II tapes, and setting the bias is very simple because it's right at the detent, right in the middle pretty much so I figured that it must be calibrated for these tapes, and recording sound wonderful. My plan is to have a stockpile of enough to last me for a very long time, I'm already pretty much there but I'd like more because the price of these are just going up and up. Please share your thoughts, I thought it would be a good discussion. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all.
Only recently and only because I wanted to show you folks how common That's cassettes were here The "Walkman" tapes looked interesting. Taking the photo I just found the correct case and J Card for one. Not a bad haul for £20 including postage although they would be worth many times that sealed and unused. I am probably unlikely to record and more tapes but will see what is on these. Some have recording dates of 1996 on them. I wonder how many people actually recorded over tapes in the past. I certainly didn't. If it was worth recording it was worth keeping. With me the same applied to videotapes. Of course with Audio Tapes that doesn't help if a tape was left in the car and played dozens of times.
Thanks for the post, sounds like you got a great deal. I never recorded over tapes either and I always kept them and played them, and I think that's what a lot of people did. The ones that I bought were obviously used for archival purposes and never played, there's not a mark on anything. I also think some people record it over these tapes a bunch of times so it's kind of a spin the wheel venture.
I found a seller through CAM (Canuck Audio Mart) who was selling many good vintage Type II tapes. I bought from him on three separate transactions. The J-cards in the first batch of tapes were untouched and the tapes had been bulk-erased. In the subsequent purchases, I asked the seller not to erase any music that was recorded on them. That was a wise choice as the recordings were very good and featured full albums of music I also liked. Most recordings were from his vinyl collection and he used his Nakamichi CR-5 to record without NR. Nando.
Very nice indeed, and I like the older Maxell tapes! I haven't done a proper comparison between the newer and the older, but I hope to do that soon. I have a batch of 30 older Maxell tapes coming.
If I see something nice I'll splurge, the days of boxes of them at the Goodwill are long gone but I always find them at garage sales. There used to be a thrift by the old 3M Tape Plant nearby, they'd always have very nice tapes, I'm guessing they were used for testing but both are long gone now.
I would rather get cassettes deals like these then buy used. Prices are down right now on the auction site, probably a combination of the Christmas season and the economy. Honestly I don't see anything selling because before I bought the Teac deck from overseas I was looking, and everybody was dropping prices by a lot.
I did a major buy of NOS cassettes not long ago. I, already, unsealed a pair of Sony Metal-ES 90s to record on. I recorded a copy of my latest mix tape project for my wife to play in the Volvo and the other went to Chris in The Netherlands in a mix tape exchange. Seller's photo: Nando.
Overmodulated, I call this "boombox season" from mid-October to the 2nd week of January you can find all kinds of deals world-wide and rare equipment seems to pop up. I put it down to end of Summer Cleaning or people don't want used stuff, they're buying new gifts for the holidays, and this year we're definately seeing a slowing down from the world economy. 2008 was a really bad year for the economy, similar price reductions were seen but the "grails" still held value although there was some drop in price. Keep your eyes open, especially for ebay BIN Bargins, I find a ton late at night, some are really really good. I used to be a professional thrifter, I had an outside sales job and between clients and lunch I'd hit a store up or garage sale in the summer time. My work also gets me into a lot of homes and businesses where I see tons of equipment, mostly vintage. There's so much stuff out there it's mind-boggling although boomboxes tend to be much rarer then components. If I hit four garage sales a week, I'd guess I'd find 2-8 NOS cassettes, usually dirt cheap or free and a boatload of prerecorded tapes.
I have had great success through Facebook Marketplace. I don't have my own FB account, but use my wife's. Here's an example - Onkyo TA-2080 cassette deck with a bunch of cassettes (about 100) of sealed NOS, pre-recorded and quality recordings done on good tapes - all for $100 CAD. And then further to that, the seller sold me the rest of his Onkyo Integra sysytem. Nando.
I mostly buy used Maxell XL II tapes when I see a lot that looks well taken care of. When (re) starting with tapes again I bought quite a lot of NOS chrome tapes but came to the conclusion that they can be as bad as used tapes but for a much higher price. I guess how they are stored is more important than if they have been recorded. I tend to throw away around 30% of tapes I buy. Also I avoid metal tapes due to bad experience of price/quality/performance.
I agree it's all about how they were stored. I've been pretty fortunate buying NOS, and lightly used. Still after all these years it's still tough to beat the Maxell XL II, I just make sure to fast forward them all the way to the end, and then rewind.
I stopped buying used tapes in general. Maybe I was just unlucky. Basically trash. The exception was a small lot of TDK MA/MAR for $120. I try and buy NOS TDK SA without the “Made for CD” title with a reasonable price of $10 or less.
