I've recently read what looks like a very good news: a brand new cassettes are being manufactured in the Nederlands. People at De Bandjesfabriek (Netherlands) are working with people at Recording the masters (France) to create not just newly manufactured cassettes (which is something other brands are also doing), but to release a new cassette with new magnetic tape. Yes, there are still some brands selling new magnetic tape nowadays, but the quality is not very good. Recording the masters is making new magnetic tape based on old good formulas by BASF and AGFA but with improved procedures. They haven't released technical details but it seems is a ferric tape. They have been making magnetic tape for years, mainly for credit cards, but now they are making Reel to reel tapes for studio use and now... for cassettes. The new tape is called Fox K7 (K7 is usually used in french to mean 'cassette') but the final release name hasn't been announced yet. http://www.stereo2go.com/video/2018-04-27-New-cassette-Bandjesfabriek.mp4 So I'll keep an eye on this because it looks promising, as well as the new ferric from the NAC.
The only cassette I bought in the Netherlands was Rattle And Hum by U2 in Venlo in August 1988, it was 20 guilders which was about six quid. I wanted to test my new walkman with a (then) new album. I can only name about four decent albums from that year, Barbed Wire Kisses by J&MC, Peepshow by Siouxsie And The Banshees and Talk Is Cheap by Keith Richards were the other three, Barbed Wire Kisses and Rattle And Hum were re-cap albums, i.e., little new material if any. Mostly 1988 was about Stock, Aitken And Waterman's crap mimed by the likes of Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. 1989 was a vast improvement with the Mary Chain at it again along with The Stone Roses, The Rolling Stones, The Cult, Loop and The Creatures (Siouxsie and Budgie of the Banshees), throw in some Guns N Roses for good measure, "Sweet Child Of Mine". Finally, are all cassette decks supposed to auto-stop at the end of a tape in ALL functions, play, record and fast winding?, I was told fast winding doesn't auto-stop on all machines.
Decent machines, pretty much all component decks - yes. Many boomboxes and portables - no. Autostop in Play mode is almost universal, then again, some very cheap models may lack it. Autostop for winding is not common for all portables.
