maxell

TDK

TDK 2

BASF 2

SONY

LORAN 2

MEMOREX

MEMOREX 2

Wow...you folks really get into your tapes. I've got some old ones, or at least images of old ones in my head. I think some of the first I had, Scotch (1968-70?), had this hard white plastic opaque cases unlike anything today. Also I recall prerecorded cassette releases around 1972 had this open ended design, where you stick the exposed tape side first in the slot.

The most interesting design (I'm sure I can dig up an example) was one in the early-mid 80s that had a protect tab that you could reverse! It had some kind of screw or switch that you could change from protected back to non-protected. Way ahead of its time, like MDs and floppies today.

A good source for these ads would be my National Lampoon collection circa 1974-1978. I'll have to dig some out.

i Like them Ads..Btoo...i remember i use to buy memorex tapes and if i ever had a problem with one i send it to the company and theyd send me a replacement one plus one more free...that was cool.

id like to one day make a cd-rom full of cassette ads...

I am sure i have one none of you has...
But i am also sure none of you would want it due to its sound.

ALLRIGHT btoo!!!! You brought to mind something I forgot about a log time ago....early 80's BASF cassettes had a strange little plastic arm in them that was there to stop jamming...worked quite well too.Wonder why it never cought on..take a better look at the ad you posted.See the extra piece of plastic next to the reel hub?...

yeah, i always liked BASF & SCOTCH tapes very sturdy and reliable...

Scotch? Hm, i only had type I Scotch tapes, and they were not good. My favourite tape is Maxell XL-II, they're still good after years of use, and years of laying around. In fact, TDK MA-90 don't sound much better to me. I don't have a real high end tape deck by the way.

The UHER i showed on the pic above is a piece of crap when it comes to sound. I wouldn't even use it in a voice recorder

I bought a lot of tapes back in the 70-80s and tdk and basf where the best quality tapes for recording music.
You paid about �1.50 for a single tdk and the same for a basf tape.
My wage was �47 and buying tapes took a lot of my wage.
I loved the new smell when i opened them, and they seemed to last a long time.
The cheap 120 min tapes would strech and get jammed in your cassest player, and the little furry bit dropped out a lot.
I remeber nearly all the ghetto blasters on this site and even remeber buying a trani radio in 1978 and listened to radio one playing all the top tunes like bay city rollers and grandad tunes lol.
Happy memories.

quote:

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Originally posted by Druid:
The most interesting design (I'm sure I can dig up an example) was one in the early-mid 80s that had a protect tab that you could reverse! It had some kind of screw or switch that you could change from protected back to non-protected. Way ahead of its time, like MDs and floppies today.

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The LORAN tapes all have this feature because the plastic is too difficult to break off... you use a screwdriver to move the protect tab into position or back into the case. I have a prerecorded LORAN tape that was a demo tape for a car's stereo system (might have been Ford) - I will try to dig it up and get a photo of it. Even though it is prerecorded, it still has the protect tabs.
I like the really old tapes that have the "Compact Cassette" logo. Ferrichrome tapes are cool too. I have some Sony tapes with a foil leader - I guess that was designed to trigger an old auto-reverse deck.

Here's what I am talking about...
Ford demo tape made by Loran:


Sony "Auto-Sensor" tape:

RPM1200. I have those 1979 SONYs still in factory wrap.

Cool...
Wow, a C-180?!? I thought 120s were not recommended for most tape decks, that 180 must be super-thin! Was that ever sold in the US or was it only available in Asia?

I got this TDK C-180 in US.
Yes, I am not dare to use it in my decks. Those kind of thin tape may cause chewing tape problem.

if it dosent snap first....AUTO-SENSOR???? wow.What does it mean? Does it have foil splices in it or something? Very rare.Anytime you see the "Copact Cassette" logo on a tape you know it's at least 30 years old....8)

quote:

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Originally posted by 8track:
if it dosent snap first....AUTO-SENSOR???? wow.What does it mean? Does it have foil splices in it or something? Very rare.Anytime you see the "Copact Cassette" logo on a tape you know it's at least 30 years old....8)

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Yep, in the last picture I posted, that is foil on the left side, cut in a diagonal pattern (might not show up too well in the picture). I don't know what decks they made that actually took advantage of that foil. I do have a much newer Technics RS-B68R, vintage 1986, which uses an infrared LED and sensor to detect the leader on regular tape and reverse there rather than waiting for the tape to reach the end of its leader ("Quick Reverse"), and I have seen that feature on Aiwa and Hitachi decks as well.

Here are my only tapes in their original wrappers:
Scotch BX


Maxell UR (with opened tape for comparison: Steve Martin albums I taped back in 1989!)


And here is an oddball, not an audio tape but it is the same size: a Technicolor/Funal CVC videotape in its original wrapper, along with one that was opened for comparison:

Here's one of the few machines that could use this tape - be sure to check out the "sample of literature" links to the lower left of the page...

Ihave noy really collected these tapes exept for the love of the music and to make copys of concert tapes,bootlegs etc.
Over the course of time however going to garage sales,etc. i have accumulated many older chromium tapes and such,occasionally even ones still in the wrappers.
I have however very little knowledge of which are
most desirable, rare, collectable.
Some just picked at random are, SONY UCX 60 [Cro2], Maxell MX 90 XL II, MAXELL UDS II 90.
Are any of these desirable?

Hi tridentrue,

In my opinion, any of the tapes made by the better names (eg. Sony, Maxell, TDK, BASF, etc.to name only a few) especially CrO2, and metal (types II and IV) are desireable, and even much more so, if still in original wrappers. Also, the older, the better. Some manufacturers still produce a limited number of some tapes, but sadly, they are nothing like their original formulations, or quality shells.

J

quote:

Originally posted by rpm1200:
.... I do have a much newer Technics RS-B68R, vintage 1986, which uses an infrared LED and sensor to detect the leader on regular tape and reverse there rather than waiting for the tape to reach the end of its leader ("Quick Reverse"), and I have seen that feature on Aiwa and Hitachi decks as well.
...

Oddly enough I have an old 1970 Panasonic deck that does the same with a small light bulb like the early VCRs did.It uses it for the auto stop for rew and ff too. That was realy high tech stuff for '70....8)

Try to keep any/all of your old cassettes if you can, MP3's are even killing CD's record albums slowly now, Artists records albums are becoming obsolete--- Where an artists expressed not only their music, but their unique style and tastes--- a critical part of their aurora-- while also showing coool trends and fads of the day--I ENJOY LISTENING TO HEAR SOMEONE FULL ALBUM GET TO GET COMPLETE EXPERIENCE TOO. MANY B-SIDE SONGS ARE LOST NOW IF THE DON'T SELL LOT- DON'T EXPERIENCE PERFORMERS TALENT IN ITS ENTIRETY. IF I WANTED TO JUST HEAR POP MUSIC WHY BUY MP3'S ----- WHEN I CAN JUST TURN ON THE RADIO FOR FREE??? UNFORTUNALETLY CULTURE LOST WITH MP3 FORMAT, THEY EXPECT A SONGS TO SELL ITELF W/OUT ATTACHING TO A FACE/IMAGE, I talked to a record promoter that lost his job only 5 years ago, when mp3's reared their ugly head. He pretty much went around radio stations to give them demo albums to put on air and to give away as promotional items also. Same way as elvis & other greats had albums promoted, reminded me when I saw this in the La Bamba movie. An industry lost, Very sad..

You're indeed right w35.
On the other hand, look what the "content industry" is doing at the moment. They release lots of crap which is NOT due to mp3/copying/cd burning/...
They annoy us, music fans who buy the original cds, with copy protection that does not allow us to make digital copys, also on MD. And most of them don't work in the car!
Whenever a genre becomes "in" or "fashioned" they punish it to dead by pushing it on the radio/tv stations, e.g. punk rock, techno/electronic, grunge... all of them were underground genres YEARS before they SUCKED DUE TO THE INDUSTRY!
Not to mention cd prices that are still way too high.

With a reason, some people i know call them a M.A.F.I.A. (music and film industry association).

Wonder why i still buy original sound carriers? Me too 8)

I remember in the early 80'ies there was in Germany what they called 'nue deutsche Welle', wich means 'german new wave'. Came along with a hell of a lot of great musicians and bands, such as 'der Plan' and 'einstürzende Neubauten','Wirtschaftswunder','Abwärts''ZK','Trio' and so on. It was the punk-era in England, thousands and thousands of little record-labels established in the backyards of the cities, private recording-studios started growing like weed - it was the high-tide of innovative modern music in Germany, untill the big record-companies decided that they lost too much business towards those small newcomers. What did they do ? They gave a guitar and a keyboard to anybody they could convert with a punkish crazy outfit into some sort of a freak and produced the most ridiculous kinda music with them, jus made for the masses - funny thing is that this kind of sh*t is the stuff they play on retro-parties, burn on retro-cd's and show in retro-shows (...because all produced by the big ones, of course...). Within one or two years the market was flushed with this crap and nobody wanted to hear about the 'german new wave', now was the time for the big (...american) companies to flush the market with rubbish like Whitney houston and other crap they call 'soul-music', hey man, real soul-music comes from the heart, this mass-media-stuff is just made up (...that's my opinion, don't feel insulted if you like it !).

Same happened in the late 80'ies with rock-music, early 90'ies with break-dance and late 90'ies with hip-hop, nowadays they threaten us with boy- and girl- bands who change so fast that people at our age have a real problem trying to remember their names...

God damned MTV still helps to let all those kiddies today live like in another kinda world, far away from reality and brainwashed that they can't live without cellphones, 26 pairs of nikes/pumas/adidas - fully brainwashed to consume. Most of'em wouldn't know what to do with a record, they wouldn't see what we see in'em, they can't even say why they like some certain kinda music because their opinion about it is done up by somebody else - sorry folks- you can't tell me that this showy sort of video-clip-sh*t with people in the most uncomfortable clothes and in the most unrealistic scenes isn't sick ?

Hmmmmmm, most probably I'm talking now more or less the same way my parents talked about me ?

...never mind, I even love my 78's with swing and very early country, hey, there's no more romantic in music as listen to Enrico Caruso's 'O sole mio' direct from a 78, a mp3 of it - I wouldn't even consider to listen to it

quote:

Originally posted by btoo:
MEMOREX 2

hey btoo ,all your nice pics disappeared!

I don't know why but it seems that all my pictures have disapeared

Still stickied? Blimey...

I tried to get into the site a while ago to update it but I couldn't get into the FTP server anymore. I'm still working on it. If I do I'll go for a proper update, as the site (and a couple of the scans) were featured in the UK music magazine "Mojo" a couple of months ago... shame I couldn't cash in at the time!

I have a AGFA METAL and it's quite cool! Yeah!

But in the 90's there was always those DJ's (quiter large in the horizontal) on MTV shouting "YO! YO! YO!" and I think they used TDK SA tapes for their mixes. Would be nice to get copys of these original mix tapes.

And if someone could record some TV signal on cassette tape, a nice movie like someone did with vinyl! Yeah!

I have a nice TDK MA-X circa 1988 and what I think Is a lovley TDK D 90 from 1979/80. I know it's just a "D" but for 50p in my local charity shop...I just couldn't resist!!! Nice.

Grabbed a couple of tapes I haven't heard much of in this forum. One looks quite odd (but it was manufactured by Agfa, the "Happy Tape".
The metal M1-60 Pioneers ought to be common, but I haven't seen them around much. I have five or six of those.

And a picture of one of the M1's from 1981. (Crappy, I know, sorry!)

quote:

Originally posted by kilotin:
Grabbed a couple of tapes I haven't heard much of in this forum. One looks quite odd (but it was manufactured by Agfa, the "Happy Tape".
The metal M1-60 Pioneers ought to be common, but I haven't seen them around much. I have five or six of those.

I've got one of those, too, baby-blue-cover, but says 'Sunny Tape'

Pioneer M1 is made by Fuji, same as an FR-Metal. Where did you get those? The only cassette tapes I have seen in the US sold with a tape deck mfg, besides Sony and Denon, was a briefly some Panasonic RT-EX High bias tapes and some JVC ME-PII metals.

Thank you for that information ffracer!
I think they were bought by my father who worked for the UN on Cyprus in 1980/81. I opened the last pack about ten years ago, shouldn't have done that, I know...now. Dang.
I also shouldn't have cracked that TPS-L2 opened in 1988 (I was 12), to see how it worked inside

OK just got hold of a lot more tapes, dont really know what dates they are.

Wow ho ho... This thread is a beauty!!
Here's another link if it hasn't been posted already....


HERE

Nice tapes there
got 3 new old used tapes myself yesterday!

check out my thread about old ad's there are a few cassette tapes ad's in it:

http://stereo2go.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8306018954/m/9831077045

I love the looks of those early tapes. The happy tape rocks! Woodstock Hippie Artwook - very cool.
I asked my dad for old tapes and he had some jvc´s for me.



Anybody knows which year they from and should I use them or keep them sealed?