A cassette deck is a type of
tape machine
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...
for playing and recording audio
cassettes that does not have a built-in power amplifier or speakers, and serves primarily as a
transport
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
. It can be a part of an automotive entertainment system, a part of a portable mini system or a part of a home
component system
Circuit Component may refer to:
•Are devices that perform functions when they are connected in a circuit.
In engineering, science, and technology Generic systems
*System components, an entity with discrete structure, such as an assemb ...
. In the latter case it is also called a component cassette deck or just a component deck.
A "tape recorder" is a more generic term to identify a device that usually has a self-contained power amplifier and either has a built-in speaker or comes packaged with one.
History
Origins
The first consumer tape recorder to employ a tape reel permanently housed in a small removable cartridge was the
RCA tape cartridge
The RCA tape cartridge is a magnetic tape audio format that was designed to offer stereo quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape recording quality in a convenient format for the consumer market. It was introduced in 1958, following four years of developm ...
, which appeared in 1958 as a predecessor to the cassette format. At that time,
reel to reel
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...
recorders and players were commonly used by enthusiasts, but required large individual reels and tapes which had to be threaded by hand, making them less-accessible to the casual consumer. Both
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
and
Bell Sound attempted to commercialize the cartridge format, but a few factors stalled adoption, including lower-than-advertised availability of selections in the prerecorded media catalog, delays in production setup, and a stand-alone design that was not considered by audiophiles to be truly hi-fi.
The "compact cassette" (a Philips trademark)
was introduced by the
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
Corporation at the
Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin
The IFA ( ) or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (International radio exhibition Berlin, a.k.a. 'Berlin Radio Show') is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany. Between 1924 and 1939 it was an annual event, but from 1950 it was ...
in 1963 and marketed as a device purely intended for portable speech-only
dictation machine
A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.
The name "Dictaphone" is a trademark of the company of the same n ...
s. The tape width was
1⁄
8 inch (actually 0.15 inch, 3.81 mm) and tape speed was 1.875 inches (4.8 cm) per second, giving a decidedly non Hi-Fi frequency response and quite high noise levels.
Early recorders were intended for dictation and journalists, and were typically hand-held battery-powered devices with built-in microphones and
automatic gain control on recording. Tape recorder audio-quality had improved by the mid-1970s, and a cassette deck with manual level controls and
VU meter
A volume unit (VU) meter or standard volume indicator (SVI) is a device displaying a representation of the signal level in audio equipment. The original design was proposed in the 1940 IRE paper, ''A New Standard Volume Indicator and Reference ...
s became a standard component of home high-fidelity systems.
Eventually the reel-to-reel recorder was completely displaced, in part because of the usage constraints presented by their large size, expense, and the inconvenience of threading and rewinding the tape reels - cassettes are more portable and can be stopped and immediately removed in the middle of playback without rewinding. Cassettes became extremely popular for automotive and other portable music applications. Although pre-recorded cassettes were widely available, many users would combine (
dub) songs from their
vinyl record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...
s or cassettes to make a new custom
mixtape cassette.
In 1970, the
Advent Corporation
Advent Corporation was a consumer audio and video hardware company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Henry Kloss in 1967. It closed in 1981.
The name came from the legal description ''the advent corporation'' used in the incorporation docu ...
combined
Dolby B
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction ...
noise reduction system with
chromium dioxide
Chromium dioxide or chromium(IV) oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula CrO2. It is a black synthetic magnetic solid. It once was widely used in magnetic tape emulsion. With the increasing popularity of CDs and DVDs, the use of chr ...
(CrO
2) tape to create the
Advent Model 200
Advent is a Christian season of preparation for the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. It is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity.
The name was adopted from Latin "coming; arrival", translating Greek ''parousia''.
I ...
, the first high-fidelity cassette deck. Dolby B uses volume
companding
In telecommunication and signal processing, companding (occasionally called compansion) is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range. The name is a portmanteau of the words compressing and expanding ...
of high frequencies to boost low-level treble information by up to 9 dB, reducing them (and the hiss) on playback. CrO
2 used different bias and equalization settings to reduce the overall noise level and extend the high frequency response. Together these allowed a usefully flat frequency response beyond 15 kHz for the first time. This deck was based on a top-loading mechanism by Nakamichi, then soon replaced by the Model 201 based on a more reliable transport made by
Wollensak
Wollensak Optical was an American manufacturer of audio-visual products located in Rochester, New York. At the height of their popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, many brands of movie cameras came with a Wollensak Velostigmat lens. Wollensak reel- ...
, a division of
3M, which was commonly used in audio/visual applications. Both featured an unusual single VU meter which could be switched between or for both channels. The Model 200 featured
piano key
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
style transport controls, with the Model 201 using the distinctive combination of a separate lever for rewind/fast forward and the large play and stop button as found on their commercial reel to reel machines of the era.
Most manufacturers adopted a standard top-loading format with
piano key
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
controls, dual VU meters, and slider level controls. There was a variety of configurations leading to the next standard format in the late 1970s, which settled on front-loading (see main picture) with cassette well on one side, dual VU meters on the other, and later dual-cassette decks with meters in the middle. Mechanical controls were replaced with electronic push buttons controlling
solenoid mechanical actuators, though low cost models would retain mechanical controls. Some models could search and count gaps between songs.
Widespread use
Cassette decks soon came into widespread use and were designed variously for professional applications, home audio systems, and for mobile use in cars, as well as portable recorders. From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s the cassette deck was the preferred music source for the automobile. Like an
8-track cartridge
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, wh ...
, it was relatively insensitive to vehicle motion, but it had reduced tape
flutter, as well as the obvious advantages of smaller physical size and fast forward/rewind capability.
A major boost to the cassette's popularity came with the release of the
Sony Walkman
Walkman, stylised as , is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese technology company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term fo ...
"personal" cassette player in 1979, designed specifically as a headphone-only ultra-compact "wearable" music source. Although the vast majority of such players eventually sold were not Sony products, the name "Walkman" has become synonymous with this type of device.
Cassette decks were eventually manufactured by almost every well known brand in home audio, and many in professional audio, with each company offering models of very high quality.
Performance improvements and additional features
![Nakamichi-130310-0002EC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Nakamichi-130310-0002EC.jpg)
Cassette decks reached their pinnacle of performance and complexity by the mid-1980s. Cassette decks from companies such as
Nakamichi
is a Japanese consumer electronics brand that originated in Japan and gained a name from the 1970s onwards for innovative and high quality audio cassette decks. Nakamichi is a subsidiary of Chinese holding company Nimble Holdings.
Nakamich ...
,
Revox
ReVox (on-logo styling REVOX) is a brand name, registered by Studer on 27 March 1951 for Swiss audio equipment.
History
The first Studer-designed tape recorders were branded Dynavox. After the first production series of Dynavox recorders, a new ...
, and
Tandberg incorporated advanced features such as multiple
tape head
A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card ...
s and dual
capstan drive with separate reel motors. Auto-reversing decks became popular and were standard on most factory installed automobile decks.
As a part of the
Digital Revolution, the ongoing development of electronics technology
decreased the cost of digital circuitry to the point that the technology could be applied to consumer electronics. The application of such
digital electronics
Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals.
Digital electronic circuits are usual ...
to cassette decks provides an early example of
mechatronic
Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electroni ...
design, which aims to enhance mechanical systems with electronic components in order to improve performance, increase system flexibility, or reduce cost. The inclusion of
logic circuitry and
solenoids
upright=1.20, An illustration of a solenoid
upright=1.20, Magnetic field created by a seven-loop solenoid (cross-sectional view) described using field lines
A solenoid () is a type of electromagnet formed by a helix, helical coil of wire whose ...
into the transport and control mechanisms of cassette decks, often referred to "logic control", contrasts with earlier "piano-key" transport controls and mechanical linkages. One goal of using logic circuitry in cassette decks or recorders was to
minimize equipment damage upon incorrect user input by including
fail-safes into the transport and control mechanism. Such fail-safe behavior was described in a review by
Julian Hirsch Julian Hirsch (1922 - November 24, 2003) was an electrical engineer and audio critic.
Life and early career
Hirsch discovered amateur radio at the age of 14 and was soon building his own equipment. He received a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engi ...
of a particular cassette deck featuring logic control. Some examples of fail-safe mechanisms incorporated into logic control decks include: a mechanism designed to protect internal components from damage when the tape or motor is locked, a mechanism designed to prevent the tape from being wound improperly, among others. Some logic control decks were designed to incorporate light-touch buttons or
remote control
In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such a ...
, among other features marketed as being convenient. In the
car stereo
Vehicle audio is equipment installed in a car or other vehicle to provide in-car entertainment and information for the vehicle occupants. Until the 1950s it consisted of a simple AM radio. Additions since then have included FM radio (1952), ...
industry, full logic control was developed with the aim of
miniaturization, so that the cassette deck would take up less dashboard space.
Three-head technology uses separate heads for recording and playback (the third of the three heads being the erase head).
This allows different record and playback head gaps to be used.
A narrower head gap is optimal for playback than for recording, so the head gap width of any combined record/playback head must necessarily be a compromise.
Separate record and playback heads also allow off-the-tape monitoring during recording, permitting immediate verification of the recording quality.
(Such machines can be identified by the presence of a "monitor" switch with positions for "tape" and "source", or similar.)
Three-head systems were common on reel-to-reel decks, but were more difficult to implement for cassettes,
which do not provide separate openings for record and play heads.
Some models squeezed a monitor head into the capstan area, and others combined separate record and playback gaps into a single headshell.
![Harman Kardon TD4800-130311-0014EC (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Harman_Kardon_TD4800-130311-0014EC_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The
Dolby B noise reduction system was key to realizing low noise performance on slow, narrow, cassette tapes. It works by boosting the high frequencies on recording, especially low-level high-frequency sounds, with corresponding high frequency reduction on playback. This lowers the high frequency noise (hiss) by approximately 9 dB. Enhanced versions included
Dolby C
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
(in 1980) and
Dolby S
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
types. Of the three, however, only Dolby B became common on automobile decks.
Bang & Olufsen developed the
HX Pro
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
headroom extension system in conjunction with
Dolby Laboratories in 1982. This was used in many higher-end decks. HX Pro reduces the high-frequency bias during recording when the signal being recorded has a high level of high frequency content. Such a signal is self-biasing. Reducing the level of the bias signal permits the desired signal to be recorded at a higher level without saturating the tape, thus increasing "headroom" or maximum recording level.
Some decks incorporated microprocessor programs to adjust tape bias and record level calibration automatically.
In later years, an "auto reverse" feature appeared that allowed the deck to play (and, in some decks, record) on both sides of the cassette without the operator having to manually remove, flip, and re-insert the cassette.
Most auto-reverse machines use a four channel head (similar to those on multitrack recorders), with only two channels connected to the electronics at one time, one pair for each direction.
Auto-reverse decks employ a capstan and pinch roller for each side.
Since these use the same opening in the cassette shell normally used for the erase head,
such decks must fit the erase head (or two, one for each direction) into the center opening in the shell along with the record/play head.
In later auto reverse machines, the "auto reverse" mechanism uses an ordinary two-track, quarter-width head,
but operates by mechanically rotating the head 180 degrees so that the two head gaps access the other tracks of the tape.
There is usually an azimuth adjustment screw for each position.
Nevertheless, due to the repeated movement, the alignment (in particular, the azimuth) deviates with usage.
Even in a machine with a four channel head, slight asymmetries in the cassette shell make it difficult to align the
head perfectly for both directions.
![Nakamichi RX 505 Top Open1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Nakamichi_RX_505_Top_Open1.jpg)
In one machine, the "Dragon", Nakamichi addressed the issue with a motor-driven automatic head alignment mechanism.
This proved effective but very expensive.
Later Nakamichi auto-reverse models, the RX series, was essentially a single-directional deck,
but with an added mechanism that physically removed the cassette from the transport, flipped it over, and re-inserted it.
Akai made a similar machine but with the mechanism and cassette laid out horizontally instead of upright.
This permitted the convenience of auto-reverse with little compromise in record or playback quality.
New tape formulations were introduced.
Chromium dioxide
Chromium dioxide or chromium(IV) oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula CrO2. It is a black synthetic magnetic solid. It once was widely used in magnetic tape emulsion. With the increasing popularity of CDs and DVDs, the use of chr ...
(referred to as CrO
2 or Type II) was the first tape designed for extended high frequency response, but it required higher bias. Later, as the IEC Type II standard was defined, a different equalization settings was also mandated to reduce hiss, thus giving up some extension at the high end of the audio spectrum.
Better-quality cassette recorders soon appeared with a switch for the tape type.
Later decks incorporated coded holes in the shell to autodetect the tape type.
Chromium dioxide tape was thought to cause increased wear on the heads, so TDK and Maxell adapted cobalt-doped ferric formulations to mimic CrO
2.
Sony briefly tried FerriChrome (Type III) which claimed to combine the best of both; some people, however, stated that the reverse was true because the Cr top layer seemed to wear off quickly, reducing this type to Fe in practice. Most recent decks produce the best response and dynamic headroom with metal tapes (IEC Type IV) which require still higher bias for recording, though they will play back correctly at the II setting since the equalization is the same.
With all of these improvements, the best units could record and play the full audible spectrum from 20 Hz to over 20 kHz (although this was commonly quoted at -10, -20 or even -30 dB, not at full output level), with
wow and flutter less than 0.05% and very low noise. A high-quality recording on cassette could rival the sound of an average commercial CD, though the quality of pre-recorded cassettes has been regarded by the general public as lower than could be achieved in a quality home recording.
There was a call for better sound quality in 1981, surprisingly by the head of
Tower Records
Tower Records is an international retail franchise and online music store that was formerly based in Sacramento, California, United States. From 1960 until 2006, Tower operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Recor ...
, Russ Solomon. At a meeting of the
National Association of Recording Merchandisers The Music Business Association (Music Biz), formerly known as the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), is a not-for-profit trade association based in Nashville, Tennessee that seeks to promote sustained financial growth and bolst ...
(NARM) Retail Advisory Committee in
Carlsbad, California, Solomon played two recordings of a
Santana
Santana may refer to:
Transportation
* Volkswagen Santana, an automobile
* Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles
* Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer
Boats
* Santana 20, an American sailboat design by W. D. Sch ...
track; one he had recorded himself and the pre-recorded cassette release from
Columbia Records. He used this technique to demonstrate what he called "the tunnel effect" in the audio range of pre-recorded cassettes and commented to the reporter Sam Sutherland, who wrote a news article printed in ''Billboard'' magazine:
"The buyer who is aware of sound quality is making his own." "They won't be satisfied with the 'tunnel effect' of prerecorded tape. And home tape deck users don't use prerecorded tapes at all." Yet, contended Solomon, while Tower's own stores show strong blank tape sales gains, its prerecorded sales have increased by only 2% to 3%. With an estimated 15% of the chain's total tape business now generated by the sales of blanks, "it would appear our added tape sales are going to TDK, Maxell and Sony, not you." he concluded. - '' Billboard'', Vol. 93, No. 38, 26 September 1981.
Noise reduction and fidelity
![Technics SCD 615 geschlossen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Technics_SCD_615_geschlossen.jpg)
A variety of
noise reduction and other schemes are used to increase fidelity, with
Dolby B
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction ...
being almost universal for both prerecorded tapes and home recording. Dolby B was designed to address the high-frequency noise inherent in cassette tapes, and along with improvements in tape formulation it helped the cassette win acceptances as a high-fidelity medium. At the same time, Dolby B provided acceptable performance when played back on decks that lacked Dolby circuitry, meaning there was little reason not to use it if it was available.
The main alternative to Dolby was the
dbx noise reduction system, which achieved a high
signal-to-noise ratio, but was essentially unlistenable when played back on decks that lacked the dbx decoding circuitry.
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
developed an alternative noise reduction system known as
Dynamic Noise Limiter
Noise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal. Noise reduction techniques exist for audio and images. Noise reduction algorithms may distort the signal to some degree. Noise rejection is the ability of a circuit to isolate an un ...
(DNL) which did not require the tapes to be processed during recording; this was also the basis of the later
DNR noise reduction.
![JVC KD D10E v](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/JVC_KD_D10E_v.jpg)
Dolby later introduced
Dolby C
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
and
Dolby S
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
noise reduction, which achieved higher levels of noise reduction; Dolby C became common on high-fidelity decks, but Dolby S, released when cassette sales had begun to decline, never achieved widespread use. It was only licensed for use on higher end tape decks that included dual motors, triple heads, and other refinements.
Dolby HX Pro
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was '' Dolby A'', a professional broadband noise reduction sy ...
headroom extension provided better high-frequency response by adjusting the inaudible
tape bias
Tape bias is the term for two techniques, AC bias and DC bias, that improve the fidelity of analogue tape recorders. DC bias is the addition of direct current to the audio signal that is being recorded. AC bias is the addition of an inaud ...
during the recording of strong high-frequency sounds, which had a bias effect of their own. Developed by
Bang & Olufsen, it did not require a decoder to play back. Since B&O held patent rights and required paying license fees, many other manufacturers refrained from using it too.
Other refinements to improve cassette performance included Tandberg's DYNEQ, Toshiba's and Telefunken's
High Com, and on some high-end decks, automatic
recording bias, fine pitch adjustment and (sometimes) head azimuth adjustment such as the Tandberg TCD-330 and TCD-340A.
![TDK MA-R90 Compact Audio Cassette](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/TDK_MA-R90_Compact_Audio_Cassette.jpg)
By the late 1980s, thanks to such improvements in the electronics, the tape material and manufacturing techniques, as well as dramatic improvements to the precision of the cassette shell,
tape head
A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card ...
s and transport mechanics, sound fidelity on equipment from the top manufacturers far surpassed the levels originally expected of the medium. On suitable audio equipment, cassettes could produce a very pleasant listening experience. High-end cassette decks could achieve 15 Hz-22 kHz±3 dB
frequency response
In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and analysis of s ...
with
wow and
flutter below 0.022%, and a
signal-to-noise ratio of up to 61 dB (for Type IV tape, without noise-reduction) . With noise reduction typical signal-to-noise figures of 70-76 dB with Dolby C, 80-86 dB with Dolby S, and 85 - 90 dB with dbx could be achieved. Many casual listeners could not tell the difference between compact cassette and compact disc.
From the early 1980s, the fidelity of prerecorded cassettes began to improve dramatically. Whereas Dolby B was already in widespread use in the 1970s, prerecorded cassettes were duplicated onto rather poor quality tape stock at (often) high speed and did not compare in fidelity to high-grade LPs. However, systems such as
XDR, along with the adoption of higher-grade tape (such as chromium dioxide, but typically recorded in such a way as to play back at the normal 120 μs position), and the frequent use of Dolby HX Pro, meant that cassettes became a viable high-fidelity option, one that was more portable and required less maintenance than records. In addition, cover art, which had generally previously been restricted to a single image of the LP cover along with a minimum of text, began to be tailored to cassettes as well, with fold-out lyric sheets or librettos and fold-out sleeves becoming commonplace.
Some companies, such as
Mobile Fidelity
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi) is a record label specializing in the production of audiophile issues. The company produces reissued vinyl LP records, compact discs, and Super Audio CDs and other formats.
History
Recording engineer Br ...
, produced
audiophile
An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a piece of recorded music or a live musical performance, typically inside closed headphones, In-ear monitors, open ...
cassettes in the 1980s, which were recorded on high-grade tape and duplicated on premium equipment in real time from a digital master. Unlike audiophile LPs, which continue to attract a following, these became moot after the
Compact Disc
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...
became widespread.
Almost all cassette decks have an
MPX filter to improve the sound quality and the tracking of the noise reduction system when recording from an FM stereo broadcast. However, in many especially cheaper decks, this filter cannot be disabled, and because of that record/playback frequency response in those decks typically is limited to 16 kHz. In other decks, the MPX filter can be switched off or on independently from the Dolby switch. On yet other decks, the filter is off by default, and an option to switch it on or off is only provided when Dolby is activated; this prevents the MPX filter from being used when it's not required.
In-car entertainment systems
A key element of the cassette's success was its use in
in-car entertainment
In-car entertainment (ICE), or in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), is a collection of hardware and software in automobiles that provides audio or video entertainment. In car entertainment originated with car audio systems that consisted of radios and c ...
systems, where the small size of the tape was significantly more convenient than the competing
8-track cartridge
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, wh ...
system. Cassette players in cars and for home use were often integrated with a
radio receiver. In-car cassette players were the first to adopt automatic reverse ("auto-reverse") of the tape direction at each end, allowing a cassette to be played endlessly without manual intervention. Home cassette decks soon added the feature.
Cassette tape adaptor
The cassette adapter allows another source of music to be played through sound systems with a tape player. This is useful for vehicles without auxiliary (aux) ports or CD players.
Usage
Patented on March 29, 1988, a cassette tape adapter is a dev ...
s have been developed which allow newer media players to be played through existing cassette decks, in particular those in cars which generally do not have input jacks. These units do not suffer from reception problems from FM transmitter based system to play back media players through the FM radio, though supported frequencies for FM transmitters that aren't used on commercial broadcasters in a given region (e.g. any frequency below 88.1 in the US) somewhat eliminates that problem.
Maintenance
Cassette equipment needs regular maintenance, as cassette tape is a magnetic medium which is in physical contact with the
tape head
A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card ...
and other metallic parts of the recorder/player mechanism. Without such maintenance, the high frequency response of the cassette equipment will suffer.
One problem occurs when iron oxide (or similar) particles from the tape itself become lodged in the playback head. As a result, the tape heads will require occasional cleaning to remove such particles. The metal
capstan and the rubber pinch roller can become coated with these particles, leading them to pull the tape less precisely over the head; this in turn leads to misalignment of the tape over the head azimuth, producing noticeably unclear high tones, just as if the head itself were out of alignment.
Isopropyl alcohol
Isopropyl alcohol (IUPAC name propan-2-ol and also called isopropanol or 2-propanol) is a colorless, flammable organic compound with a pungent alcoholic odor. As an isopropyl group linked to a hydroxyl group ( chemical formula ) it is the s ...
and
denatured alcohol
Denatured alcohol (also called methylated spirits in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; wood spirit; and denatured rectified spirit) is ethanol that has additives to make it poisonous, bad-tasting, foul ...
are both suitable head-cleaning fluids.
The heads and other metallic components in the tape path (such as spindles and
capstans) may become magnetized with use, and require demagnetizing (see
Cassette demagnetizer
A cassette demagnetizer is a device that removes the magnetism, magnetic field that accumulates during the use of Compact audio cassette, audio cassettes in cassette decks.
The passage of magnetically charged tape over the metallic parts of the ...
).
Decline in popularity
Analog cassette deck sales were expected to decline rapidly with the advent of the
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...
and other digital recording technologies such as
digital audio tape (DAT),
MiniDisc, and the
CD-R
CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times.
CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the i ...
recorder drives. Philips responded with the
digital compact cassette
The Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita Electric in late and marketed as the successor to the standard analog Compact Cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony ...
, a system which was backward-compatible with existing analog cassette recordings for playback, but it failed to garner a significant market share and was withdrawn. One reason proposed for the lack of acceptance of digital recording formats such as DAT was a fear by content providers that the ability to make very high quality copies would hurt sales of copyrighted recordings.
The rapid transition was not realized and CDs and cassettes successfully co-existed for nearly 20 years. A contributing factor may have been the inability of early CD players to reliably read discs with surface damage and offer anti-skipping features for applications where external vibration would be present, such as automotive and recreation environments. Early CD playback equipment also tended to be expensive compared to cassette equipment of similar quality and did not offer recording capability. Many home and portable entertainment systems supported both formats and commonly allowed the CD playback to be recorded on cassette tape. The rise of inexpensive all-solid-state portable digital music systems based on
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
,
AAC and similar formats finally saw the eventual decline of the domestic cassette deck. As of 2020,
Marantz,
Teac TEAC may refer to:
* TEAC Corporation
() is a Japanese electronics manufacturer. TEAC was created by the merger of the Tokyo Television Acoustic Company, founded in 1953, and the Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company, founded in 1956.
Overview
...
, and
Tascam are among the few companies still manufacturing cassette decks in relatively small quantities for professional and niche market use. By the late 1990s, automobiles were offered with entertainment systems that played both cassettes and CDs. By the end of the late 2000s, very few cars were offered with cassette decks. The last vehicle model in the United States that included a factory-installed cassette player was the 2010
Lexus SC 430.
As radios became tightly integrated into dashboards, many cars lacked even standard openings that would accept aftermarket cassette player installations.
Despite the decline in the production of cassette decks, these products are still valued by some. Many
blind and elderly people find the newest digital technologies very difficult to use compared to the cassette format. Cassette tapes are not vulnerable to scratching from handling (though the exposed magnetic tape is vulnerable to stretching from poking), and play from where they were last stopped (though some modern
MP3 players offer
savestating electronically). Cassette tapes can also be recorded multiple times (though some solid-state digital recorders are now offering that function).
Today, cassette decks are not considered by most people to be either the most versatile or highest fidelity sound recording devices available, as even very inexpensive CD or digital audio players can reproduce a wide frequency range with no speed variations. Many current budget-oriented cassette decks lack a tape selector to set proper bias and equalization settings to take best advantage of the extended high end of Type II
igh Biasand Type IV
etal Biastapes.
Cassettes remain popular for audio-visual applications. Some CD recorders, particularly those intended for business use, incorporate a cassette deck to allow both formats for recording meetings, church sermons, and books on tape.
References
External links
Audio Asylum Tape Trail– A discussion forum of interest to those involved in cassette technology.
Vintage Cassette Decks- A collection of Vintage cassette decks of all brands.
{{Music technology
Audio players
Recording devices
Tape recording
1963 in technology
Audiovisual introductions in 1963
Products introduced in 1963