Audio Video News

Who Needs Hi-Res Audio When You Have...Cassettes

SV Staff  |  Jan 13, 2017

Are you a hipster? Did you recently buy a turntable from Urban Outfitters—or a cassette deck? (Yes, they sell those.)

Fast Company reports that National Audio Company, one of the last remaining cassette manufacturing operations, saw a 20 percent increase in its commercial tape duplication business last year—a figure that excludes blank tapes and audiobooks.

“This continues an upward-sloping trend for the Missouri-based company, which did more business in 2014 than at any other point since its factory opened in 1969,” writes John Paul Titlow in “Music’s Weird Cassette-Tape Revival Is Paying Off.”

The article explores what Titlow calls the “counterintuitive revival of cassettes,” a tiny niche to be sure, but intriguing—if not puzzling—nonetheless.

For us, this quote—call it Quote of the Day—sums things up:

“I feel like everyone is obsessed with super high fidelity but I like it when things are warm and warbly.” —Andy Molholt, leader of the Philadelphia-based band Laser Background

Read Titlow’s article here.

COMMENTS
kevon27's picture
Submitted by kevon27 on January 13, 2017 - 10:14pm

Because Cassettes are analog like vinyl they are better than digital. Micheal Framer will agree with me.

Brandon Iron's picture
Submitted by Brandon Iron on January 21, 2017 - 11:14am

I still use a Sony double cassette recorder and still listen to it. Back in the 70's I bought a DBX "compander/expander" for a Teac cassette deck which has been retired. When recording, I compressed the tracks to fit the entire bandwidth of the track (from vinyl, primarily, but also reel to reel and eventually even CD and then on playback, expanded the dynamic range. I have a lot of music on cassettes that I don't have in any other format or can't get at all. Just a note, I still use the DBX to expand bandwidth when using my turntable.

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