America Is Running Out of Cassette Tape

Megalith

Megalith

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National Audio is the only company in the US that produces cassette tape. Now, as cassette tapes enjoy a resurgence in popularity, National Audio has less than a year's supply left of the stuff. In 2014, their South Korean supplier stopped making the material, so co-owner and president Steve Stepp bought out their remaining stock before they shuttered — and has been left with a shrinking stockpile ever since.

Although the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer." That's why the company — which makes cassettes for everyone from indie bands to Metallica — is planning to build the U.S.'s first high-grade tape manufacturing line in decades.
 
ha. I have a pack of 10 90min tapes still in wrapper in my cube at work... Wonder if I can sell them...
 
And exactly why has tape demand increased? It offers subpar quality music recordings. This is like all of those people going to vinyl again. I don't know where these people have gotten it into their heads that just because they're analog storage solutions that they're superior. They aren't.

I wonder if when they run out of tapes I can make some money on a bunch of old mixtapes I have from when I used to go on vacation with my family. I even have 2 working Walkmans I could sell.
 
Goodlookinguy said:
And exactly why has tape demand increased? It offers subpar quality music recordings. This is like all of those people going to vinyl again. I don't know where these people have gotten it into their heads that just because they're analog storage solutions that they're superior. They aren't.
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On paper. Analog's resolution exceeds CDDA by a long shot. We've got SACD, DVD-A and BD-A now, but there is barely anything available in those formats.

However, cassette tape, even with Dolby S, is far inferior to vinyl. It just doesn't have enough high-end frequency response, not to mention its unreliability. VHS is a much better solution than cassette and vinyl for analog audio.
 
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ecmaster76 said:
Damn hipsters. Our landfills will be choked with this crap in a few years when everyone remembers how crappy these things are

At least vinyl never turns into a mess of shredded spaghetti when things go south
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Well vinyl has at least some ok reasons to exist when it comes to music quality, not great mind you but still, and album art and such can be cool in the format.

Tape on the other hand... I found an old tape deck, a while ago, and connected it up to record to tape when I then played it back it sounded as my first .mp3 player with music in 32kbps with the included headphones... The nostalgia...(The studio recorded tapes were not exactly great either)

For me (I did have a cassetplayer when I was a kid btw) the only thing that's attractive with tapes is the mechanical movement and the scratchy sound from rewind/ffwd, I can't however understand why they want to waste more money on building a new factory... So yea Hipsters are trying to hard...
 
Cassettes deteriorate badly over time, and you have to be very careful with vinyl (they require constant cleaning)...I hate all the pops and hisses on an old vinyl album.
 
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ecmaster76 said:
Damn hipsters. Our landfills will be choked with this crap in a few years when everyone remembers how crappy these things are

At least vinyl never turns into a mess of shredded spaghetti when things go south
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No, the records just gets scratched or the static builds up and kills the vinyl anyways.
 
Teenyman45 said:
No, the records just gets scratched or the static builds up and kills the vinyl anyways.
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Don't get me wrong I abhor modern vinyl releases too although they at least have a few advantages like larger artwork. I get wanting to listen to an older album mastered for vinyl on the original format but anything digitally mastered today should be enjoyed as such. The artists can bake in as much 'warmth', hisses, and skips as they want on FLAC and MP3

Tapes are smaller than vinyl but abut the same as CDs. They also allow recording.
Digital simply smashes all the old advantages of tape though
 
I have found it ironic that as recording and playback devices have improved storage and playback accuracy, the headphones have degraded almost as fast. Wonder if the resurgence in tape is due to the degradation in head/ear phones? Maybe folks really can't tell the difference anymore.

And tape has a refreshing lack of DRM.
 
Dead Parrot said:
I have found it ironic that as recording and playback devices have improved storage and playback accuracy, the headphones have degraded almost as fast. Wonder if the resurgence in tape is due to the degradation in head/ear phones? Maybe folks really can't tell the difference anymore.

And tape has a refreshing lack of DRM.
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Most normal people don't care about quality. I see so many kids streaming music off YouTube as their main source of music. Not like their music is worth a fuck to begin with.
 
I still have tons of cassettes, home recording, radio recording, purchased cassettes ect dating back to the 80's. They have been packed away in sealed boxes for many years. Wonder if they still work :p
 
ecmaster76 said:
Don't get me wrong I abhor modern vinyl releases too although they at least have a few advantages like larger artwork. I get wanting to listen to an older album mastered for vinyl on the original format but anything digitally mastered today should be enjoyed as such. The artists can bake in as much 'warmth', hisses, and skips as they want on FLAC and MP3
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I guess if you listen to digital recordings...sure. But, some of us still listen to analog recordings.
 
Cassette Tapes were always decent, it's Cassette PLAYERS that have almost universally been crap. Dolby NR meant lopping off the high-end for a reduction in perceptible hiss, everyone loved CD's because they had no pops or scratches (Vinyl) and no hiss whatsoever (tapes). Bringing back Cassettes for nostalgia is fine, but I'm glad my days of vinyl and cassettes are behind me :)

What I DO hope is that this re-emergence of older audio formats allows SACD and DVD-A to come busting back into the room, because let's face it...they gotta sell us something when people finally go "Wait, WTF am I buying CASSETTES for again...I'm not 9.....da hell was I thinking!?!?!".
 
Dead Parrot said:
I have found it ironic that as recording and playback devices have improved storage and playback accuracy, the headphones have degraded almost as fast. Wonder if the resurgence in tape is due to the degradation in head/ear phones? Maybe folks really can't tell the difference anymore.
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This. Most headphones now are trash, complete crap.
 
ecmaster76 said:
Damn hipsters. Our landfills will be choked with this crap in a few years when everyone remembers how crappy these things are

At least vinyl never turns into a mess of shredded spaghetti when things go south
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yeah the stuff sucks when it breaks
 
twonunpackmule said:
I guess if you listen to digital recordings...sure. But, some of us still listen to analog recordings.
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For vinyl to matter the whole recording process has to be 100% analog from start to finish. If any aspect of the recording, mastering, or production is digital then the whole thing is wasted effort. So if somebody is still using gear no younger than the mid 1980's then great, otherwise it's just marketing hype.
 
I had to read the sentence talking about a resurgence like 5 times because I couldn't fathom why. I still can't actually I just quit trying.
 
Teenyman45 said:
For vinyl to matter the whole recording process has to be 100% analog from start to finish. If any aspect of the recording, mastering, or production is digital then the whole thing is wasted effort. So if somebody is still using gear no younger than the mid 1980's then great, otherwise it's just marketing hype.
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not exactly. You still hear the qualities of the format, itself.

the same album from the same master, will sound onevway on cd. Will sound different on vinyl. Will sound different still, on cassette.
 
chameleoneel said:
not exactly. You still hear the qualities of the format, itself.

the same album from the same master, will sound onevway on cd. Will sound different on vinyl. Will sound different still, on cassette.
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Those differences are introduced by the flaws in the analog medium of the data storage. The problem is if any part of the recording/production process is digital the informational content of the recording is reduced to 1's and 0's at that stage and anything supposedly special or organic about the recording/production process prior to that digital step is now essentially gone. It's like mastering an mp3 onto vinyl or a cassette or a new CD, sure they'll sound different when replayed, but it's not the real thing.
 
And I'm sittin' over here, with my 128GB flash drive loaded with 320Kbps MP3s that still sound better than any cassette tape I've ever owned...
 
Teenyman45 said:
For vinyl to matter the whole recording process has to be 100% analog from start to finish. If any aspect of the recording, mastering, or production is digital then the whole thing is wasted effort. So if somebody is still using gear no younger than the mid 1980's then great, otherwise it's just marketing hype.
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And played back using a vacuum tube amp.
 
I mean, I'm glad that this is creating jobs in the U.S. and all, but part of me can't help but sigh and shake my head that anyone wants this junk.

It's bad enough that obsolete junk technology like vinyl is having a resurgence, but tapes were even worse.

What's next. 8tracks? Phonograph cylinders?

It's moronic that people place value in this crap just because it is old. And yes, I include vinyl here. It is completely and totally surpassed by even basic 16bit 44.1khz PCM digital recordings.
 
Casette is a cheap way to make low volume orders and have something to hand out for your band.
 
hlfbkd420 said:
ha. I have a pack of 10 90min tapes still in wrapper in my cube at work... Wonder if I can sell them...
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I used to have a box of them, as well. I wonder if I've already thrown them out last mass purge. I didn't realize tapes were making a resurgence. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of this. What is that point talking about? Anyone else see people using cassettes?
 
hlfbkd420 said:
ha. I have a pack of 10 90min tapes still in wrapper in my cube at work... Wonder if I can sell them...
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Don't they demagnetize and degrade over time? I feel like I remember reading that there is a strict shelf life for how long those things will survive.
 
Would that be after they've been used to record something onto them? If what you're saying was true that would make the old stock they're referring to in this article useless.
 
mope54 said:
Would that be after they've been used to record something onto them? If what you're saying was true that would make the old stock they're referring to in this article useless.
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Unless it is old stock they do something to during the manufacturing process?

I don't know. Apart from it being how I recorded my favorite music off the radio in the late 80's and early 90's and shared mix tapes, I'm not a tape expert.

I just remember reading it somewhere long ago.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Don't they demagnetize and degrade over time? I feel like I remember reading that there is a strict shelf life for how long those things will survive.
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I had a metric shit ton of mixtapes (MIXTAPES dangit!) in storage for over a decade and a half after my move from California. Not climate controlled storage either, i'm talking 98% humidity and 100 degrees in the summer, and bone chilling prairie winters. All of them survived. Even the vinyl dubs of Bill Cosby from the 70s that I feel guilty laughing at now. But these were all Type II CrO2 or Type IV Metal tapes. So they're hardier than I would've imagined.

The cassette players... are another story altogether. I only have one functioning Cassette deck left- and it's direct drive.
 
HeadRusch said:
Cassette Tapes were always decent, it's Cassette PLAYERS that have almost universally been crap. Dolby NR meant lopping off the high-end for a reduction in perceptible hiss, everyone loved CD's because they had no pops or scratches (Vinyl) and no hiss whatsoever (tapes)..
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Just as a point of clarification... Dolby noise reduction was never intended as a single sided system. The cassette would have to be mastered with Dolby NR and played on a player with the proper system selected. During the mastering the dolby NR BOOSTED the high end range over the range of hiss and noise, then played on a system that reduced the high range back to normal. In effect the high frequencies would even out and the hiss would be removed.
The wow & flutter on cassettes on the other hand.... That took a lot of work and VERY high end players to deal with.
 
I have a deck with dbx and Dolby-C. It makes awesome tapes.

I bought 10 metal bias 90 minute tapes about 5 years ago, as they disappeared.

Before I use these up, I will likely replace the tape decks with digital.

FLAC rules. :)

I still laugh about backing up my CD collection to 128k mp3s... :)
 
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