Going back to cassettes

[castros_bro]

Cor, I would like those. Now I gotta read the thread and see if anyone else bagged them. I still make mixtapes, though it's all iTunes and two playlists rather than working out track durations from LP/CD and EQing to suit the car...

 

Yours, if you want, £12 for about 7kg of new unused never raced nor rallied sealed new casettes delivered by "don't know where your parcel is" courier gibbon.

[John F]

I found my old "Kate Bush Ã¢â‚¬â€œ The Whole Story" cassette earlier today, and was really chuffed until I realised the only thing I've got with a cassette deck is a terrible old 1990s midi system that I use as an amp for my PC, and the cassette decks on that are borked.

 

Ho hum. If only I hadn't replaced the old Clarion tape deck in the LT with an all-singing, all-dancing DAB head unit the other day...

[saucedoctor]

Cassettes were shit in the 80''s and I'm pretty sure that they haven't improved by sitting in damp glove boxes and dusty drawers for 30 years. As a method for adding period misery to shite they're perfect, for actually listening to music in 2015 not so much.

What's the newest car anyone here has with a cassette? Mine is a 2001 S-Type , that's got cassette and boot changer, I'm pretty sure my 2003 e39 had one too. Apart from some opera cassettes that came with the e30 316 I haven't played one since about 1987.

 

My 2005 X Type has a radio/cassette and a 6 disc changer. My 2002 S Type had a single CD in the dash and an autochanger.

[PhilA]

I don't have a tape player in the car, but I did recently redo the belts and adjustments on my Walkman.

 

 

It's a chore recording things onto it, the sound quality is horrendous compared to modern formats (and even older formats, my vinyl collection is better than any tape) but it's an idiosyncratic item of an age that was a mixture of technologies

 

Especially with the hiss and the echoed multiples of crosstalk from the recording machines that would be found. Vinyl mastering is an art; cassette mastering is also, as is CD. All three recently appear to have been lost. CD/digital format is the same, essentially for quantization. I hate the WHOMP of a bass drum then the 1/3 second recovery time the auto-volume algorithm has applied. When the music is all WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP it just sounds like crap. I do not wish to be driving down the street rattling the rear lights and numberplate. I would like the dynamic range offered by CD's when they first came out and they HAD to be better than cassette by a huge margin in order to sell?

 

Oh well. Turn on the Dolby B, I guess

 

--Phil

[dave21478]

assuming that this can be done to any car stereo, can you provide a diagram mate? I would like to run my iPhone (and thus my music library) through the head unit in the MG.

 

I'll pay you in beans

 

I am too much of an electro-tard to provide specifics, sorry.

I opened up the casette deck and having a prod around found a connector marked L, R and GND, and just soldered an old headphone lead onto those contacts, which worked. I had to trip the tape deck mechanism so it thought there was a tape in it to allow the sound to come through, and I cut the wires to the motor to stop it running needlessly.

Your mileage may vary.

[face]

I had a tape player in my old Puma after going for years with a CD player in other cars.

I used it a little and enjoyed the memories it coaxed up, then just used my phone through one of those tape adapters.

 

I now have a Parrot Bluetooth kit fitted in the Golf and it's GR88 - plays via Bluetooth, SD card, line-in, iPhone or USB. I have 16Gb of stuff lobbed on a USB which plugs into a socket in the glove box. Easy.

 

YOU CANNY BEAT DIGIKAL

 

(you also canny beat Scalextric)

[RayMK]

I still listen to and enjoy cassettes in the Stellar.  It has yet to eat a tape, though my Renault 20 of years ago did that regularly (probably because of the job lot of ultra cheap cassettes I bought from a scruffy supermarket). 

 

About four and a half weeks ago I decided to buy a cheap automatic car - I had been surveying the market since my Mitsubishi i disgraced itself last July. Nothing modern took my fancy, then I saw a Peugeot 205 which ticked all the price, MOT, mileage, condition and location boxes. I went off the idea the next day, then my son persuaded me to at least go and have a look. I did. I liked it and bought it. What the hell has this to do with the "Going back to cassettes" thread, you may be wondering. Well, a 'new' car inevitably hogs attention until the novelty wears off. The day after buying it, I tried the stereo/cassette unit. It was totally dead and somewhat ancient, so I went to Halfords and bought a Pioneer unit which was on special offer. On the way out of Halfords, before reaching the door, I tripped over one of my walking sticks (arthritic hips cause me to need props). I had both sticks in one hand because I was carrying the precious (cheap) stereo under the other arm. Also, I was attending more to the other products as I walked, rather than ensuring I did not trip over. I fell heavily, making sure that the stereo had the softest landing. My right knee took quite a clout, as did my left arm which was protecting the stereo. Initially, I suffered embarassment and a light graze on the knee and thought I had got away with it relatively unscathed. Three hours later after sitting in my armchair I detected that my trousers felt uncomfortable around the right knee. Investigation caused mild panic. The knee had become HUGE. I hate hospitals and have a history of fainting whenever medical drama comes too close to me, nevertheless, my son was persuaded to take me to A&E where we had endless enjoyment for about 4 hours. Xrays and examinations indicated all bones were intact but I was warned to expect severe bruising and to have to treat the swelling with frozen peas and painkillers. Fortunately, I realised that the peas did not have to be consumed. I was allowed to go home after I had recovered from passing out the second time (whilst being given a graphic description of the blood clot behind my kneecap). So, 4.5 weeks later, my knee is almost back to looking normal and the ornate purple, yellow, red and black bruising spectrum which had covered most of my leg is now only below the knee and fading. Incidently, I love the Peugeot .

 

The Pioneer stereo/cd unit sounds good but controlling it is an arse.  Stupid, tiny, multifunction buttons mean that the display reverts to Russian or Turkish script all too easily, then it's a 5 minute job with the manual to restore English.  Finding and setting the audio controls appears to be a semi-random sequence of button and rotary control operations which stretch my patience way past all known limits.  Cassette players had an ON/OFF button or a Volume button which did the job. Audio control (tone)  and radio tuning were also straightforward and you did not have to look away from the road and miss your turn-off just to silence an idiotic DJ.   There again, I stopped using the DVD player at home when the operators grew up (my kids)  .

[Dippy]

My Victor came with a radio cassette player as standard which was not bad for 1975. The first owner of the car had it removed and an 8 track fitted before he took delivery as he didn't have any of those new fangled cassettes.

 

I have for the last 18 months driven round listening to the eight track player, but have to keep searching fleabay for new music and to replace the chewed tapes.

 

It all adds to the shite experience don't forget any tosser can get a modern car with an MP3 player but real men drive shite whilst listening to shite.

[MarvinsMom]

sadly my 75 is only a classic se, so just below the connie, ther cd changer was a quite dear option on that.

 

daft as the car if fitted with damn near everything else, the cd player and cruise control are the only things missing!!

[DodgyBastard]

The mgf ate my story of the Clash tape

You can have mine..

[Pillock]

Cassettes? Awful. CDs too though.

If you want to be needlessly retro, Minidisc is where it's at. If you want to actually listen to music, solid state. USB, phone connection, whatever.

[inconsistant]

Stereo from the olden days

 

 

+

 

 

Compilation tapes from the olden days

 

 

 

The only chod ents I need.

[Lord Sterling]

My Merc has an all-singing all-dancing CD/AUX/USB stereo. Bought off a neighbour, sold to my cousin then bought back when he needed the money. Now happily fitted to my Merc. I like the USB insert as it allows me to vary my playlist as and when. AUX is great when I want to listen directly from Tablet/Phone.

 

I am however, a bit of stickler for originality, when I had my KV6 on the road I happily kept the old Philips Rover unit in the car and used a scrapyard find similar to this:

 

 

Sound quality was fine, no complaints and it kept me in music.

 

As most others here have said, unless you've got a cassette with all of your favourite tunes on, then it can be annoying waiting for 5 minutes before you can remember where that all time fave tune was on the cassette.

[inconsistant]

Can I just draw attention to the ff only on mine, to rewind you eject flip ff eject flip play.

Also off topic but manual tuning and no presets.

[stripped fred]

I have a tape player in my MR2 and I'm happy with it, especially after I replaced the tinny speakers with decent ones. However, I am considering a DAB radio in my Alfa as the mw reception (I listen to '5 live' a lot) is so awful that I can't hear what they're saying half the time. Probably the wrong forum to ask for recommendations on where to get a cheap dab car stereo?

[robinmasters]

no, that's women your thinking of

Which hole do you twiddle the pencil round in when it gets too loose to work properly?

 

I have a Sony mech-less head unit, which cost about £40, with about eleventy-billion songs on a usb stick which is basically just the plug, so is almost flush to the front of the stereo. Amazing. All the music I own, in the car, without needing about with crappy plastic media which gets scratched/tangled/fucked.

 

I'm all for shite old technology, when it works, and old mechanical stuff often works better, but with anything electronic, generally, the newer the better.

[mercrocker]

 

 

 

Taff, on 14 May 2015 - 1:04 PM, said:

 

 

no, that's women your thinking of

Which hole do you twiddle the pencil round in when it gets too loose to work properly?

 

 

 

I find both, one anti-clockwise the other one clockwise. Brandy and babycham is a good lubricant....

[martc]

I found my old "Kate Bush Ã¢â‚¬â€œ The Whole Story" cassette earlier today, and was really chuffed until I realised the only thing I've got with a cassette deck is a terrible old 1990s midi system that I use as an amp for my PC, and the cassette decks on that are borked.

 

Ho hum. If only I hadn't replaced the old Clarion tape deck in the LT with an all-singing, all-dancing DAB head unit the other day...

Is it the version with the tonal burst at the start which automatically set-up your hi-fi for optimal playback?

 

Or at least that was the idea - I have no idea if such a system actually existed.

[mat_the_cat]

And don't mention those FM transmitters, they're only useful if your route is entirely contained within some kind of MOD maintained radio signal quiet zone. 

 

The ones which splice into your aerial lead are better, as when you turn them on they cut the signal from the aerial itself leaving only whatever signal they are 'broadcasting'. Only problem I've found is that unless the MP3 device you're using has a line out option, using a headphone level output gives a poor S/N ratio.

 

My old Sony AW3000 was great in that it had both a line out setting (which fried your ears if you plugged in headphones by accident!) but also the sound compression seemed better quality than MP3. Sadly it was limited to around 18Gb capacity, even when opened up and a larger hard drive substituted it was unable to recognise a drive any bigger than 20Gb or so, with 2Gb taken up by the OS.

 

On the subject of tapes though, I remember that they didn't *have* to sound crap - my Dad was into hifi in a big way and bought a decent tape deck in the early 90s which sounded similar to the new-fangled CDs which were coming out. I remember being impressed that it had something better than Dolby C but I recall he was limited to recordings carried out with this new technology. Which rapidly fell by the wayside with the advent of CDs...

[Stanky]

I'm still working my way through the massive box of tapes that Castros_bro of this very parish gave me for free about a year ago. A lot of them a very good, mostly mid-90s alt stuff, but also including some home-made mixtapes.

 

Some of these are very good, some are, frankly, shocking (sorry if you're offended by this Castros_bro) but it is very fun putting an unlabelled tape into the tapedeck and seeing what soundz come out of the creme de la creme of 90s budget car speakers. 

 

There is a 1968 Henrix tape in there too, which I'm not playing due to fear it either wont work, or worse, will break when I do play it. Apparently they are going for upwards of £12 - yeah twelve - quid on ebay. Movin' on up.

[I_am_Diesel]

I have a USB port on my van stereo. I have never bothered with it until tonight. Just put some tunes on a stick and give it a go. Wish I had done it months ago.

 

I don't think that tapes will enjoy the kind of revival that vinyl is experiencing at the moment.

[UmBongo]

Cassettes give listening to music in an old banger an authentic feel.

 

They do mostly sound shite, though...mostly.

[Ghosty]

Mum's old 54 plate Polo had a tape player, that we quite happily used for quite a while, until it got full of crap that even a head cleaner couldn't shift.

[D Spares & Tyres]

ah they memories of putting a cassette you like into a newly purchased car`s stereo, and it getting all munched up inside....

 

Also, does anyone else remember all the bushes at the side of motorways used to be decorated with the insides of tapes dangling off them?

[Lord Sterling]

Can I just draw attention to the ff only on mine, to rewind you eject flip ff eject flip play.

Also off topic but manual tuning and no presets.

Ma's K11 Micra had a low-spec stereo with a tape player that only had 'FF' which also served as a tape ejector. As soon as I got driving, it got changed for a Sony XPlod CD player. We still have the old tape player though.

 

Also, I noticed in some cars, like in my old Coupe that the original unit was changed for another tape-player head unit which didn't look or sound any better than the old unit, in fact, it was worse. I've never really understood this.

[catsinthewelder]

I listen to the radio if I have a choice but the Cherry is tape only (radio broken and not DIN so tricky to replace) so I've been hunting round charity shops lately with plenty of success.  I don't own any music on MP3 and have no intention of doing so after really not getting on with an early mp3 player.

 

Modern technology in my cars?  Well I would buy a DAB stereo if there was any signal round here but there's hardly any FM signal never mind digital.  I've put a shit chinese MP3 radio in the Disco as our lass does have music on her phone,  the result is that I often have to drive in silence because the reception is so bad.

[Asimo]

What's the newest car anyone here has with a cassette

 

My 2006 Transit Connect has 

 

All I have left on cassette is Harry Potter books.

[sierraman]

Same type as I've installed. Its a nostalgia thing for me, reminding me of the days when you used to have to fuck about ffwding to find a decent track and the whole experience. When I had a Sierra it had the rack on the dash for the tapes.

 

I can remember my mate chucking my Billy Idol 'rebel yell' cassette out of the window outside Bridlington and district Hospital, after it pissed all the tape out into the set and we had to drive 80 mile home in silence.

[Bren]

Cassette porn. I still have an early 90's pioneer digital unit which was the cat's arse - excellent sound.

 

The SD1 still has it's original philips item, however it is in a box in the boot.

 

I think of those fucking awful shibuya/ crown things that you could get cheap but had sound akin to auto erotic asphyxiation underwater.

 

Happy days. I've just found my fuzzbox "big bang" cassette.

[plasticvandan]

my polos still got its original panasonic auto reverse cassette player in,which is fine as i have a lot of tapes