Going back to cassettes

[Pillock]

My 2006 Transit Connect has

 

All I have left on cassette is Harry Potter books.

Love the idea of getting cut up by a white transit, and blaring out of the windows you can hear "With a wave of his wand, Harry turned Hermione into a toad and drop-kicked her across the courtyard"

[RoadworkUK]

The abuse of MP3 as a format is rife, and showing little sign of abating.

 

I have heard some seriously crap mp3 recordings in other people's cars, splashy sounding cymbals and all kinds of digital gurgling going on in the background. What narks me is that people don't seem to realise that anything is wrong.

 

Even BBC radio, when they play an "Exclusive" new release often seem to only have a really shit MP3 recording of it, and it sounds terrible. Local radio stations seem to play quite a lot of their jingles in 64kbps. By comparison even the mankiest of my Ferric tapes sound like pure ear nectar.

 

The only digital sound files I have (outside PCM recordings e.g CDs) are lossless. I won't give anything else house room.

 

That said, everything sounds awful through the papier mache speakers in my Rover.

[Lacquer Peel]

[Mr_Bo11ox]

BUTTONS

[Lacquer Peel]

 

I bought one of these to use with my later PREMIUM SOUND SYSTEM. The audio quality is pretty good compared to some cheap cassette adapters I've used in the past but it's quite expensive, think it was about £12.

 

Ms. Peel likes the old physical media that they had in the past, and has kept her dad's cassettes. There's The Doors and Devo rattling about in the car now. At least I can use the cases to scrape frost off the windows.

[D Spares & Tyres]

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.

Mr Tee

Horsefair, Kidderminster

 

Massive selection of secondhand music, CD, tape and vinyl

 

Nice bloke too

[catsinthewelder]

Oooh that's just behind Electric Leyland,  I'll nip in next time I'm dragging a sickly Citroen van over there.

[D Spares & Tyres]

unbelievable place, you will love it. shite EVERYWHERE.

[Ronnie L]

Much as I love old technology on motor cars I have to say that cassette players in cars are absolutely shite and completely unacceptable, even if they do look / sound authentic.

Through the 70s, 80s and early 90s I had loads of these awful things in my cars and without fail they all ended-up chewing tapes and had to be used as radio-only devices. I had good makes and cheap makes, but they all ended-up munching tapes. Crap technology best left in the past. MP3 rules!

[Junkman]

What do you mean "going back to cassettes"?

 

Has there ever been anything else suitable for cars?

45s didn't really work, so you must use casettes, unless you want to play the same three Johnny Cash tapes in your 8-track over and over again.
 

[Waderider]

My 2004 Volvo V40 has a cassette player. The last cassette I own is in permanent residence in 'the slot', Van Halen 1984. I play it when driving through radio blackspots in the Highlands, which is quite frequently. Sounds good to me. I need more cassetttes.

[inconsistant]

Scanned from The What Car? magazine Feb 1926:

 

[Negative Creep]

1926? No wonder Amstrad went bust, they were making stereos to work with mediums that hadn't been invented yet

[holbeck]

I recently went to a house clearance auction and one of the lots was a box of tapes.

 

The poojo has a clarion tape deck so I thought a couple of quid would buy them, as surely no one would want a dozen or so not so special cassettes?

 

Wrong. I didn't even get a chance to bid, as several bidders pushed bidding up to nearly £20!

 

As a wise man once said, 'AM OOT'

[Andrew353w]

I've a Philips car radio/cassette player, still in the box that's waiting for the car of my dreams to come along... (this may be a long wait....)

 

The radio is totally digital and has 5 shortwave bands.... Blimey! 

[Taff]

well, I invested heavily in a double-ended 3.5mm jack cable which allows me to plug my parasitical electronic device that I somehow have come to depend on iPhone directly into the stereo in the MGF and I can further annoy other MGF owners by playing Slipknot and Madonna at full volume. Hooray for me.

[Sloth in a bowl]

When the V40 was my main car then the cassette player was a god send.

I would buy books on tape for £1 from the local charity shops, listen to them, then dump them back in another shop.

That kept me going in commuting entertainment for a couple of years.

 

Books on CD, a rip off in comparison.

Now I mainly listen to MP3 music or pod casts.

[FakeConcern]

My wife's Mk1 Clio & my XM both have a cassettes that sound pretty good & we have loads of tapes, however we usually use an ipod adapter in both.

[Wilko220]

I want "special inbuilt interference reduction circuitry"!!!

[alfetta]

Still play 'em! lots of  albums  I recorded in the 80's - most via a linn sondek and Nakamichi deck on top quality tape -  still sounds great (to me). Got a mid 90' Panny cassette deck with aux input for my phone...

 

[Bobthebeard]

I have a newish Sony CD radio unit in the Prelude. Nice blue display etc.... Sounds great, but given the totally original condition of the car it just looks wrong.

Am going to remove it and put a good quality 1990's cassette radio back in if anyone wants a swap?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Cassettes R wank.

 

I have one car from seven with a CD player which is okay. The rest have period cassette players, very good quality Philips made ones. I don't have cassettes so I just use the radio. Radio 2 until Jeremy Vile comes on and then straight over to Radio 4. My Touring had some Sony piece of rubbish* cassette player that was utter toss and I replaced it with the correct BMW Philips radio. It's nice and easy to use and just very pleasant. It has a Somny changer in the boot that I *could* plug in, if I could be arsed. To be honest I've become so used to the radio now.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Oh, and cassettes fucking themselves in the radio - once you'd extricated the remains, I'm sure most of us had to cut out the damaged sections before rejoining them with tape, the presence of which would stop/elect the tape. Push the bastard back in, done.

 

No thanks.

[Honey Badger]

I have a newish Sony CD radio unit in the Prelude. Nice blue display etc.... Sounds great, but given the totally original condition of the car it just looks wrong.

Am going to remove it and put a good quality 1990's cassette radio back in if anyone wants a swap?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Honda-Civic-Accord-Crx-Prelude-Cassette-Player-Radio-Stereo-/171782821395?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item27ff0dd613

 

Most Honda head units are clarions or Bose so good quality stuff, I have the standard Clarion unit in my Accord coupe and it sounds great, don't have any cassettes though, skipped all mine at the turn of the millennium.

[UltraWomble]

Casettes - shamettes

 

What you need is a Mini Disc player ( and recorder) - all the fun of making your own mix tapes and recording Now 48 off a mate without the hassle of great reams of tape clogging up the hedgerows of England

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

What you need is a Mini Disc player ( and recorder) - all the fun of making your own mix tapes and recording Now 48 off a mate without the hassle

of great reams of tape clogging up the hedgerows of England

 

Now we're talking. 

 

 

Why, here's a NOS one for sale!

[UltraWomble]

I have a mini disc recorder in the shape of a Sony CMT-CP33MD

But since my portable minidisc player went west I have nothing to play stuff on out and about now, and Im loath to bin off the in car DAB wireless, though it does have a nice 3.5mm input jack should I find another MD player and then I can relive the 1980's with all my 12" mix discs.

 

Strawberry Switchblade - ah.... off to youtube land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmOlujqOFlg

[Richard]

I managed to bag one of these for the 850.

 

 

The grey V70 versions are ten a penny because they were standard equipment as far as I can tell, but not many 850s had them. I've been looking on eBay and, on the rare occasions they do turn up, they always seem to be £££. One turned up on the Volvo forum recently for £ because the CD player wasn't working, and it was only half an hour away from home.

 

I tried it out and the CD seemed to work fine on genuine discs but it wouldn't play CD-Rs. I'm going to try cleaning the laser to see if that helps, but I intend to mostly use it with a cassette adapter anyway. The only other issue is that half the bulbs had blown. I've replaced most of them, I'll be breaking out the soldering iron for the display bulb later today.

[Timewaster]

very good quality Philips made ones.

Make your mind up. which is it?

 

The local car stereo guru once told me he would have been out of business years ago if not for Vauxhall fitting Philips head units.

When I worked at a Peugeot dealer in 1989, they swapped to Clarion units and the warranty pile of knackered stereos halved.

[Bren]

My SD1 still has it's philips unit. It does'nt work.

 

I bought a pioneer unit in 1993 which I still have - it's as good as a CD in terms of sound quality.