Compact Cassette



For a long time, recording at home was impossible. You either went to the shop and bought the latest single on a shellac record, or listened to the radio. Although proposed towards the end of the 19th century, real-time recording didn't really become a thing until some scientists working for a German chemical company discovered a method involving magnetised metal oxides bonded to a polymer tape. The Allies suspected Germany has a way of making quick recordings, but it wasn't until the end of WW2 that magnetic tape as a media became widely known.

The principal is relatively straightfoward. A recording is made when a magnetic head is driven by an electrical signal, and imprints a change in magnetic field in metal oxides coated on the tape surface. A recording is played back when a subsequent head 'reads' the fluctuations in magnetic field and converts it back into an electrical sound signal.

Early tape recorders however, were bulky reel-to-reel devices taking up a large amount of shelf space. Not to mention being expensive.

Some odd attempts were made to miniaturise the technology. Wire-recording recorded information to a length of fine-gauge wire in the same manner as a tape recorded, while Germany introduced Tefifon - which had more in common with a vinyl record, consisting of grooves in a continuous tape read by a stylus.

The Compact Cassette was introduced by Philips in the mid 60's - originally as little more than a dictation machine for recording and playback of voice. Voice-recording required far less sound quality than music. These were the original Ferric (Iron) Oxide tapes.

Very quickly however, a change in chemistry and construction of the tape improved the sound quality that could be recorded to the point where it was almost good enough for music playback. Nowhere near as good as Vinyl record, or a full-size reel-to-reel recorder, but acceptable, and far more portable. A compact cassette could easily be fitted to a car. Or reduced down to pocket-size, as the Sony Walkman proved

They were cheap, and they were incredibly easy to record and copy - something which caused no end of conserternation to those who made their money by being the exclusive source of recorded mustic.

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You could record the latest hits straight off the radio - provided the DJ didn't ruin it by talking over the intro. Eventually, your tape would fill up with your own private compilation - your personal playlist mixtape. Which could be copied, or shared with your friends.

The quality wasn't always the best - and being an analogue recording, it would degrade with each generation. Bad recordings made on budget equipment gave Cassettes a reputation for a poor quality.

A good quality source, a good quality tape - such and a Type-II Chrome, or a Type-IV Metal, Tape when paired with a good quality cassette deck could make a recording almost indistinguisheable from a CD. Tape could be better than most people remembered.

It was still common in the early 2000's for HiFi systems to have a specific output for a tape recorder, letting the owner feed a signal from their Turntable, CD Player or what have you to the tape recorder for sharing, or for use in the car. The Compact Cassette didn't really start to die off until in-car CD players became more reliable and was only really killed by the iPod, and the bluetooth auxiliary input.

Some new releases have been made on compact cassette - notable the Soundtrack to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies series, where a cassette mix-tape is an important plot point - but it's debatable if these were ever intended to be played.

Compared to modern formats, the Compact Cassette retains a number of advantages. Tapes can be reasonably robust - many lasting 30 years or more with minimal degredation. Tape mechanisms can tolerate shocks that would cause a CD player to skip, while generally being easier to clean, service and maintain, and often having few moving parts. There is also, of course, no DRM present on an all-analogue format.

Even so, it still lingers on, both performing its original function for stolid businessmen in the ossified upper echelons of management, and as a novelty for a new generation that's learning the joys of physical media. Good, functioning cassette decks and quality blank tapes are going up in price as the supply dwindles. New cassette decks can be bought - though all now use variations on the same basic muntzed mechanism.