Do cassette Tapes sound better than CDs?I

[Nitin K]

After listening to cassettes for many years, prefer CD's by large but offcourse it is a personal opinion & will differ with someone else. With cassettes I use to find a lot of hiss. The dolby noise reduction button would remove the hiss but use to cut down on treble a lot making music lifeless.
Another issue is Mumbai being coastal & given the tropical season, the cassettes would eventually have fungus or would leave dirt on the head. Cleaning of the capstan, head & pinch rollers would be regular tasks. On one occasion the playing speed of the deck had to be adjusted.
I like the pin drop silence in the ambience of the tracks being played on CD's focussing your attention only on the tracks except with old or bad recordings.
Have been using a CD player also for a very long time & faced issues only when the player was about to be retired.
But all being said, I had a great time in the mid 80's with cassettes & a wonderful music system thanks to my father which does bring in nostalgic memories of great artists & great songs.

 

[plasmoid]

IMO nothing can beat a well mastered cd for convenience, maintenance and sonics.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

I am now listening and comparing both tapes and CD sound quality now for over 5 months now and I am increasingly finding the SQ of tapes way better tha CD recordings. Again I have compared audiophile recordings from Dali, Focal and B&W to arrive at this conclusion at least for me. The tapes are just standard or premium recorded tapes but from analogue sources.

CD player- Marantz- cd5400 modified with audiophile grade opamp.
Tape deck- Nakamichi BX-100E, tape head azimuth readjusted with Lissajous pattern using dual channel oscilloscope.

I am not sure if my "beliefs" are playing ant trick but every time the tapes sound good or even better.

I hv read about digital jitter and tape wow and flutter and in my opinion jitter ruins the sq more than wow and flutter.
Will like other FMs opinions who have and not have similar experiences'

what exactly are you doing? recording from the CD Deck into Tape deck? or comparing identical recordings pre-recorded both in tape and CDs? or recording from LP to tape and comparing with CD? CD recorded or pre-recorded?

 

[Arvind Singh Lodhi]

SQ of pre-recorded cassettes of old Bollywood (upto 1985) mostly HMV, Universal and Polydor/ MIL, seems better than that of CDs of the same.

 

[Panigrahi20]

Hi !

i have been collecting and listening to Vinyls. Tapes, CDs since late eightees.

Frankly, I liked the analog sound of Tapes . But then, all tapes are not mastered that well. Does it also depend on the source and the sound engineer skills .By the time CDs came , technology had advanced quite a bit but it did make the sound unnatural and more amenable to digitalplayers and a novelty they brought in.

i hva found that I can listen to a Tape or vinyl for hours but you get tired with Digital sound of CDs. My son a millenial, aftet experiencing analog music one day confessed to me that it definitely sounded better and more “ soothing” to the ears.
Long hours of play of tape I hv experienced that over time reduced the treble part of the music .
This is an experiential view...

I am now listening and comparing both tapes and CD sound quality now for over 5 months now and I am increasingly finding the SQ of tapes way better tha CD recordings. Again I have compared audiophile recordings from Dali, Focal and B&W to arrive at this conclusion at least for me. The tapes are just standard or premium recorded tapes but from analogue sources.

CD player- Marantz- cd5400 modified with audiophile grade opamp.
Tape deck- Nakamichi BX-100E, tape head azimuth readjusted with Lissajous pattern using dual channel oscilloscope.

I am not sure if my "beliefs" are playing ant trick but every time the tapes sound good or even better.

I hv read about digital jitter and tape wow and flutter and in my opinion jitter ruins the sq more than wow and flutter.
Will like other FMs opinions who have and not have similar experiences'

 

[Nitin K]

Apart from the cassette and cd comparison, there are a lot of factors in the music chain also to consider like the amplifier, speakers, player and the recording on the media which brings out the best in music listening experience and make a track warm or bright sounding.
I found well mastered cassettes nice and at the same time some well mastered CD's also nice and analog sounding especially with CD's like Carpenter's, Don Williams, Kenny Rogers, Perry Como. Certain Mohd Rafi, Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar CD's too.
The convenience of selection of random access to tracks, maintenance, and media storage of the CD's makes it a very practical solution for some people I guess.

 

[Music Freak]

SQ of pre-recorded cassettes of old Bollywood (upto 1985) mostly HMV, Universal and Polydor/ MIL, seems better than that of CDs of the same.

Certainly agree.

When it comes to the labels/companies down here, especially the audio cassettes mfd. b/w 1990 & 95, "Echo Recording Co." tops the list, followed by "LEO".

The Cassettes by Echo do justice to its tagline "Symbol Of Sound Quality". I'm truly amazed by the sound of these.

The Echo cassettes will put the audio CDs mfd. by the labels who acquired them later like Aditya Music, to shame. In case anybody's looking to discard them, think twice as they are invaluable!

 

[AmK]

The CD's are ravaged by the loudness war. the tapes have not. Easy Explaination

I think it is more than just dynamic range compression. There is a palpability/realism/naturalness to some of the older recordings, which is very hard to find in new recordings. Especially with human voices. Refer to some of the old Don McLean recordings, such as Mountains O Mourne, Vincent, Winter has me its grip etc. His voice is so well recorded.

 

[Music Madhu]

I am now listening and comparing both tapes and CD sound quality now for over 5 months now and I am increasingly finding the SQ of tapes way better tha CD recordings. Again I have compared audiophile recordings from Dali, Focal and B&W to arrive at this conclusion at least for me. The tapes are just standard or premium recorded tapes but from analogue sources.

CD player- Marantz- cd5400 modified with audiophile grade opamp.
Tape deck- Nakamichi BX-100E, tape head azimuth readjusted with Lissajous pattern using dual channel oscilloscope.

I am not sure if my "beliefs" are playing ant trick but every time the tapes sound good or even better.

I hv read about digital jitter and tape wow and flutter and in my opinion jitter ruins the sq more than wow and flutter.
Will like other FMs opinions who have and not have similar experiences'

Tapes sound good but very easily gets spoiled. Too many WEAR AND TEAR ISSUES.