Lou Ottens, Inventor of the Cassette Tape, Has Died

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by fastfwd, Mar 11, 2021.

  1. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I never liked cassette tapes, although their place in history is nothing short of epic!

    I never liked them, but, having lived through their entire history so far, I certainly used a lot of them. And I even fulfilled my ambition to own a Sony Walkman Professional: a miniature deck as good as many full-sized units. Never had a Nagra, though: I touched one once! Had a friend who worked for the BBC. What beautiful engineering! The deck that is, not the friend.

    Was it cassette machines that standardized the basic start/stop/pause/etc symbols? That's a huge contribution to international language.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2021
  3. E_Schaaf

    E_Schaaf MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    I love cassettes and wish I had more friends to swap mixtapes with. It's just not the same thing sharing playlists on Spotify or another service. I started a cassette deck thread a while ago (and some of my introductory comments are probably a bit off the mark compared to where I am now with 3 decks in circulation and a growing library of cassettes) but would love to see some new conversation sprout about the sonic qualities of various decks and types of tape. It's really a shame all the great decks are dying out along with parts and people to repair them and quality blanks. In a parallel universe there's a varispeed 3-head cassette deck with a tube output stage, reliable transport, easy to service, effective auto-azimuth and auto-reverse. That's the dream. That said, a cheap 2-head Nak can also give great playback performance.

    cassette deck thread - https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...e-tape-decks-for-the-love-of-saturation.5926/
     
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  4. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    When I was young I used to rewind tapes by sticking a pencil through them and spinning it around like a toy o_O
    It had to be the octagonal pencils though, not those round ones because they wouldn't grip the nubs.
     
  5. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I will always have fond memories of the mix tapes blasting from the aftermarket Alpine deck in my car as a teenager, and of course the Walkman was the portability game changer that inevitably led to where we are now. To paraphrase a poster on another forum, "Before the cassette tape I could not hear my music while walking down the street and with the advent of cassette I could. I consider that a 100% improvement in sound quality."

    Thanks Lou! RIP
     
  6. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    The Bic ball-point pen was a perfect fit.
     
  7. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    I will never forget having a cassette deck in my Chevy. I installed Mind Blower powered speakers and rocked out.
     
  8. Tchoupitoulas

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    The cassette tape was also a godsend, as a kid, when it came to road trips and being stuck in the back seat of the car. Man, you could shut out the parents for a good hour or two. And I loved being able to listen to music in bed while falling asleep late at night (or what passed for late at night in those days). That's when I really fell in love with music. I still have all those cassette tapes at my mum's place.

    Remember when auto reverse was a big deal?!
     
  9. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Oh, yes indeed! A really luxury feature :D

    One of my prime uses for cassette tape was playing scratched LPs. I did not have to cringe at what the scratch was doing to my vinyl every time I played it and, tape not being able to handle that severe a transient, it took a little of the aural pain out of it. I did not even dream of digitising and doctoring the result, back then.
     
  10. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Being a kid in the 90s we had tons of tapes. Then I remember people buying CDs saying they were overpriced, and then were happy of free downloads back in the 2000s.
     
  11. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    Back in the early 80's when CD was still expensive and niche, my buddies and I would buy records and then tape them upon first play and generally not touch the record again until another tape needed to be made for a friend. When I finally got a decent TT in the early 90's I had a bunch of records that were in new condition.

    I liked the sound of tapes for the most part. It was probably more of a nostalgia thing but making mix tapes was big even when CD's were gaining popularity, but before recordable CDs were a thing.

    I'd probably still make a tape now and then if blanks were more available. The prices for NOS TDK/Maxell are insane and even if you go to a bulk tape provider, hi-bias tape is still pretty hard to find. I'm not inclined to even bother with normal bias since I never liked them to begin with.

    I still have an old Nak CR-1A boxed up in the garage.
     
  12. Walderstorn

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    Very interesting what he said:

    “Nothing can match the sound of the CD. It is absolutely noise and rumble-free. That never worked with tape … I have made a lot of record players and I know that the distortion with vinyl is much higher. I think people mainly hear what they want to hear.”

    Thanks for all the great memories Lou.
     

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