If you collect audio cassettes, chances are you like the look of the ones with paper labels best. Well known for adding vivid colour to the product, paper labels can also on occasion create character by bubbling up away from the casing, as seen in the picture above.
But is there any link between cassettes with paper labels and a higher quality sound? Is a cassette without a paper label any more likely to have a dull sound? As regards the 1970s output, probably not. But 1980s and 1990s tapes with paper labels do show statistical evidence of higher audio quality…
When they first entered wider public consciousness around the dawn of the 1970s, musicassettes routinely came labelled with paper. A paper label was considered almost essential for a blank tape, because the owner would want to mark up the contents of the media in pencil or pen. But as the decade progressed, it was decided that pre-recorded media did not necessarily need a paper label, since the manufacturer could screen the relevant details directly onto the plastic casing.
Some seven inch, 45rpm vinyl records had begun to ship with no added labels by the mid 1970s – especially when the single was selling in very high volume. And pre-recorded cassettes followed similar proportions, with the majority carrying paper labels and a minority marked up directly onto the plastic.
The proportions began to shift from the late 1970s, as more pre-recorded cassettes appeared without labels. The popular formula at that time was a light coloured opaque casing with black or dark print, but going into the ’80s this evolved towards a black casing with silver-grey print. By the mid 1980s, both variants were in widespread circulation.
In the second half of the ’80s, both the dark and the light opaque casings began to give way to clear, transparent casings, and paper labels really took a dive on pop pre-records at that time. Classical cassette albums made a greater effort to hang onto their paper adornments, but even they were most commonly shipping in clear, label-devoid plastic by the 1990s.
Today, paper labels are more than just a pretty aesthetic to the cassette connoisseur. Especially in the 1980s, those colourful stick-ons also hinted at a higher quality of manufacture. The logic? Simply that by 1985, everyone was trying to cut down on their use of paper, and full-sized paper labels had become a luxury. Blank cassettes were just switching to smaller strip-style labels in ’85, so only the pre-records that really sought to deliver the best possible user experience were going to retain paper.
In the second half of the 1980s, a paper pre-recorded cassette label said something about the record company’s attitute. If they could be bothered to produce labels, they’d probably also care about other qualitative factors like using genuine chromium dioxide tape media, and employing slick tech processes which maximised the listening experience.
Based on the trends within my own collection, it seems pretty conclusive that pre-recorded cassettes with paper labels were statistically produced to a higher audio spec than the late ’80s clear plastic jobs.
So given the choice, opt for the paper label cassettes. They look better, and if made forward from the early ‘eighties, they really are statistically likely to sound better too.
Tape Tardis 