1985 Rich Bitch Studios Audio Cassette Case

This is going to be pretty localised in its interest, but it may perhaps conjure memories of similar practices used by various commercial recording studios in the 1980s.

1988 TDK SA 46 Audio Cassette

A few years on from the TDK Super Avilyn tape I photographed for THIS POST, the TDK SA cassette had evolved into what you see here. This is a 1988 example, and despite less than four years’ timespan between the two variants, the one depicted here looks markedly different from the 1984 version on that link. The multi-track (Portastudio) format recording this tape preserves is from the early 1990s, so I’m guessing that won’t have been the first material I put onto it. Typically for a TDK SA, the sound is very good.

The cassette’s ‘anti-resonance’ build is denoted on the shell, and this was something various manufacturers seemed to get quite excited about. However, I found it hard to consider as anything much more than a gimmick. If a cassette was made properly, it really shouldn’t have problems with resonance in the first place, so the boast always seemed to me like the manufacturers were trying to get us to regard basic standards as some kind of bonus.

1982 BASF Chromdioxid II Audio Cassette

BASF’s chrome Type 2 tapes had a great reputation in the early 1980s, courtesy of their very well defined treble response, which suited the era’s quest for super-high fidelity. It is of course hilarious looking back on the size of early ’80s ghetto blasters from the viewpoint of the 21st century, where everything is expected to fit into the pocket.