1990 BASF Ferro Extra I 90 Audio Cassette

What an excellent tape this BASF Ferro Extra I was. As you’d expect, given the cassette’s name, it was a Type I, normal bias ferric, but it had a lovely refined sound. I bought a few of these in the autumn of 1990, shortly after getting myself a Tascam Porta 05 ministudio (26th September – still got the receipt). The Ferro Extra Is weren’t suitable for use in the Tascam (which only took Type II tapes), but I wanted to master some of the Tascam’s multitrack recordings onto normal bias cassettes which would play on the widest range of equipment.

1989 Memorex CRX IIS 60 Audio Cassette

Memorex was a very shaky brand, with a poor reputation among some circles of aficionados. But Memorex tapes did sell, with the average consumer most probably buying them on the strength of the slick TV advertising they utilised. The UK’s TV ads of 1982 initially alerted me to Memorex tapes.

WHSmith Cleaning and Demagnetising Tape

Not content with offering a mere head cleaning tape, WHSmith sold a combined Cleaning and Demagnetising Cassette, as shown here in a Tascam Porta 05 multitracker. Contrary to some designs of head demagnetiser cassette, this one, from the 1990s, contained no circuitry. Inside it’s just a standard set of spools, plus a cylindrical magnet, around which the cleaning tape is wrapped, so that the magnet revolves in the opposite direction to the exposed tape when the cassette is run. The magnet, incidentally, is behind the red and white spoked wheel graphic. It’s not particularly strong.