Mid 1970s Scotch Dynarange C120 Cassette – Blue Label

A lo-fi feast, in the shape of a two-hour Scotch Dynarange audio cassette, from an era long before the personal computer was a thing – let alone the Internet. In fact, it even predates Pot Noodle. Us kids were all still getting our powdered food fixes from Vesta curries, paellas and chow meins when this beast was sitting on the retailers’ shelves.

Early 1970s Scotch Dynarange C-120 Audio Tape

I was quite flippant about the performance when I posted a photo of a Scotch Dynarange C-90 in 2012, but it’s often very hard with old tapes to evaluate them properly, since so little is known about the recording conditions, and there’s little or no space to record new sequences for test purposes.

Gladly, however, I’ve now unearthed an early ‘70s Scotch Dynarange C-120 with plenty of blank space on Side B, so I set about establishing what these 40+ year-old stalwarts are like when it comes to preserving a known quality of signal.

The Lore of Lo-Fi Cassettes

Technically, it’s an abomination. Inaccurate sonic reproduction, often lacking high end definition, drizzled in haphazard distortions, subject to random pitch fluctuations and topped off with a hissy backdrop. But to some, these technically woeful traits have come to represent beauty, character, charm. Why? Why do some of us prefer a bad recording to a good one? Why do we actually like lo-fi?