The BASF CR-E II Cassette Design – Circa 1986

I mentioned this design variant of 1980s BASF chrome cassette in yesterday’s BASF CR-E II 1988 post, but didn’t have a photo handy and couldn’t put my hands on the actual product. A quick dig through some drawers, and a snap of the shutter today, has just remedied that, so here it is.

This CR-E II 60 minute tape was bought in England, in March 1986, so manufacture would almost certainly have taken place early that year, or in late 1985. The front faces of the cassette feature the chamfered user-write white label portion, and matching case relief – traits that were associated with the first half of the 1980s, and which would be resolved into a straight rectangular shape by 1987. The combination of this latter 1980s style of CR-E II label and the chamfer was short-lived.

1988 BASF CR-E II 90 Audio Cassette

BASF chrome cassettes of the 1980s were not only exciting to listen to, with their sparking high fidelity and transparent midrange – they were also a cassette-nerd’s dream, changing in visual detail at very regular intervals.

Heading the Chrome Type II post, there’s a very similar BASF CR-E II to the one above, but they’re not the same. The one depicted above – which I believe was bought in 1988 – has a smaller window, with opaque black plastic in front of the wheels. The one heading the Chrome Type II post has a bigger window, with the clear plastic stretching out to reveal the wheels. I reckon the larger window version in the other post was bought in ’87.

Why Use Audio Cassettes in the Digital Age?

The answer was once obvious. Decades ago, people used compact cassettes because there was no other media upon which they could conveniently preserve sound at home, and because cassettes allowed pre-recorded matter to be played in places where the delicacy and static requirements of vinyl disc turntables were impractical.