1985 Sony HF 60 Audio Cassette

The first  Sony HF cassettes of the 1980s took up a position which I felt would have sat somewhere between the former CHF and BHF in the range. This is how they looked. This is a 1985 HF 60, carefully looked after and in very nice condition in its 27th year.

1992 BASF Chrome Extra II 60 Audio Cassette

BASF maintained their commitment to chrome as a Type 2 formulation into the 1990s, and this was how things were looking in 1992. The BASF Chrome Extra II was the ‘entry level’ chrome tape in the range. It had a very typical BASF sound – quite glassy, with so much weight at the extremes of the frequency range, it was almost as if some of the midrange had been scooped a little. If you liked that sound, this was a great value tape, proving itself a lot more resistant to drop-outs than early ’80s BASFs in my experience.

1987 Maxell XLII-S 60 Audio Cassette

Okay, so I’ve been raiding my 1987 drawer for cassettes today. I used Maxell XLII-S tapes for a number of important projects in the late 1980s, and they really were a special product in their day. The casing design was clearly well ahead of its time, and the cassette instantly feels super-rugged the moment you pick it up. The resilience of the tape itself was phenomenal with the XLII-S, rendering drop-outs virtually non-existent. A bold sound, low noise, and no difficulty at all in taking high volume levels with these. And just look at the lack of gobbledygook on the cartridge. No fancy science words necessary to convince the public that these cassettes were good. You merely used them, and you could tell.