Re: [ARSCLIST] The state of cassette tape: non-moving parts, etc.

[seva <seva@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

cassettes will probably outlast everyone's guess. my observation is that they
are very much desired in almost every country of the 3rd and 4th world due to
their durability and non-skipping behavior. CD players are commonplace for
personal use, but a bumpy road in India or Africa gives the most aggressive
buffered player an insurmountable challenge.

the cassette will play no matter what (even low voltage, it just slows down).
you can pull it from under your seat, blow out the Doritos chips and buff it a
bit on your pants, then it plays. dollars to donuts (alas, not Krispy Kreme),
cassettes will be around long past our estimates. loose pack makes it too tight
to turn? just smack it flat onto your thigh and it repacks quite nicely. (i
should disclaim this practice for anything except personal listening tapes or
fun stuff).

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as for non-moving recorders and chips and flash and so forth, it's not to $200
yet, but surely is coming. check out the piece at www.core-sound.com . they have
an attachment for a pocket PC running either windows or linux which has mike
preamps and ADC to 24bit and 192kHz (although i firmly believe 24bit 88.2kHz is
sufficient for a realistic future of higher-resolution audio). with Compact
Flash chips of 4GB, you'd get 2 hours of recording at 24/96. it's stereo only,
but i believe the reference was to stereo portable recording (aka cassettes,
minidisks, DATs).  the piece they have which has digital input only is merely
$199. they have the mic pre part separately.

i think this looks very good for oral history projects (although not
self-administered ones; the cassette will be around along time for that i do
believe), and other onsite recording tasks.


seva