Re: [ARSCLIST] The worst cassette tape years

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Odd coincidence you folks should start this thread right now! I'm playing
my way through a couple of cardboard boxes of miscellaneous cassettes I
recorded generally between 1980 and about 1990...some of these are transfers
of 78's, made to be played on cassette player in my work van...and others 
are live recordings made using a Sony home cassette deck, of virtually all
of my blues-band gigs 1986-87 (and a few later).

Oddly enough, all the tapes still play as well as they ever did (this, in
fact, about half-a-dozen Phillips tapes from c.1967 made by setting the
mike for my early "portable machine" in front of my record player's
speaker). These have NOT been stored under "ideal conditions"...or anything
even close thereto...!

The biggest "tape killer" I ran across was (were) my various aumtomobile 
decks, which every couple of months would simply "eat" a tape by winding
the tape around its internal workings...usually inextricably. However,
I still have probably 98-99% of the cassettes I taped over the years...
including some "el cheapo" off-brands that didn't even use leader tape
at either end!

I generally used whichever name brand (Sony, Maxell, TDK, Scotch and the
like I could buy most cheaply...and all of these are "Type I -- Normal"
tapes. Of course, I'm using a grossly-inadequate playback system for
this...a Sony CFS-W600 "mini-ghetto-blaster" which seems to overload
and distort at any acceptable playback volume (3" speakers)...!

Steven C. Barr