The Motive Cassette Tapes Are Making A Huge Comeback

So far as media storage mediums go, the cassette is a fairly previous format. It has been round for near 60 years, it was invented by electronics large Philips, and it was immensely in style for a number of many years. Even after CDs, and even MP3s, had begun to dominate the market, the cassette nonetheless held on — primarily attributable to drivers of older automobiles solely having a cassette participant of their vehicles. They had been additionally pretty straightforward to seek out at flea markets, storage gross sales, and in the dead of night, damp corners of thrift shops.

A cassette is mainly a smaller 8-track, working in the identical manner as each that historical format and the VHS. Information is written onto and skim from a magnetic ribbon wound between two reels. Whereas it’s being wound a technique or one other, an uncovered half is learn by a cassette participant. This design has a few advantages, one in every of which is the flexibility to document sound onto each side of the “tape.” Like vinyl, tapes had an A-side and a B-side, which meant you possibly can document twice the quantity of information on one, and had been in a position to flip it over and play one thing else as an alternative of getting to rewind it every time. 

After all, tapes had some downsides, too. There’s at all times an opportunity the cassette participant you had been utilizing might have a foul day and determine to eat your favourite album. This might clog up the participant and greater than possible destroy your cassette. The standard wasn’t nice both, particularly when in comparison with CDs or MP3s.