Audiotape Section on Ebay

[braxus]

Just bought 3 sealed 7" reel to reel tapes off Ebay for $18 plus shipping. 2 Rad Shack High Output and one Sony. I expect the Sony to be tossable, but I'll check it first before doing so.

But looking in the tape section- I don't see a whole lot of actual tape auctions listed. Since when did this section get so much spam in it? I mean they have so much non tape items listed, its fair to say the whole group in mainly spam now. It sucks trying to look for actual tapes for sale when you have to wade through all the junk for sale. 23 pages of it!

[Mr. Lin]

I noticed this too, you have to narrow it down by brand and with the word "cassette."

[Web Police]

I am with you braxus, I hate weeding through batteries, a/c adapters and headphone ear cups. I too use filters when searching as less than half of this ebay category is actually blank tapes. :rolleyes:

[Des-Lab]

I concur. It's a real drag to have to look at the "Audio Tapes" category and see page after page of headphones, batteries, and such. I'm not sure if it's "spam" so much as "suggested" selling. For instance. A lot of people that use cassettes are doing so by means of dictation. Right? Think depositions and the like. Many of those people listen through headphones to create the transcripts, right? So why not put the two together. And why not add batteries to that as well since as often as not, these users are using portable players. Hence the need for the batteries.

It's kind of like going to the supermarket before a holiday weekend. If you go looking for hot dogs, what's almost always displayed right along side them? Ketchup, buns, relish, etc. Or how often do you see a big display of sodas and beer and the potato chips are also stacked adjacent to?

It's along those lines.

Now I'm not saying that *IS* what's going on with that category. I'm simply offering it up as one possibility.

But back OT. When I am browing for specific items, I use more item specific parameters such as "Maxell cassette", "Metal reel", Denon cassette", etc. It's slightly more typing but the upshot is that it weeds out almost all of those 'other' items. And also catches possible items that are listed under another category that the "audio tapes" query might otherwise not catch.

[Web Police]

But back OT. When I am browing for specific items, I use more item specific parameters such as "Maxell cassette", "Metal reel", Denon cassette", etc. It's slightly more typing but the upshot is that it weeds out almost all of those 'other' items. And also catches possible items that are listed under another category that the "audio tapes" query might otherwise not catch.

And sometimes mis-categorized items end up being bargains on ebay. :)