Funny cassette story I heard

[NAD613]

I heard this story on AK from a poster there, I can't remember who. He said around 1980 he worked in a Radio Shack out east in an area with a lot of colleges & universities, some of them Ivy League. He said students would come in all the time & by portable cassette recorders to record lectures with. The funny thing is, they would also buy high-end type II & metal blank cassettes for these recorders. He would try to tell them that voice-grade type I cassettes were all they really needed & would cost less, but they wouldn't believe him, acting like he was trying to pull a fast one over on them! Geez, could you imagine wasting a $10 metal tape to record some class while sitting 20 rows back in an auditorium?

[Scorpion8]

Yea, I can believe it. Back then I knew Type-II's were the best and with Type I's you had to be "missing something".

[braxus]

I have a different thought. It would be stupid to buy the better tapes at the time yes, but if they still had those tapes today- they could re-record over them with music and have a decent metal tape to use today. After all buying in the past for today is not a bad idea. But your story was exactly the response I got from a Radio Shack guy in the early 80s. He told me to use a type 1 tape for my portable recorder (which I used to record the tv audio of space shuttle missions) and I had to have the best tape. So instead of Low Noise tapes, he persuaded me to get the Supertape Gold which was a premium type 1 tape. I got my expensive tastes from my grandmother since she always had to have the best of everything too. Shame I never did buy any metals though, as those tapes would be very rare today from that time period.

[Acoustic]

Sure I believe it because I have lived it...and not only did people buy the most expensive cassettes because they thought they'd be the best. They put them in recorders that didn't do Type II/IV and got an inferior recording compared to if they bought the cheap, lowly, Type I's.

[Acoustic]

I have a different thought. It would be stupid to buy the better tapes at the time yes, but if they still had those tapes today- they could re-record over them with music and have a decent metal tape to use today. After all buying in the past for today is not a bad idea. But your story was exactly the response I got from a Radio Shack guy in the early 80s. He told me to use a type 1 tape for my portable recorder (which I used to record the tv audio of space shuttle missions) and I had to have the best tape. So instead of Low Noise tapes, he persuaded me to get the Supertape Gold which was a premium type 1 tape. I got my expensive tastes from my grandmother since she always had to have the best of everything too. Shame I never did buy any metals though, as those tapes would be very rare today from that time period.
For most of those folks cassettes are a long forgotten format and those tapes probably didn't even end up in a garage sale....they ended up in the trash.

[Flick]

I've picked up type II tapes at thrift stores that had lectures and audio books recorded on them. Many of them appear to have been played only a few times and then put in the case and stored undisturbed. Great find for me these many years later.

[TAGOMAGO]

The problem with trying to use a type II or type IV tape in a portable shoebox recorder is since they were not designed for such a tape, the erase head would not fully erase the material that was already on the cassette. Most people who recorded lectures usually kept them long enough to take notes off of the tape and reuse them. Of course that is when they would find that they were not only hearing their recent lecture, but a fair amount of the previous lecture bleeding through.

My parents had a friend we use to house sit for on occasion and he was having this problem with his answering machine where the incoming message tape was all garbled with the previous messages, sometime 3 or 4 "layers" bleeding through to the current message. I open up the lid to the answering machine and lo and behold he was using a freaking Maxell XLII-S as his incoming message tape. The guy who owned the house was pretty close to being a genius, but occasionally he would do something completely absent minded, and this was one of those moments. Needless to say I switched the tape with a normal bias tape and the problem went away. In addition to that I shortened the leader on the tape we put in the answering machine which also cleared up the issue of the first few seconds of the first message being cut off.

I am guessing that his logic was, since this tape was going to be recorded on over and over again, why not use one of the best tapes available at the time. As a credit to the durability to the gold labeled XLII-S, I recorded music on it after it had been in the answering machine and it sounded fine. If I remember correctly, I put Amon Duul II's Made In Germany on it.

[levin]

I bought the very first TDK MA-R and nakamichi Z models without metal sensor slot on shell top in early 80's

After few years i coundnt re-record it, had to take out tape and record that on later made metal tape shell with treble reduced to be able play on 120 eq.

[Des-Lab]

The salesman was trying to sell them (college students=usually broke) a lower priced item and yet still managed to be accused of "ripping them off"? *scratchchin*


Something doesn't add up here.

[Warped Bezel]

I've picked up type II tapes at thrift stores that had lectures and audio books recorded on them. Many of them appear to have been played only a few times and then put in the case and stored undisturbed. Great find for me these many years later.

My first recent 198x Maxell orange/black paper label LN possibly had an oriiginal Wayne Dyer yoga session but I put music on it shortly afterward.

[NAD613]

The salesman was trying to sell them (college students=usually broke) a lower priced item and yet still managed to be accused of "ripping them off"? *scratchchin*


Something doesn't add up here.

IIRC, these were Ivy League students & they took issue with the salesman telling them a lower priced type I tape was all they needed. I think they also thought the salesman was making up the part about portable voice recorders not set up with bias selection, etc... Some folks are determined to spend top $$$, no matter what it is, even if it won't do them any good. There was a time when being honest with a customer would insure repeat business.

[TAGOMAGO]

I bought the very first TDK MA-R and nakamichi Z models without metal sensor slot on shell top in early 80's

After few years i coundnt re-record it, had to take out tape and record that on later made metal tape shell with treble reduced to be able play on 120 eq.

I have an early Maxell MX that lacks the two center sensors. Yeah, I can not use it on automatic sensing decks.

[eclectiktronik]

I read part of the 4-monthly service report on a cassette based language lab I rescued. It said:

Booth 3: thin sound, poor erasure etc.
Cause: Hi-bias metal tape fitted. Replaced with FE tape.


I bet that tech came away laughing, having solved the problem and acquired a nice reusable cassette for his efforts!

Chances are some student got confused and left their own tape, instead of the lab cassette which, like answering machines, are left in the machines until they wear out and recorded over from class to class.

[iloveanalog]

IIRC, these were Ivy League students & they took issue with the salesman telling them a lower priced type I tape was all they needed. I think they also thought the salesman was making up the part about portable voice recorders not set up with bias selection, etc... Some folks are determined to spend top $$$, no matter what it is, even if it won't do them any good. There was a time when being honest with a customer would insure repeat business.

These students became future Bose customers...

*lmao*

[Pentium100]

The salesman was trying to sell them (college students=usually broke) a lower priced item and yet still managed to be accused of "ripping them off"? *scratchchin*


Something doesn't add up here.

Of course he is trying to rip them off. They will buy the cheaper tape, find out that it's actually bad then will have to buy the more expensive tape anyway.

But yea, I usually see people trying to persuade me (or others) to buy a more expensive item.

[Lance Lawson]

I seem to have used always type I in my early mono boom box of the late 70's. But in the mid 90's when I got my Walkman and had a decent cassette deck 75% of time I bought type II. In fact after finding my 90's tapes I was very surprised that I rarely bought type I. I also bought far more TDK tape then I remembered.

[TAGOMAGO]

Back when I sold vintage Mustang parts we would have this issue on a regular basis. We had two types of floor pans ones made in the US which were more expensive and ones made in Taiwan which were significantly cheaper.

While this was definitely a rare occurrence with reproduction car parts, the Taiwanese version was more authentic to the original stamping, was better constructed, guaranteed a better fit and was cheaper than the more expensive American version which was not as good.

Because it was an absolute pain having to deal with returned merchandise I would try to sell the Taiwanese version over the American version. Even though it was less money and I informed them of this being the superior item, 9 out 10 people would buy the poorer quality American made part.

There would also be the case where we would have an expensive American made item for a particular year, but only a Taiwanese version for the other. I had a few people purposely buy the incorrect item because it was manufactured domestically and cost more money without taking into consideration the fact that those year designations are there for a reason. I would often get complaints that the particular part would not fit (usually electrical with slightly different number of wires and wire coloring).

The psychology of consumerism really has little to do with logic or rationality. Go ahead and find someone who knows just little enough about audio to be dangerous. Offer him two tapes a normal bias TDK AR and an off brand High Bias cassette (there used to be a few out there) and tell him to pick the better tape. More than likely he is going to pick the crappy chrome versus the better quality normal bias tape because in his mind chrome is always better than ferric no matter what company made it.

[Time_Stand_Still]

.

The psychology of consumerism really has little to do with logic or rationality. Go ahead and find someone who knows just little enough about audio to be dangerous. Offer him two tapes a normal bias TDK AR and an off brand High Bias cassette (there used to be a few out there) and tell him to pick the better tape. More than likely he is going to pick the crappy chrome versus the better quality normal bias tape because in his mind chrome is always better than ferric no matter what company made it.


You said it...

I have an extensive background in business and especially in marketing. Consumers almost always will use their emotional mind to conclude a decision over their rational thinking. It is the way we as humans are generally conditioned. We may initially embark on using our rational mind and yes some things in life are based mostly or solely on a rational mind but most of our decisions be they life in general or just consumerism are heavily biased towards an emotional and conditioned thinking process.

In your previous example as to why many of your Mustang parts buyers bought American over the said to be better Taiwanese is based on being conditioned for them that if it's American (in this case) it must be better and of course an emotional tie to their own nationality. This is an example of the way things are for most of us in life and especially chosen consumerism.*reelspin**reelspin*

[TAGOMAGO]

In your previous example as to why many of your Mustang parts buyers bought American over the said to be better Taiwanese is based on being conditioned for them that if it's American (in this case) it must be better and of course an emotional tie to their own nationality. This is an example of the way things are for most of us in life and especially chosen consumerism.

Of course what made it harder in this case was usually it was more often than not that the American part was better and the Taiwan version was inferior. That was changing mainly due to the fact that the Taiwanese manufacturers were beginning to update their inferior tooling with new fresh accurate tooling. The American companies producing the parts had been using what had been good tooling, although after the tooling started to wear out and become less accurate, they continued to use it, thus producing an inferior part. Of course Ford was famous for not retooling when they should have. The worn out Ford tooling replacement parts (usually the parts you would have bought at the counter in the late 70's for your 60's car) in the Ford boxes which will not fit worth a damn, fetches ridiculous prices in this day and age purely out of the notion if it was made by Ford, it must be the superior part.

Without getting too long winded, they were conditioned to believe the Taiwan stuff was inferior because in the past it had been pretty awful and the more expensive American parts were the way to go. Mostly because the quality improved but the price stayed the same on the Taiwanese parts, they were not able to grasp that anybody can make a good part if they put the time into it. Of course the price of the parts probably also reflected the price they were paying their workers to stamp out the parts, but I am not going to get into that.

[shadowlord]

to stay on topic

did anyone else notice the TDK MA-R tape in the Terminator movie?
Sarah was using a portable recorder to record her diary for John on what appears to be a TDK MA-R. talk about overkill ;)