80's Scotch XSII-90; Opinions, please

[NAD613]

I just bought a box of 10 of these, 80's vintage, for only $7.00. How I found them was kind of a fluke. I was online looking for some cassette storage drawers & here I found them on some website that sells stuff obtained from storage units people abandon. Yeah, 10 of these for only $7.00! They only had one box & once I bought them, they were taken off the website within minutes. Below is a link showing what the tapes look like:

http://www.tapedeck.org/400/scotch_xs_II_90.jpg

Does anyone have an opinion on these tapes?

[Des-Lab]

Although I don't have any firsthand experience with those, I can tell you about its Type I sibling: The little seen XS-I. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I do have a handful of those guys in my stash as well, buried amongst the Maxells and Denon's.

Although rather ordinary looking, these tapes are some very fine Type I's. Very similar in performance, appearance, and temperament to the Denon DX3 and Maxell XLI or 1992 UDI.

On a hunch, I would suspect that your tapes might be of similar performance but for a Type II.

Ultimately, your best advice is: try them out and see how they do. If you like them, great. If not, then get rid of them.

http://x-2000r.angelcities.com/images/tapestuff/XSI_Single.JPG
http://x-2000r.angelcities.com/images/tapestuff/XSI_Cassette.JPG
http://x-2000r.angelcities.com/images/tapestuff/XSI_Boxes.JPG

[Scorpion8]

I've always had good results with Scotch tape of the 80's vintages. I have quite a few of the XS-II's and Master-II's around that still sound great.

[niklasthedolphin]

My all time favourite tape is the Scotch XSM IV

Never had the Scotch tape you ask about.

But if they have the same standard of Cr tapes as they do with Me, then it's in a class of it's own.

"dolph"

[Marc Hugo]

XS-II is a fine sounding psuedochrome, not to be mistaken for its sibling, the XS-IIS which is a genuine chromium-dioxide. The former is a slightly softer sounding tape than, say an XLII - rather similar to an SA. As quiet as an SA, but about IdB less MOL at 315kHz. Overall, a most worthwhile buy and a sonic counterpoint to more commonplace tapes.

Marc

[Web Police]

I don't know anything about the XS-II tapes, but I have a few of the XSM Type IV tapes and I like them.

http://home.earthlink.net/~web-police2/Scotch%20XSM%20IV%20Tape%20II.jpg