djdiggla Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 It's crazy man. I doubt they're used for "sports" but more likely as just portable listening devices. You basically have the equivalent of a high-end tape deck in your pocket. You get these audiophile guys who will record to high-quality tape on their high-end home decks, then play the tapes on portable players, using nice headphones. The sound quality is really damn good, but whether it's worth the money depends on the person. That's not at all what I'm doing. I just have tapes from back in the day, ... LOTS of DJ mixtapes, but also other tapes. I'm not about to spend hours and hours converting them to digital files. I mainly listen to them in my car. Last year I got rid of my old 2004 VW which still had a tape deck. My new car has no tape deck but it DOES have an auxiliary jack in the console. So, it's 1000 times more convenient to buy a walkman than to convert the tapes to digital. When I dug out my old belt-drive walkmans they were all wonkey. None of them worked right or sounded good. So, I scooped the DD-III and it probably sounds better than the tape deck in my old VW. So, the flossing continues. I was listening to DJ Infamous "Secular Humaniods" this AM instead of some old bullshit on satellite radio. Bullshit I say to that. Tapes were designed for portability not HI-Fi. Anyone claiming to be an audiophile and listening to "high-quality" tapes is a dumbass. Sure a tape can sound good but it will always pale in comparison to vinyl, Reel or even MD. That said, I do listen to mixtapes still. I'd spent time converting some to digital and it just wasn't the same so went back to just enjoying them in their original format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jam Burglar Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 It's crazy man. I doubt they're used for "sports" but more likely as just portable listening devices. You basically have the equivalent of a high-end tape deck in your pocket. You get these audiophile guys who will record to high-quality tape on their high-end home decks, then play the tapes on portable players, using nice headphones. The sound quality is really damn good, but whether it's worth the money depends on the person. That's not at all what I'm doing. I just have tapes from back in the day, ... LOTS of DJ mixtapes, but also other tapes. I'm not about to spend hours and hours converting them to digital files. I mainly listen to them in my car. Last year I got rid of my old 2004 VW which still had a tape deck. My new car has no tape deck but it DOES have an auxiliary jack in the console. So, it's 1000 times more convenient to buy a walkman than to convert the tapes to digital. When I dug out my old belt-drive walkmans they were all wonkey. None of them worked right or sounded good. So, I scooped the DD-III and it probably sounds better than the tape deck in my old VW. So, the flossing continues. I was listening to DJ Infamous "Secular Humaniods" this AM instead of some old bullshit on satellite radio. Bullshit I say to that. Tapes were designed for portability not HI-Fi. Anyone claiming to be an audiophile and listening to "high-quality" tapes is a dumbass. Sure a tape can sound good but it will always pale in comparison to vinyl, Reel or even MD. That said, I do listen to mixtapes still. I'd spent time converting some to digital and it just wasn't the same so went back to just enjoying them in their original format. Not really my thing, but some of these tape setups are crazy. I will say that I used to buy the Maxell XLIIs (chrome) for my own mixtapes and it wasn't uncommon for me to record a vinyl straight to one of those tapes. There's some compression and saturation when you push the levels. The sound quality on some of those tapes is better than a lot of the "normal" commercial tapes I have. They can sound really damn good. That being said, I'm not sure how a tape of a vinyl record is going to sound "better" than the vinyl. Maybe these tape guys just like the sound of the saturation you get from the transfer to tape. I don't know. In my experience, you get to a level where you really can't tell much of a difference between a nice record player, a nice tape deck, and a nice CD setup. I just like to have a nice portable way to play tapes that doesn't sound like crap (which is what most walkmans sound like). A lot of the tapes I'm listening to are some rugged and raw stuff anyway. Babu "Comprehension" is not the epitome of sound quality. On the other hand, I was listening to the Beck "Mutations" album that I transferred from LP to chrome tape when that album came out and it sounded superb. The "audiophile" thing has never been my cup of tea. If I can't hear the difference FOR SURE, then I'm not going to spend the money. However, if I can hear the difference then I have no qualms putting up some extra loot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted March 20, 2020 Share Posted March 20, 2020 Chrome tapes can sound great. And some albums were mixed specifically for tape and probably sound best on that format. But its still tape. I love tapes but there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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