Cassettes still rock!

I like the sound of cassettes as well. I have 30 of them, recorded on a Nak 500 deck (which was stolen by our movers! they knew what to steal :-). Right now, I am using a two-head Marantz deck with electronic control (touch buttons), headphone output, Dolby B/C, and a very quiet, smooth transport. My "affair" with cassettes began in my youth; at the age of 17, our family flew to Switzerland, and my father bought me (an expensive!) Sony Walkman. Mind you, this was 30 years ago, yet Sony used SMD's (Surface Mounted Devices - read Chips) and the build quality was exemplary. I remember listening to it (with equally superb headphones) for nights on end. BTW, I do not agree with some of the posters here about the quality of Denon's cassettes; mine had deteriorated badly over time. In my experience, TDK SA and That's cassettes are the best. BTW, anybody here can tell me what a new, unused TDK SA90 BLACK Limited Edition cassettes can fetch? I've got a few, maybe someone will be interested in buying them, but I don't know how much to ask for them.

BTW, anybody here can tell me what a new, unused TDK SA90 BLACK Limited Edition cassettes can fetch? I've got a few, maybe someone will be interested in buying them, but I don't know how much to ask for them.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=TDK+SA90+BLACK+Limited+Edition+cassettes+&_sacat=14962

Back when, i rarely used the Nakamichi deck to listen to cassettes--just to record for use in the car.  If sound quality degraded over time i just re-recorded the vinyl.  Now though, having lost so many vinyl albums in the flood, i have some cassettes that still rock--audiophile quality, no, but better than buying CD's of the same. Gotta agree with GK only i think the % of well recorded CD's is less than 15%.  Never jumped on the SACD train so those might be pretty good.  Pre-recorded cassettes were usually lousy because they used inferior tape but perfectly adequate in the car until auto makers got serious about road noise reduction.  Another issue with my cassettes:  the writing on the cases and tapes has faded so badly i don't know what's on them until i pop them in !

Agreed that the mass produced run of the mill tapes were elcheapo and could and did have their good and bad efforts.

Later as tapes popularity was waning they released some very good quality stuff, sort of like MoFi for vinyl.
I have a bunch of them and they are outstanding.
HX Pro , XDR and factory CRo2 are good ones to look for.

I have a high end system.  This means that my digital system is constructed along the same quality line as my analog.  It isn't SOTA.  I have heard this system as SOTA  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb_LBRSefvE   I brought two LPs and two CDs to hear on it.  It was a mesmerizing sonic experience of music.  In no way did the CDs sound inferior, compressed or limited compared to the LPs.  I can understand how awful digital sounded for decades with CD players until 2005 when I bought my EAR Acute, now superceded by 100% with my COS Engineering DAC D2.  The LPs I used were Urania - Breaking the Sound Barrier and EMI Bartok Concerto for Orchestra/Kubelik  The CDs I used were Mercury Down To Earth/Lewis and V.S.O.P. in a Jazz Orbit/Holman.  I didn't bring my Yello Touch CD which I love but will next show because it will really indicate what systems are up to the task of playing it well.  

Maybe I'm just a smart and lucky CD collector but probably 50% of my 7,000 CDs sound great.  With LPs, I've gone through multiple pressings of the same title often and would say about 15% of my LPs are great sounding.  What I noticed is that 1970s-1990s rock/modern pop CDs sound in general worse than their LP counterparts. 

Among my 550 pre-recorded cassettes, only a dozen sound great.  That's a bad comparison to CDs.  Many of my 78s sound more dynamic and alive.  I blame compression, inferior tape, hiss and with Dolby B, poor quality highs for the reason my pre-recorded cassettes sound mediocre (and I'm not alone-again, all my audio friends do not play cassettes for sonic reasons).  My 2 track 7.5 ips RRs, now that's where I have consistently great sound.

I feel sorry for those of you who can't enjoy great CD derived music sound.  DACs and players have greatly improved since their inception.