In my hi-fi retail days I worked at Pacific Stereo, here in Southern California. That was from 1976 to 1982. I sold some L-Cassette decks and also some of those BIC T-1 decks, mentioned above. Both sounded remarkably good, for the day. I also watched them disappear from the market, and rather quickly.
It's rather interesting to see how recorded music has evolved and gone from cylinders and early 78 RPM records, to early R2R, to 4-track and 8-track (nobody mentioned 4-track above), to high quality vinyl, to CD, to DAT, etc., and of course to i-Tunes and the such of compressed MP3 formats. And now, vinyl still seems to hold the attention of being the best in high end high-fidelity music playback. Though R2R is still king in the department of analog playback. And for the present we have added in streaming music. It can be very good, providing a high quality DAC.
In my world, for the car I presently use CD and SXM. For the home I am strictly analog, with vinyl. I do plan on adding a streamer, a quality CD unit and DAC next year. Though I will likely maintain my analog preference, adding a digital front end to my system is probably a good idea for exploring more music and to enjoy my CD collection in the home.
