
Cassette tapes are back, kind of - rusk
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/06/cassette-tapes-are-back-kind-of/
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Eurongreyjoy
After the recent surge in Vinyl records in the last decade, I knew it was only
a matter of time before people thought cassette tapes were "cool" and retro.

However, unlike vinyl which does provide a certain type of depth and tone to
the sound of the music, cassettes are simply just lower quality. The only
reason for the increase in popularity is strictly nostalgia.

~~~
Yaggo
> However, unlike vinyl which does provide a certain type of depth and tone to
> the sound of the music, cassettes are simply just lower quality.

Just to clarify; vinyl does not provide any more "depth" or "tone" than modern
digital formats. But compared to cassette, most people find the acoustic flaws
of vinyl more pleasant than those of cassette.

(Whether the mixing utilizes the fantastic properties of digital formats is
totally another matter.)

~~~
Eurongreyjoy
There is a difference between analog and digital. Analog (vinyl) is the
original sound while digital takes snapshots of the original sound (albeit at
a high rate).

>This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the
complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps.

>A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's
waveform. This means that no information is lost.

[https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm](https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm)

~~~
rusk
Yes, but the "steps" are so close together that the human ear can't really
discern.

The typical range of hearing is 20Hz to 20kHz. Due to Nyquist aliasing [0]
your sample rate must be at least twice the size of your overall dynamic
range, which is why you have CD quality baselined at 44.1 khz, which is double
your 20kHz and some extra to spare [1]

There are a couple of areas where analogue can still claim superiority. First
is in digital reproduction quality is determined by the quality of your DAC
[2], whereas analogue doesn't need this at all. Second is that you may
reproduced "inaudible frequencies", in particular the "sub bass" [3] that you
feel with your body beneath the 20Hz cutoff. I've been informed that these are
often chopped out in the mastering process however so I'm not sure if that
claim is legitimate.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio#Bit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio#Bit_rate)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-
analog_converter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-
bass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-bass)

