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Tape drives. Remember those big reels of tape on mainframes in the 80s? They don't look exactly like that anymore, but tape is still used for backups/long term archival because they offer the lowest cost per gigabyte and decent longevity without needing to be powered, as long as you don't need to access the data all that fast or often.
Those dank memes and cat videos you posted in 2010 are probably on tape in a data centre somewhere
Im obsessed with tape storage, but for audio. Nothing more real than audio on tape! Luckily it's catching on again. Music is so disposable now, I hope we can keep physical formats alive and keep corporations away from it (digital offers them unlimited control over us).
Can you drop some tape player recs to save me on tape spaghetti?
Oh sorry, I meant more reel tape not really casettes, but I love the otari mx5050, and the teac 2340sx. Good machines and 1/4" tape is still affordable. PM me if you'd like more tape info, I love to share.
Ah okay haha. Ive been buying vinyls lately and there's a lot of people with casette merch too. I didnt remember tape being that amazing but was willing to give it a shot. I don't have reel to reel space at my place unfortunately. Thanks for putting it out there though!
Well I'll say cassette quality can never really be good becaise of the slow speed and narrow width. . But 1/4" tape is about the best analog quality you can get (feasibly cost wise) if you go 15 IPS and half track (1 way play, no flipping).
If you want good sound for cassettes you can't beat a Nakamichi deck, best there are.
Tape itself is cheap, but buying the other equipment for it costs a fortune.
Tape is rad for long term storage