cassette

Tape runs out for Sony's portable cassette recorders

Did one or two of your childhood crushes ever make you a treacly mix tape? Chances are good you listened to it -- over and over and over again -- on your Sony portable cassette player.

If so, it's time to get sentimental. Last week, a nondescript announcement out of Sony's Japanese division sounded a death knell for the portable cassette recorder/player -- a product category that helped the company rise to prominence decades ago.

The consumer electronics giant detailed how its current line of portable cassette recorders -- including the TCM-400, TCM-410, and TCM-450 -- stand as the company's last and will be discontinued by January. In a side announcement, a Sony representative noted that the company plans to continue selling blank cassette tapes, tape decks, and boomboxes with cassette support -- for now. … Read more

Kick it 1985-style with cassette-to-iPhone converter

I love old analog media. I'm holding in my hot little paws a stereo 8-track of a 1973 recording by Hiroshi Itsuki, a Japanese enka singer. It's several times larger than my iPod Touch but contains only 12 songs.

Sadly, this fabu converter from Ion doesn't take anything that ancient, but it will magically change your dusty old cassettes into MP3 files for your iPod or iPhone.

The Tape Dock is similar to Ion's Tape 2 Go but can house an iPod or iPhone on one side and a cassette on the other. … Read more

Did we listen to just as much music before the iPod?

Before the iPod and iTunes supposedly changed everything, we listened to records, CDs, tapes, and radio in our cars, on the street and in mass transit. Music was nearly as portable as it is now, but iPods and other MP3 players radically increased the quantity of music you could take with you. Looking back to the dawn of the iPod/MP3 era, sound-quality improvements weren't part of the agenda, just the quantity of music that was transportable. Apple's early ads touted the advantages of having "1,000 songs in your pocket," which struck me as an … Read more

How to turn a cassette tape into MP3s

As far as I'm concerned, we have a global musical crisis on our hands.

The cassette tape was the dominant music format through most of my childhood. The first read-along books I had as a kid were on cassette tape. The first time I ever bought music with my own money, it was on a cassette tape (which, by the way, I'm proud to say was Run DMC's "Raising Hell"). The first time my band ever released a demo, it was a demo tape.

For independent musicians of the '80s and '90s, cassette tapes offered … Read more

The 404 873: Where we raise the debt roof (podcast)

Happy Wi-Fi Day, everyone! We're celebrating 8.02.11 with the return of Joseph Kaminski, and he's giving away free Wi-Fi refills all day to celebrate.

Joey's also teaching us how to tweet like men, even though he doesn't have a Twitter account, and telling us about Apple's new iCloud media-syncing service that rolled out to testers in the Apple Developer Programs today.

The 404 Digest for Episode 873

Learn how to tweet like a man. iCloud gets tested and priced. It's the first (and only) Wi-Fi Day! How will you celebrate 8.02.11?

Episode 873 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Cassette chair brings back Memorex memories

Nostalgia can be a powerful thing, and few things quite pluck at the heartstrings like the compact cassette--if you were born before the 1990s, of course. For those who like collecting bits of tech history, this novel idea for a chair would fit right into the collection.

A designer from quirky design house OOO My Design took a simple wooden chair frame, patiently fastened a bunch of old cassettes to it, and aptly named it the Nostalgic Chair. To top that off, she attached an actual Sony Walkman and a pair of headphones for the ultimate blast from the past.

Though we wouldn't recommend buying this chair for sitting, this piece of retro art can be yours for a relatively reasonable 140 euros ($198). … Read more

EZ LP 2 CD

To convert LP records to MP3s or CDs, you'll need a stereo with a working turntable and phono preamp you can plug into your PC via the Mic or line-in jacks, or a USB turntable with a built-in phono amp. You'll also need software designed to convert analog audio to digital and clean it up by removing ticks, pops, and surface noise. We've tried many such tools, yet we've often gone back to Golden Records Vinyl to CD Converter from NCH Software, which also converts tapes and other analog audio sources.

Before installing and setting up … Read more

Were cassette tapes the MP3s of their time?

I was never a fan of cassettes; they were the MP3s of their time. Neither format ever sounded good to me.

Prerecorded tapes from the record companies were the lowest of the low. True, they were less expensive than LPs in the '70s and '80s, but you could make much better-sounding cassettes yourself by dubbing LPs to cassette.

Cassettes were only slightly more durable than LPs and were definitely subject to wear. Also, while the cassette you made might sound decent enough on YOUR cassette deck, there was no guarantee it would sound OK on anybody else's machine (tape … Read more

Poll: When will Apple ship the last iPod?

The iPod may be the most successful portable music player of all time, but will it stick around for the long haul?

An iPod is just a player, and the market is opting for smartphones that can do so much more than just play music or video. Audiophiles are more likely to covet music-only players, at least ones that offer high-resolution sound, and that's never been part of Apple's game plan. They're all about numbers, and iPod's numbers are going down.

I'm talking about plain vanilla music/video players; the iPod Touch won't be … Read more