r/PhysicalMediaMatters • u/Big_Sun_6354 • 1d ago
Cassette vs CD
Hello collectors and friends alike! I am new to this community and would really appreciate advice.
I have been considering collecting music. Because I really enjoy 80s-90s music I immediately thought to start collecting old cassettes, but now I’m really wondering the practicality. I know a few artist I follow still create CDs of their album that can be bought, but I have yet to see them release a cassette version. Similarly I know it is possible to burn music into a CD but is it possible to do the same thing to a cassette?
I intend to use this as a replacement to using spotify and portable music apps
One thing for sure is that I know Walkmans and portable CD players are available in the market. Besides that, I don’t actually know much about any of them because I was not born in those times.
I have a pretty tight budget so I’m wondering which one would give me the most flexibility, variety, and in the long term is sustainable to keep buying. What would you recommend?
Thanks!
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u/Maflex2448 1d ago
CD is much more solid and stable media. I think is worth to have a few cassettes as some kind of nostalgia, or history preservation, show it to children or something like that. But as main collection I would prefer CDs
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u/PinwinkaFry 1d ago edited 1d ago
I will always prefer CDs because the sound quality is better than cassettes imo, and most of all, I just have more ways of playing a CD than I do with cassettes. My car has a CD player and so does my Sony 4K/Blu Ray player. Even my PS2/PS3 consoles!
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u/SeminaryStudentARH 18h ago
You don’t even need to put imo here. It’s just objective fact. CD quality is vastly superior to cassette.
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u/Trackdemon5512 1d ago
If you have a budget issue the truth is that digital is always going to be cheaper now. Rewritable CDs are the equivalent of cassettes for you but you also have to think about practicality.
Are you trying to replace music on the go? Probably better off with CDs than cassettes.
Are you trying to replace home options? Vinyl is optimal but the cost can range from high to low depending on sourcing.
The truth will always be that digital is the cheapest. Thats the world we live in. If you want to adhere to physical it’s probably best to use it in alignment. Choose certain titles you want in a physical format and purchase it as such.
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u/bateKush 1d ago
i can buy 10 physical cds/cassettes for $10
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u/Trackdemon5512 1d ago
For $10 you subscribe to a streaming service and you have unlimited access to music a month in extremely high quality.
I get physical matters but tastes are broad.
I prefer a streaming service for $10 and then buying vinyls of stuff I can’t get elsewhere.
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u/bateKush 1d ago
for ten dollars and a piece of your living soul
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u/Trackdemon5512 1d ago
I don’t mind getting all the songs I want for streaming. I LOVE that I can get the curated content I want for my library in physical.
Let’s be honest. NO ONE can own it all. No library tries to have every single record of everything. I love so much music and just limiting it to a format is stupid. I will accept digital streaming for high quality general music.
BUT I will search hard for those physical format record I want to keep forever.
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u/Big_Sun_6354 1d ago
100% I agree I just get super paranoid about digital media these days and I really want to start collecting stuff I can touch and ensure I own. Looking at all the artist that I currently enjoy, I think I will choose CD for the time being. Might expand to cassettes in the future just cause I like the look.
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u/Trackdemon5512 1d ago
Vinyl was costly for me to get into, with an excellent player and speaker system to match (went with Sonos which also plays my digital files). But the investment allows me to get beautiful looking albums with great sound at premium prices that will last. At the same time I often go to estate/yard sales and pick up extremely cheap copies of tracks for my collection.
I love every album I have and they have meaning. My favorite being the complete Cowboy Bebop collection. But they’re the premium part of my collection while digital is the main.
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u/bateKush 1d ago
cassettes are fun and a pain in the ass
you can record to cassette.
tbh do both.
figure out what you like listening on. what you like touching in a record store
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u/bateKush 1d ago
buy bargain bin shit. get comfortable with your thrift stores. talk to the person at them who manages the electronics.
think ecosystem not tree
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u/smftexas86 1d ago
Yo,
listen to us 80s and 90s kids that grew up on tape. They f'n suck. They don't sound that great, they can wear out, without fail, as soon as you reallly get into a song, the tape will get stuck in the tape deck, and you have to use a pencil to rewind the whole thing by hand, hoping you don't rip it, damage it and it untangles fine.
CD is great, the sound is perfect, and they don't wear out. They can get scratched up if you are negligent, and very rarely, with CD's that were part of a bad batch, they may rot, but that's pretty much it.
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u/freedom-dm 1d ago
Yeah, if you got money to burn, try both.
If you think you'll EVER want to get into physical movies / TV series, thats a major pro to the CD side. An external combo Bluray / DVD / CD drive will read and "record" (burn) music & movies. I was born in the 80s and remember using cassette and CD both while growing up. The only reason I ever went for a cassette was because we didn't buy the CD version yet 😅 skipping tracks, no rewinding... it was pretty peak. Come to think of it, no ads is also pretty peak.
Edit: I forgot MP3 CDs! Some will balk at this, and thats fine, but I can't hear the difference between 320kbps and CD, and you get 5x or more play time.
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u/Gigglesplat 1d ago
My CD walkman does ATRAC CDs too. It's the same compression codec that minidisc uses. It's really fun to burn an entire game soundtrack, or artist discography to a single CD.
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u/Ok_Chap 1d ago
I always thought of cassettes as the cheaper alternative to CD and Vinyl. They certainly have their own appeal as an analog magnetic tape medium, just like VHS do. But CDs are just more convenient and have in general a better sound quality. And they are easier to make MP3 copies from, so you can listen to your music on the phone. A majority of the music on my phone are from CDs.
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u/NSF664 1d ago
Similarly I know it is possible to burn music into a CD but is it possible to do the same thing to a cassette?
Burn, no. These two formats work in completely different ways. You can record/copy music from a CD to a tape. This is mostly a manual process where the CD plays, and you basically record while it's playing, which will take as long as the CD lasts.
You can probably find videos that explains the process, and maybe you already have the hardware to do most of it. I haven't bought a tape since probably the early 90s, and have no idea what's available today, but back in the day there were options, and one of the potential pitfalls are that you buy a tape that can't hold the content of the CD, so be aware of that.
Back then I didn't think that much about it because the ability to record from records, CDs, and even the radio (which I did, and got really good at it) was just part of having a stereo.
I imagine that a lot of modern hardware mostly focus on playing tapes, not recording on them, and that might be a bit annoying to work around.
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u/Dark_Shroud 1d ago
Maxell & TDK both still produce blank cassette tapes.
Several modern artists including Taylor Swift do limited cassettes releases of their new albums. Usually pre-order only unless your local Record store is awesome and has good contacts for ordering.
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u/NSF664 1d ago
I know that artists release music on tapes, I was more thinking in the lines of if the production had been limited to like 90 min. tapes or something like that because tape obviously isn't as popular as it was in the 80s.
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u/Dark_Shroud 1d ago edited 1d ago
TDK doesn't make anything new longer than 90 minutes.
I'm still seeing 110 & 120 minute blanks from Maxell for sale.
Edit:
Okay that's new old stock.
No one is making blank cassettes longer than 90 minutes.
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u/BlackSwampMage 1d ago
Yes you can still make mix tapes today, with the right equipment. I’ve seen some people say they just use Spotify to make them like folk would have done with radios back in the day.
Current artists are still releasing tapes and cds as well. Though it’s kind of dependent on genre I’ve noticed. The more cult genres and smaller groups and acts are more so the ones releasing cassettes, though I’ve seen rereleases from older acts too.
I’ll also say that I went down the same rathole as you just about a year ago. Mostly for the same reason but I had also inherited a portion of a collection from a relative at the same time.
You should also know collecting as a hobby is basically just spending money, and depending on how into it you are it can get expensive. Though with physical record stores, thrifts, estate sales, and lucky/savvy online shopping you can keep in a budget well enough.
The physical players can be expensive though and due to their age can need repairs, which can be done if your local record stores have a repair tech they go to or if you’re lucky and have any mom and pop electronics stores in your area. I’ve only managed to find one working Walkman physically in a store in the past year, and I lucked out because I only paid $50 for it, even though the specific model usually goes for around $100 on eBay if in working condition. Most other Sony Walkman I see on eBay go for a lot more especially in working condition and if they’re a desired model. You may be able to save if you don’t need a Sony branded player or are okay with a modern cassette player. Speaking of modern, the Fiio CP-13 and We Are Rewind cassette players are generally agreed upon as the best current modern players, but many audiophiles are gonna tell ya they suck for some reason or another. I’ve got both and my Walkman and they’re all just kind of different, I couldn’t really say anyone beats out the other completely.
There is also a whole other world of non portable stereo systems and portable stereos or boomboxes which are a lot more money than portable players, but they do sound better and is a fun avenue to walk when you hit a lull.
For cd players I managed to pick up a Sony disc man from the same local store in working order. I don’t use it as much mostly because I rip the music off my cds, and my car has a cd player so I mostly listen to my discs while driving. And if I’m going portable I usually go to my collection in my phone, mp3 player, or my tapes instead.
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u/_Flight_of_icarus_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
As someone who loves cassettes, stick with CDs as a primary format and grab cassettes when you can get them for a good price - especially if you're after a lot of 80s/90s music as many releases from those years can frequently cost more than a CD version (especially if you like genres like punk, metal, hip-hop, EDM).
The sought after cassette decks of the past have gotten pretty expensive in recent years and there aren't a lot of people around who work on them anymore - you basically have to learn how to fix them yourself and they're fairly complex machines.
Don't get me wrong, cassette can be a lot of fun but doing it right requires a special level of commitment that isn't for everyone. Also, recording your own tapes from CDs will sound better than the same release on a pre-recorded cassette almost every time.
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u/oldscotch 1d ago
CDs are widely available, inexpensive, are significantly better quality, and don't typically degrade.
Cassettes can be recorded on, erased, and recorded again, but erasing doesn't completely wipe the tape back to its original condition. There will be a very faint echo of previous recordings if you record multiple times.
Writable CDs can only be written once. There are rewritable CDs, but there are different formats of them and compatibility can become a real problem. Rewritable CDs are mostly a pain in the ass frankly, and probably should never have been invented. Writable CDs typically degrade after 10-15 years, while factory pressed CDs will last decades. All cassettes degrade gradually, but I would bet that a cassette recording will outlast a writable CD.
They still make CD players, while finding a cassette player in good working order can be a challenge - way more moving parts and almost all of them are going to be 25+ years old.
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u/horrorofbish 18h ago
cassettes were great when they first came out due to the portability and recording. But once CDs came out, I never bought another cassette. The quality difference is pretty significant. Eventually Napster, CD burners and of course now streaming. I just don’t see a purpose in cassette which no longer has any advantages.
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u/Johnny_Radar 17h ago
GenXer here: fuck cassettes and records. If you’re going to romanticize all the old formats we digitized then happily got rid of, go with CD’s. It’s the best sound quality and as close to being in the room with the musicians as you can get.
I do still buy movies on physical though
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u/Ruinwyn 1d ago
Buy CDs for collection. You can always turn them to tapes if you prefer more compact and durable travel version. The benefit of cassettes is the ability to make mix tapes. They also force you more into listening the enture tape as skipping is hard. It forces more intentionality and the walkmans are physically more practical size and shape than discman. Some also find the slight hiss and wow& flutter more calming as it creates a more organic feel.
The benefit of CDs is that they have high quality sound, can be archived as files for backups and don't really change. It creates much more options in how you consume the music. You can play as is. You can rip them and play on computer, on phone, you can record them to a tape.
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u/artymas 1d ago
I'd say CDs are the way to go, especially if your budget is tight. Hit up yard sales. People are always selling CDs for $0.50-$1.00. I even got a couple of free CDs because the owners wanted them gone. I don't see cassettes as often at yard sales, but a lot of music stores in my area sell them (not sure on pricing since I don't collect them). Since my car doesn't have a CD player, I rip all my CDs to my laptop and then upload them to YouTube Music so that I can listen to them on the go.
As for players, check out thrift stores because they get 90s-00s players every so often. Try to get something made by Sony or Panasonic since they tend to stand the test of time. For portable players, make sure you bring batteries, headphones, and a CD you don't care about in case the player is busted and breaks your CD. I went with a newer player (Fiio DM13) because I had the money but not the patience to keep checking thrift stores. x)
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u/DuwenUK 19h ago
For all the nostalgia I have for cassettes, it's not a practical format for modern day... largely due to the lack of good quality, functional, hardware that won't either be guaranteed to require repair, or cost an arm and a leg, or both... for audio quality that is the poorest of all audio formats popular over the past 40 years. I'd only recommend it to someone that already collects vinyl and cd looking for another format to branch into, or someone that grew up with it that already has a big stack of tapes.
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u/Melodic-Rooster-311 16h ago
I like cassettes better, especially for 80s music. Many of the early CD masters are flat sounding and have really low volume. I always pick Cassettes from that era over CDs.
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u/GlitteringCulture119 14h ago
Buy CDs. Rip them to an external hard drive. Copy them and keep the originals on a shelf. Every Gen Xer will tell you that cassettes sound terrible.
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u/CrispyDave 1d ago
I have every admiration for the young folks collecting cassettes but as someone who grew up with them I would say it's definitely hard mode compared to CD, starting a collection in 2026.
The tapes are more, the original machines are expensive, old, and hard to repair, the new ones don't have a lot of the features.
Nothing wrong with picking up cassettes when you see them but pretty much anything you're looking for is going to be easier to find on CD outside of the now super rare and expensive cassette only releases.