Look at this! Another cassette tape discovered in one of my boxes of "treasure"!
Seriously, you may be wondering who on earth would need blank cassette tapes these days?
Those heady days of "Mix Tapes" are long gone but ....
Believe it or not there is a hard-core underground movement that just loves analog cassette tapes, particularly recordings from years ago which were made by musicians & bands live on stage, practise sessions & demo's. Also the good old family history recordings with the Grandparents telling all about their life all those years ago. All of this stuff is irreplaceable and needs to be protected.
Problem is, old tapes are fragile (cases, lubrication and mag tape all give up the ghost eventually) and like everything that man creates, they do not last forever. Wise people make "safety recordings" of their precious cassette tapes ... safety recordings are standard practice in the professional audio industry, no matter what the original media that was used to make the recording.
AKAI - Audio Cassette Tape
Magnetic tape used is made where? Package doesn't indicate this
Cassette fabricated & assembled in China
TYPE: SX C-90 (C-90SX)
Standard oxide coating formulation, commonly referred to as Type I or IEC I (120uS bias)
Super Low Noise (according to AKAI marketing)
C90 means there is up to 45 minutes recording time on each side
Uses AKAI's SM transport (Smooth Mechanism) - no good having great tape if the cassette transport is poorly designed!
AKAI have even had the courage to include a frequency response graph (printed on the rear of the packaging), this indicates the tape is optimised for use 50Hz ~ 3kHz (flat response) but a less than 1dB drop off then occurs from 3kHz up to 20kHz
A very good "general purpose" recording media, intended for the "every day" user - this is not metal formulation or in the class of a Quantegy tape but it is fine for general "backup" use.
Funny enough, these cassette tapes are now EXTREMELY difficult to find (and being offered at pretty unrealistic prices, up to A$50 each but I saw one person selling a 1978 tape for A$1400!!! - you would need to be very angry with your money to pay that much for a cassette tape that is 50 years old! Look around on Fleabay and be amazed (shocked!)
The complete cassette package remains in the original unopened SEALED (factory cello wrap not shrink wrap!) packaging
