Is the Cassette Recorder Dead?

I disagree about what was said re car cd players. I have been listening to cds for more than ten years in a toyota and a porsche and have not experience badly scratched ones. I am afraid handling is the culprit. A friend had hers scratched using one of the case logic type storage pockets. I have not been able to find a portable cd player that I can use when running (anyone experienced the Sony G system?) so I still use my tape deck but not in the car where I used to have mangled tapes a problem nonexistent with the magic silver discs.

If you own the equipment use it till it drops. But don't spend a penny on repairs! The cassette is dead, dead, dead, dead! The reason LP's aren't dead is because they sound better than CD's and there is alot of stuff not available on other formatts. The same can not be said for cassettes. Therefore, I repeat, "Dead, dead, dead!"

Oddly enough the cassette is still better than all these horrible sounding digital devices like MD, DCC, MP3, etc. I own one of kenwoods top of the line MD's and the flexibility is nice, but its bad digital-thin and anemic sounding. A good high quality cassette deck probably isn't a bad idea. They have made some advances in the analog arena that don't get much note these days: aside from Dolby S, pioneer's cassette decks digitally recalibrate the signal, there are more accurate mechanical/tape drives, better head material, and better tape formulations. Not to mention, regardless of the digital used, MP3 etc., you've got to worry about poor A/D convertors so that don't even get the maximum amount of info onto the inferior formats. Ya cassette is dead, but if depending on recording needs it may still be a good choice.

Ezmeralda I really got a shock recently when we tested Cassette Tapes made from LPs with CDs. The cassettes were clearly superior. Even with all the anomolies of cassettes, sonically there superior to CDs.

Most of the older car CD players and many existing players will cause "scuffing" of the CDs if you drive over a bad bump. My early Sony player did this alot. Now I have an Alpine model that doesn't seem to have this problem.