I think I'm in the right vintage for that, but did cassettes ever sound good? I could get nostalgic for the sound (especially fast forward/reverse, which is lovely), and I probably never had good equipment, but tapes were always kind of warbly for me. I had access to older records too, which could sound good when there wasn't too much hissing and popping and they weren't skipping. Some records were maybe off balance? and wouldn't play at consistent speed either. Again, I didn't have great equipment.
>I think I'm in the right vintage for that, but did cassettes ever sound good?
Compared to CDs? Definitely not! Not to mention how many people listened to homemade mixtapes and copies, which made the audio quality even worse.
Did they sound good enough that you could dance, relax, have a good time, be consoled when you were unhappy, or whatever people did with music? Absolutely.
Even when CDs did eventually come out, I far preferred a WalkMan to a Discman. I could put a Walkman in one pocket and a cassette in the other. That wasn't easy with CDs.
>Yep plus early ‘discman’ didn’t have anti skip and battery life was terrible.
I had completely forgotten about the development of anti-skip. And now that you've made me remember it, I suddenly feel old.
I knew somebody (with very rich parents) who basically had a shoulder bag (read: man purse) so he could carry around his Discman (early Sony version, no anti-skip), an extra CD case or two, and an extra set of batteries. It was awful.
Hence the cassette revival for those of us of a certain vintage.