---
title: Cassettes
date: 2024-03-27
extra:
  kind: note
---

I like the idea of cassettes. They are cheap and analog, and there’s a culture of sharing and trading them. I like the sound of tape saturation and hysteresis.

They feel much more approachable than vinyls. I dislike snobbery.

## So I bought a cassette player

![A Sony cassette recorder next to a pile of cassettes](/files/cassette_player.jpeg)

It’s a Sony TCM-459V and it’s only a bit noisy and wobbly. It can record too.

After listening to all of my tapes (not very many, see picture), A side and B side, I can safely say that I like cassettes.

## Maintenance

The manual says that the innards need cleaning (rubbing alcohol + q-tip) after every 10 hours of operation. I don’t think this unit has ever been cleaned.

The belts might also need changing since they apparently go bad after a while.

## Tapes catch on fire

I read on the internet that peoples’ tapes have spontaneously combusted. This is a thing to avoid.