Will magnetic music cassettes slowly delete themselves?

[Slo-mo]

In the first instance you get print+through .,.. I would get those tapes digitised ASAP.,..

Point taken, but most of mine are stuff that's already available in digital format. About 10 years ago I threw out all my bootlegs off the radio but kept my original albums. In retrospect I wish I'd done the opposite.

Just listening to the old Walkman now and Levelling the land (1992) is still sounding fine at the moment, lets see what another 25 years does to it.

EDIT. But Introduce Yourself (1987 and looks like it's on very low grade ferric tape) is starting to sound a bit rough. I'm sure I've got some really old cassettes at my folks house so I'll try them at the weekend.

 

[2hats]

This was suggested by a work colleague of mine who used to be a physics teacher. But even he wasn't sure if it was right. Will music cassettes slowly lose their magnetism and delete themselves? If so how long are we talking? Some gramphone records still play just fine after 100 years. Will cassettes reach their centenary?

Yes. Probably within a few (small number of) decades (at best) but they don’t just decay magnetically but also chemically too. Environmental storage factors generally cause them to fail first (how many people store tapes at a constant, controlled, suitable temperature and humidity?) - so the binder/coating fails (also aided by degree of lack of QA in the original production process).

 

[killer b]

It seems to vary wildly how they degrade - I have some tapes from the 1970s that still sound perfect, and some from much more recently which have died altogether. Expect it'll be down to the quality of the initial tape stock, and how it's stored.

Older CDs are dying off too, btw.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Everything will slowly delete itself.

 

[Steel Icarus]

William Basinski made music like this, at first by accident while transferring an old music loop onto another tape...ended up recording the sound of the tape degrading, with beautiful results.

The Disintegration Loops - Wikipedia

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

They will never understand bow wow wow's song

 

[2hats]

Everything will slowly delete itself.

dS≥0

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

All my 80s tapes seem to still work and sound just fine.

 

[NoXion]

All my 80s tapes seem to still work and sound just fine.

How many times do you reckon you've played them? And how would you compare their longevity with vinyl, if you have any?

 

[DaveCinzano]

This brings back memories of my early pirate radio days in the late 70s & 80s, muddy fields, aerial strung between trees, homemade transmitters, car battery for power, and cassettes players for prerecorded shows, a typical site...

View attachment 122288

There was a late 90s variation on this with VHS machines running on rooftop kamikaze rigs - allowing for prerecorded shows of up to 4 hours (on Long Play) which could be played on a loop until recovery ( ) or DTI detection ( )

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

How many times do you reckon you've played them? And how would you compare their longevity with vinyl, if you have any?

Well when I first bought some of them I was the only format I had. I would play some of them constantly, at home and on a Walkman. I have plenty of records too and they would get a lot of use as a kid. A couple of records got scratched due to me being a dick, but apart from that they have been kept well and are all in good nick. So to summarize, I've seen no noticeable degradation in either format.