Nowadays, cassette tapes would not be considered high fidelity. But for a long time, the tape recorder was my main source of music. For a teenager, but also for a young person, buying a record was quite an event. It was common practice to have friends who owned a record make a cassette for you or lend it to you so you could transfer it to tape. Sometimes recording an album was also a way to avoid wearing it out.

My first cassette deck was a cheap Technics M5. I connected it via a DIN cable to an amplified Augusta turntable that I had inherited from a couple of uncles who had introduced me to stereo sound. They had upgraded to a Technics system and the cassette deck was an M8. I still remember when my uncle took me and my father to the place where he had bought his stereo, and I ended up with the VU meter version of the same deck they had with LEDs.

Nostalgia led me to buy an identical one, but it doesn’t work properly and, looking at it today, it’s really not much to write home about. So it’s lying in a closet…

My adventure with recorded music began with a couple of portable tape recorders with built-in microphones, gifts for my first communion. It was magical to experiment, recording our voices, TV programmes and records… placing the tape recorder in front of a speaker and imposing silence on the adults present!

A stereo recording deck was a big step forward! And this model allowed you to connect two microphones, one per channel!

The Technics would remain in use for a long time, even in my first separate component system (anonymous speakers, Kenwood KA-30 amplifier and Mitisubishi DP-5 turntable). In my next system, the old Technics looked a bit out of place (self-built speakers, Onkyo A-8200 amplifier, JVC XL-Z431 CD player). So at some point I got a more modern and suitable cassette deck, an Aiwa AD F270, produced between 1988 and 1990. This is where things started to get serious: the features were definitely superior, such as the dual cartridge and Dolby B/C. It also had fine bias control, features that were found in more expensive cassette decks at the time. And Aiwa has long been synonymous with cassette decks.

A cassette player was essential even when the main source was a CD player. Optical discs were not cheap either, and recording was the main way to obtain new music. More modern cassette players, with Dolby C, allowed for recordings that, at least for those like me with good but inexpensive systems, were not too far behind the original CDs. And then the cassette was the fundamental medium in cars too, before the switch to CDs in car stereos, which for me happened much later.

When in 1991 the system became really serious (TDL speakers, Unison Research Mood amplifier, Cambridge Audio CD6 CD player), the excellent Aiwa was not quite up to the task.

Another name synonymous with serious recording equipment was Teac. The brand was the consumer version of Tascam, a manufacturer of professional studio recorders. I ended up spending just over 300,000 lire to get my hands on an excellent Teac V-1050. It was a highly respectable 3-head recorder, with Dolby B/C and HX Pro and an automatic tape type selector. The buttons were logic-controlled and responded to light fingertip pressure. Dolby C provided 20 dB noise reduction, twice that of Dolby B, and HX Pro gave fine bias control, making the recording very similar to the original.

Over time, however, cassette tapes fell into oblivion. I only kept a few original recordings made with my cover band from my university days. After a while, the tape deck became a nuisance, largely unused. My Thorens turntable had once again become my main source of music. The alternative was CDs. The tape deck no longer served any purpose, and the Teac ended up in the closet for a long time.

It wasn’t the revival of audio cassettes (at exorbitant prices) that brought it back. For me, it was such an important tool in my youth, so intimately linked to the enormous pleasure I got from listening to music, that I was left with this feeling of intimacy and the possibility of doing various regulations, on the borderline between play and professionalism. The sight of a beautiful tape deck still has an effect on me today and is certainly the main reason for the revival of this medium, which is far from the sonic possibilities of modern HiFi components. So, if only to listen to the band’s old tapes again, the Teac had found its place in the system again. Unfortunately, during various relocations, it had suffered some cosmetic damage, a few visible scratches, the loss of the Teac logo and a couple of knobs. In short, it was not a pretty sight. I found an advert for a V-1010 that was really cheap but in excellent condition, and for just over 70 euros, I indulged myself and replaced the battered V-1050 with a V-1010 that looked perfect and worked well. After all, the V-1050 had replaced the previous V-1030 and V-1010 with almost no technical changes.

The front panel is slightly different, with a change in the layout of the buttons and the colour of the LEDs. Internally, it has the same features. It seems like a downgrade, but it’s actually a sidegrade. Besides, it’s just there for sentimental reasons. I don’t know what I could use it for, but I’m trying to find a way, like making mix tapes from Tidal or even YouTube. Or recording songs without the guitar part for my cover band rehearsals. The problem is that blank tapes are quite expensive, and if you go for chrome ones, it’s ridiculous. Metal tapes are pure madness…

The absurd thing is that today the Teac V-1010 is sold at obscene prices, ranging from 150 to over 700 euros! Again, we are witnessing the madness of the analogue audio equipment market, driven solely by the “cool” factor and nothing else. When a blank cassette costs as much as a vinyl record or more than a CD, we are truly in the realm of madness. I imagine that someone who has no trouble making ends meet wants to show off to their friends by putting a cassette tape in their vintage tape recorder to party like they used to (as happened with vinyl records). Then maybe they have speakers thrown on a bookcase lying on their side.