Your Old Audio Cassette Collection Is Destroying Itself
So, for some inexplicable reason, cassette collecting is now also an activity alongside vinyl. This time there’s not even a debate about the analog sound quality, it just seems like ambience, but hey, you’re the one doing it!
However, if you are building up a cassette collection, or previously had one, be aware that this form of physical media is significantly more vulnerable to degradation than, say, CDs.
Magnetic music was never meant to last forever
It’s important to remember that, unlike vinyl and later CDs, cassettes were never intended to be a durable medium. It was a portable, inexpensive and convenient format that you could listen to in a car or on portable players like the revolutionary Sony Walkman.
Inside a cassette is a long spool of plastic tape covered with a magnetic backing that maintains the recording in the form of analog magnetic fluctuations. Even if you do nothing, even if the tape is sealed and unopened, these magnetic particles lose their alignment over time and the quality of the recording fades.
The science of slow decomposition
Cassettes can fail in a variety of ways, either over time or spontaneously. The worst offender, however, is something called binder breakage or sticky shedding syndrome.
The binder is the adhesive that holds the magnetic layer on its plastic support. Binder failure does not affect all tapes equally. It all depends on the formulation of the binder used by the manufacturer. Some binder formulas absorb too much moisture over time, causing separation. Render the tape unusable. However, it’s safer to assume that your cassettes will develop some sort of binder failure or other similar problem over time and act accordingly.
Additionally, not all binder problems are specifically due to moisture or specifically sticky loss. Whatever the reason the binder broke, it’s not good news for your tape!
Storage conditions can make or break them
How your tapes have been stored has an effect on how quickly these age-related failures occur or even how likely they are. Too much heat, for example from being in a box baked by sunlight or next to a heat source, accelerates chemical degradation in the long term. High humidity is involved in moisture absorption, but can also cause problems like mold.
Dust can get into the bobbins, direct exposure to UV light can fade, warp and generally quickly end the useful life of a cassette. The worst environments (basements, attics, glove boxes) are also the most common places where old tapes end up.
The advice here is the same as for physical media. Store your cassettes in a cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight and preferably at least somewhat protected from dust.
Cassette decks aren’t getting any younger either
Cassette tapes are also vulnerable to wear and tear from simply being played. The more you listen to a cassette, the more dust on the surface of the cassette damages it when passing over the head. This is an important reason to minimize dust and why tapes should be kept in their cases. The force of your tape recorder’s motors also stretches the tape over time, and worn tapes develop unstable sound reproduction.
It’s inevitable, but a poorly maintained or faulty cassette player can make the situation worse, or even destroy your tapes. It is now possible to buy new tape recorders, but if you are still using an old player, you should have it repaired to ensure that it does not damage your tapes.
It’s not always easy to do it yourself, and finding a professional who still works on cassette players can be difficult, but it’s worth it if you want to enjoy a few more years with both your player and your cassettes.
Scan now or lose them forever
Your tapes are on a countdown with an unknown duration on the counter. So, if you care about their contents, it is imperative to make digital copies of them as soon as possible. Any good tape recorder with a line-out feature can be connected to your computer and allow you to digitize your tapes.
However, most modern cassette players have a built-in function to copy the contents of a cassette to MP3 or other suitable formats. So this might all be easier than you think. That said, most of your cassette collection is probably available in a much higher quality format, like CD. So you probably only need to keep rare cassettes that aren’t available in other formats, or home recordings.
