Cassette Logic: technology that never dies but is already dead

Summary

On my desk is equipment that sounds poor by any objective measure. Which makes it a reminder that the human experience is not objective either.A pair of Audio Innovations 2nd Audio monoblocs glow softly, valves running hot enough to warm the air. They are driven by a Series 1000 pre-amp, a piece of kit from the late eighties when British valve design was quietly resurging. The sound is alive, not clinical. The valves hum faintly, flare into life, and remind you that electricity is moving through glass.The speakers are even less ordinary. They were built by a colleague at Nokia, who kept a sideline in loudspeakers. He called them Wave Design. They are triangular half-space cabinets, cut to sit flush against a wall so the geometry itself becomes part of the acoustics. They are the only set of full-range drivers I own, and I love them not because they are flawless but because I know who made them.The source for all of this is a Nakamichi RX-505E cassette deck. It has what must be the most elegant auto-reverse mechanism ever made: Unidirectional Auto Reverse, where the tape does not just switch direction but actually flips itself over and slides back into place. It is slow, balletic, mechanical theatre, good enough to earn a cameo in 9 ½ Weeks. Inside are three discrete Crystalloy heads and Dolby B and C noise reduction, all tuned for fidelity. By the numbers it is still behind digital. The frequency range is narrower, and the dynamic range is compressed compared to a stream. No metric puts it ahead.And yet the experience is different.I can tell streaming services exactly what to play, and often do. I listen to plenty of niche recordings that the algorithm would never surface. But tapes pull me in another direction. A car boot box, a forgotten mix, a release I would never have chosen online. The selection is not better, it is simply different, and that difference shapes the way I hear it.Context matters most. The music I listen to on cassette was produced with cassette ...