Cassettes Are King
Why the Cassette Is Still the Best Media For Spoken Word Recordings
1. Portability. Cassettes are small and compact. 2. Playability. Cassette players are the leading consumer playback device in the world — portable or non-portable. 3. Durability. Cassettes do not scratch — and the audio content is protected by a durable hard plastic shell. 4. Transferable. Audio content can be copied inexpensively and easily. 5. Recordable. There are thousands of cassette recorders on the market with lots of features (built in microphones, etc.). To date there are few portable CD recorders available. 6. Ease of Duplication. Duplicates immediately, with no processing or wait time before or after duplication.  CDs can take more than a minute to read and finalize. 7. Faster Duplication Times. An 80-minute cassette can be copied in 2 minutes, 26 seconds. A CD takes 3 minutes, 25 seconds at 52x. 8. Compatibility. Any cassette can be recorded or played back in any cassette player. CDs have compatibility problems between consumer and professional formats. 9. Reusable. Cassettes can be erased and reused many times. There are reusable CDs called RWs, but they cost up to 3 times more than record-once CDs. And they can be erased and re-recorded fewer times than tape. 10. Cost. Per minute length, cassettes for spoken word are about the same price as blank CDs. But CDs are more expensive to have duplicated. And packaging costs for audio cassettes is far less expensive than CD packaging. 11. Quality. For spoken word, cassettes still have great quality and good dynamic range. And for music recordings, audio cassette quality is comparable to the popular CD-based MP3 format. 12. Start-and-Stop Bookmarking. Cassettes can be stopped during a message at any point and started at the exact point at which you left off. CDs can only be started at the beginning of a track, unless the time counter is documented. And there is no good way yet to index a spoken word CD. 13. Utilizing Existing Equipment. Continuing to use cassette equipment that has already paid for itself saves money. Investing in new CD recording and duplication equipment currently does not give an equitable return on investment. 14. Longer Recording Times. Cassettes have a 125-minute maximum record time, versus an 80-minute maximum for CD-R (with the exception of MP3 compression). Call CCI Solutions today at 1-800-426-8664 to place your bulk cassette tape order! Ask about our duplication, labeling and imprinting services. |