Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 13 2017, @06:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-old-is-still-old-but-they-are-making-more dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

National Audio Co. is the only company in the U.S. that produces cassette tape. Now, as cassette tapes enjoy a resurgence in popularity, National Audio has less than a year's supply left of the stuff, The Wall Street Journal reports.

For the last 15 years, National Audio's co-owner and president Steve Stepp has been clinging to his company's dwindling supply of music-quality magnetic tape. In 2014, National Audio's South Korean supplier stopped making the material, so Stepp bought out their remaining stock before they shuttered — and has been left with a shrinking stockpile ever since.

Although the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer." That's why the company — which makes cassettes for everyone from indie bands to Metallica — is planning to build the U.S.'s first high-grade tape manufacturing line in decades.

Crap! Where am I going to store my TRS-80 programs now?

Source: https://theweek.com/speedreads/735269/america-running-cassette-tape


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @07:29PM (30 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @07:29PM (#596394)

    I did the math. For small runs (under a thousand), especially for long albums and so on, tape is cheaper than USB sticks, SD cards, CDs and (duh) vinyl.

    It's not bad to hand out cards with links to your bandcamp/soundcloud/cdbaby/whatever, but fans like physical things. Some will take a card if it's on offer, but the majority also like a physical medium, and that goes double if you'll sign it for them.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @07:36PM (28 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 13 2017, @07:36PM (#596399)

    How much can it possibly cost to hand out 500 tapes? You can buy very small (big enough for some MP3s) USB sticks for next to nothing these days, and you can write your music on them yourself easily. CDs are also dirt cheap, with CD-Rs.

    And how the hell do these fans play these cassettes anyway? I haven't even seen a cassette player in years, except maybe at the museum, not too far from the Apple Macintosh or the Altair.

    • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday November 13 2017, @07:47PM (9 children)

      by t-3 (4907) on Monday November 13 2017, @07:47PM (#596405)

      Maybe it's related to ease of self-production, or mass-production? Can you order 500 USB sticks with specific data on them easily? Is there an easy way make many USB stick copies at once? I know this is easy with tapes and CDs/other discs, but I've never heard of a USB stick duplicator. A quick search shows that they exist,, but are much more expensive than tape duplicators. I didn't bother looking up commercial services, but judging from other comments, the price difference is reflected there..

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday November 13 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:09PM (#596461) Journal

        Its just as likely related to the difficulty of (unauthorized) reproduction.

        Most millennials have no clue how to make an MP3 out of an audio tape, because they have nothing but tablets to work with.
        (Of course the only tape player they have is in the beat-up Toyota they drive around in, - so....

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:07PM (#596505)

          Most millennials have no clue how to make an MP3 out of an audio tape, because they have nothing but tablets to work with.

          I doubt this very much. All except perhaps the very youngest millennials likely had audio casette tape players during childhood and could very well still have them today.

          But it makes no sense to rip from an audio casette tape unless there is literally no better source available...

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @09:32PM (5 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:32PM (#596479)

        Why would you need to order 500 USB sticks with data? Just copy it yourself. One album's worth of MP3s is maybe 50MB, guessing; it shouldn't take more than 10 seconds to copy that much. Find some kid to do it for you if you're that busy, but the whole thing shouldn't take more than 4 hours. You can do it while watching a movie.

        Now if you really want those USB sticks to be professionally printed, that's another matter.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @09:51PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @09:51PM (#596492)

          Try more like 400MB for FLACs. But it'll still fit on a dirt cheap USB stick.

          The thing is, making it nice and memorable and a touchstone for fans means it costs more. Then you're talking engraving or printing or embossing or something like that, and that costs money.

          It's not like you're handing out copies of Ubuntu in Outer Buttfuckistan.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:31AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:31AM (#596711)

            Try more like 400MB for FLACs.

            Why the **** would you use FLAC - the highest quality format available - for people who are willing to listen to cassette tape - the lowest quality format available outside of museums?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @04:54PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @04:54PM (#596857)

              TL;DR: because not being a dick to your fans for no reason.

              If you provide someone a medium, the general understanding is that you're providing them as much as the medium allows, rather than the minimum you think that they might accept (unless you're Sony, I guess).

              There's no point cramming things into lossy formats unless you're in a strictly space-constrained environment, and modern small format digital storage is so fast at retrieval, and so capacious, that the savings you might get from using MP3 and a smaller storage unit are negligible.

              Modern (especially electronic) producers do their best to tune their quality, including compression levels and so on, to satisfy demanding ears. So Sonny Celphone listens to 128Kbps stuff through his crappy DAC on his phone, through his Beats by Appledre? Good for him. His experience is not diminished by anything other than his personal choices.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:25PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:25PM (#596517)

          Why would you need to order 500 USB sticks with data? Just copy it yourself. One album's worth of MP3s is maybe 50MB, guessing; it shouldn't take more than 10 seconds to copy that much. Find some kid to do it for you if you're that busy, but the whole thing shouldn't take more than 4 hours.

          Geez, what a colossal waste of time. There are much better things to do with 4 hours than mindlessly duplicating USB sticks -- like reading and posting on soylentnews. And you still have to find a supplier for all the USB sticks anyway.

          The neighbourhood kid probably messes up a couple drives because he's too busy playing cow clicker to do things well, and those drives won't be suitable for sale. It might still better than doing it yourself but if you have to personally spend 2 hours checking every single drive that doesn't sound like much fun either.

          We can expect pros to do a consistent job and instead of 4 hours of my time it takes 5 minutes: send money and specs, receive finished product.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:36PM (#596800)

          that's about right; 3.5MB or so per song with 128kpbs flat rate or VBR peaking to 384kbps.

          it takes longer than 10 seconds to rip the albumns, though.. maybe 10 to 15 minutes each depending on how the audio transfer is accomplished. if its analog its the full play time... if its a slow reader [stuff is cheaper now than it used to be... because most pcs that have cd roms now don't advertise based on their performance, just that they have one] it will take longer even if not done via that analog method.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Wednesday November 22 2017, @03:34AM

        by cafebabe (894) on Wednesday November 22 2017, @03:34AM (#600029) Journal

        In response to your query, I wrote a utility for mass duplication to external volumes [soylentnews.org]. It should work on typical Linux installations and should be easy to adapt for use on MacOS or other operating systems.

        --
        1702845791×2
    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday November 13 2017, @07:56PM

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @07:56PM (#596410)
      For 500? About $700-1000 depending on options, length per side, etc. This is for a professional release, cased, printed, J-Card, shrink wrapped etc. Much better presentation than some sharpie-scrawled CDRs in slim cases. As for players they are still out there. Just check Amazon. Jensen still makes a cheap player, for example.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday November 13 2017, @08:27PM (8 children)

      by edIII (791) on Monday November 13 2017, @08:27PM (#596433)

      I'll tell you what is impossible with tape. Malware. My fear with using a USB stick handed to me is:

      1. Is it a USB stick really?
      2. Is it a trojan horse designed to give physical access to my computer?
      3. Does it have malware in general on it?

      That's the benefit of the analog cassette tape. Very bad medium to transport malware on, and it isn't active in any way. An audio CD can transport malware (Sony Rootkit), but isn't active either.

      A USB stick can be an active threat to your computer operating in many different modes. IIRC, one of those modes allows access to the Intel ME now with JTAG access over USB. Being cheap is a threat too. How do I know that the 5000 count I ordered on Alibaba isn't coming my way with less space than spec'd? Or that they come with some malware in it already?

      What I would imagine is that most ordinary people at one point or another have shelled out hard earned dollars to get their computers repaired. After you've spent as much money repairing some computer systems as buying computer systems, that you would be hesitant to just put anything into it.

      Hence, an audio cassette is fairly non-threatening.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @09:35PM (7 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:35PM (#596481)

        I'll tell you what is impossible with tape. Malware.

        Use Linux and you won't have that problem.

        Or just turn off Auto-Run.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:41PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:41PM (#596528)

          Use Linux and you won't have that problem [with malicious usb devices].

          This is patently false.

          You connect a malicious USB device, it reports itself as a HID class device and bam, Linux and basically any other desktop operating system accepts input from it, treating it as equivalent to input from a "real" keyboard and mouse or whatever else. Then whatever user accounts are logged in at the console are pwned.

          And this is essentially unfixable because users reasonably expect USB devices to "just work" when they are connected.

          Or if an attacker just wants to cause damage, it's not too hard to make a fake device that, say, massively overvolts the data lines, likely frying at least the USB PHY and any nearby components on the board you connect it to.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:57AM (3 children)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:57AM (#596607)

            This is patently false.

            You connect a malicious USB device, it reports itself as a HID class device and bam, Linux and basically any other desktop operating system accepts input from it, treating it as equivalent to input from a "real" keyboard and mouse or whatever else.

            Yeah, so what? That isn't going to root a machine unless you somehow know the root password so you can simulate Alt-F1, root, password, commands to do something....

            USB is a problem on Windows because of Autorun: you pop in a drive, and Autorun.exe starts running, no questions asked. Linux doesn't do this.

            Then whatever user accounts are logged in at the console are pwned.

            This is just dumb. You don't know what's going on when the device is plugged in. If it's not at a terminal window, and instead the cursor is at a SoylentNews input box like I'm using now, you'll just get a weird comment on your SN account.

            Or if an attacker just wants to cause damage, it's not too hard to make a fake device that, say, massively overvolts the data lines, likely frying at least the USB PHY and any nearby components on the board you connect it to.

            This doesn't compromise your data, it's just an annoyance. And good luck fitting that kind of circuitry into a thumb drive that's barely bigger than the USB port.

            This is really just a bunch of scare-mongering.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @03:45AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @03:45AM (#596650)

              You're lacking in both technical competence and imagination.

            • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday November 14 2017, @05:20AM

              by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday November 14 2017, @05:20AM (#596668) Journal

              You connect a malicious USB device, it reports itself as a HID class device and bam, Linux and basically any other desktop operating system accepts input from it, treating it as equivalent to input from a "real" keyboard and mouse or whatever else.

              Yeah, so what? That isn't going to root a machine

              You don't need to gain administrative access to a PC's operating system to do serious damage. As Randall Munroe pointed out in this infographic [xkcd.com]:

              If someone steals my laptop while I'm logged in, they can read my email, take my money, and impersonate me to my friends, but at least they can't install drivers without my permission.

              For example, ransomware just needs to encrypt ~ (the logged-in user's profile), not / (the entire file system).

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @09:57AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @09:57AM (#596725)

              So the device registers as USB hub with a storage and a keyboard attached. You're not surprised about the storage; that's what you expected anyway. The "keyboard" starts a script located on the storage device. The script installs some malware on your account. The next time you use your password (for example, to unlock your screen), the malware catches it. Since today's Linux systems are typically set up with sudo instead of root password (how that is supposed to be more secure on single user systems still evades me), and usually the user has just one account used for both admin stuff (thus having sudo enabled) and general stuff (thus it will be the account that is open when inserting the stick). Thus once the user-local malware has the user password, on the majority of current personal Linux installations it owns root.

        • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 14 2017, @12:13AM (1 child)

          by edIII (791) on Tuesday November 14 2017, @12:13AM (#596560)

          That's not going to hold true much longer, if it really does now. Microsoft operating systems are merely the most attractive target since they own the desktop spaces. However, they don't own the server spaces, and own progressively less and less embedded devices. The more successful Linux becomes, the more we will see ugly vulnerabilities come to light. We've seen some already, but I think we look the other way or refuse to acknowledge that remote code exploits are a cross platform problem now.

          I believe we will see more exploits against Linux, not less. Then let's add SystemD to the conversation. Whether or not it is a good idea (breaks Unix fundamentals), it represents a far more complex system that requires significantly more resources to perform regression testing. What I believe the last few decades has shown us is that corporations will indirectly fund much of free software and open source, but that it will not, and does not, provide the resources required for testing. All of these years we relied on peer review of code, and it just didn't happen, certainly not at the level of thoroughness and competency we envisioned the community having.

          The issue if further compounded by the fact we *want* users to be accessing the server and enjoying services. Every single on them represents a security vector that needs to be addressed. In other words, you can security harden a server all you want, but the moment you put Wordpress on it....

          I feel safer working with BSD, which I think is one of the safest, and not even it is immune.

          I'm reminded of the gentleman that boasted the Titanic was unsinkable, and the general who thought that the Death Star was the ultimate weapon in the universe that no one would dare stand against. Ironically, in real life it is often a bunch of teenagers causing problems for old white men with expensive platforms.

           

          --
          Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:35AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:35AM (#596712)

            You're missing a point: The big security hole with USB on Windows is not an exploit at all, it's called AUTORUN.

            On the other hand, you don't actually need an exploit, USB is inherently unsafe. Google "usb killer". Which by the way is a problem it shared with any electrically connected storage.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:43PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @08:43PM (#596447)

      It breaks down like this:

      The small run cost of professionally packaged tapes is (ballpark) $2 each.

      This number does not change substantially as your volume picks up.

      The small run cost of professionally packaged (in this case often meaning an imprinted design) USB devices starts at around three times as much.

      Just the USB sticks themselves in bulk packs cost about as much as professionally packaged tapes, unless you're buying them by the truckload.

      CDs are dirt cheap - but only as long as you're making enough to spread the cost of printing (the break-even point compared to tapes is about 1000) or otherwise you're getting a lower-quality burned product, rather than stamped.

      Until you're getting 1000 items in one batch, tape is still the cost king.

      If you don't care about hardware to actually be a physical connection with your fans, soundcloud it up. But it doesn't work as well for that personal connection.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday November 13 2017, @09:15PM (3 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:15PM (#596465) Journal

        The small run cost of professionally packaged tapes is (ballpark) $2 each.

        No its much closer to $10 for small runs (say 100). Ant that's one sided, plus one sided art work on the tape box insert and generic printing on the cassette itself.

        The only thing you can get for $2 is unlabled tapes, one-sided, case is extra, quality extremely questionable.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday November 13 2017, @09:23PM

          by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @09:23PM (#596467)
          ronaldrecords.limitedrun.com/ordertapes

          store.crypticcarousel.com/collections/cassette-manufacturing/products/100-duplicated-cassette-tapes-with-j-cards-shell-print-or-labels-cases

          www.audiogeography.com/tapes/

          Just a few quick google searches. Did you go out of your way to find the most expensive options to make your point?
        • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday November 13 2017, @09:32PM

          by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @09:32PM (#596477)
          Or here: http://www.duplication.ca/quotes/canada/english/cassette-packages.php [duplication.ca]

          Dual side, 24 min per side, pad printed both sides (white print, standard art, single hit), j-card, shrink wrapped. 100 for $301 USD or $3.01 per cassette. Far cry from $10.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:13PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @10:13PM (#596512)

          Wow, you're surely skipping a decimal place there.

          But you know what? It's cool. If you'll pay that for tapes I'll gladly handle all the administrivia for you, and do it at a good bulk rate. What say, $8 each? You'll love that 20% discount!

    • (Score: 2) by number11 on Monday November 13 2017, @09:24PM (2 children)

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @09:24PM (#596468)

      And how the hell do these fans play these cassettes anyway? I haven't even seen a cassette player in years, except maybe at the museum

      Geez, maybe I should charge admission to my living room. I don't use them often, but I've got both a dual cassette player/recorder and a turntable. And while tape does deteriorate (to prevent print-through you need to play it to the end without rewinding occasionally), vinyl will still be working long after bit rot has eaten your CDs. Just because you're too young to have experienced bit rot on your Justin Bieber CDs, the time will come.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @09:28PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:28PM (#596471)

        Bullshit. I have CDs that I bought new back in 1990 and they still work just fine. I've never seen a CD (the aluminum kind) die from bit-rot, though I've read reports of some having problems, probably from bad batches.

        CD-Rs, on the other hand, are another matter altogether. I have gold ones that still read fine, but I have dyed ones that are dead.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:11PM (#596889)

          This is a pattern common to almost all consumer goods.
          The first ones are usually very well built but very expensive (barring the very, very first ones which might be a little temperamental).
          At the midpoint of the product's life cycle, the quality has dropped a bit to still good enough to do the job, and price drops as well. For most purchasers, this is the golden age of the product: affordable, ubiquitous, and decent quality. Towards the end of the product's life, price is the sole criterion for purchasing one brand over another. Strong competition means price is quite low. Unfortunately, to still make a profit, quality is what has to give. At this point, the products from any manufacturer are junk, and quality simply cannot be found in that type of product.

          All long winded, but I say that to explain myself when I say that CD-Rs and 3.5 inch floppies were actually pretty reliable until the end of their product lifecycle.
          At that stage, they were unreliable trash. But so cheap! >:-(

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:55AM (#596630)

    Thanks. That makes sense. I had a feeling my understanding was limited. I hadn't considered the physical item bit.