about tapedeck
Tapedeck.org is a project of neckcns.com, built to showcase the amazing beauty and (sometimes) weirdness found in the designs of the common audio tape cassette. There's an amazing range of designs, starting from the early 60's functional cassette designs, moving through the colourful playfulness of the 70's audio tapes to amazing shape variations during the 80's and 90's. We hope you enjoy these tapes as much as we do!

about audio tapes
The compact audio cassette medium for audio storage was introduced by Philips in 1963 under the name Compact Cassette. Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems at the time, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips' decision (in the face of pressure from Sony) to license the format free of charge. It went on to become a popular (and re-recordable) alternative to the vinyl record deck during the 1970s. During the 1980s, its popularity grew further as a result of the Sony Walkman, with cassette sales overtaking those of LPs. (Vinyl overall remained ahead due to greater sales of singles, although cassette singles achieved popularity for a period in the 1990s).

The mass production of compact audio cassettes began in 1965 in Hannover, Germany, as did commercial sales of prerecorded music cassettes (also known as musicassettes; MC for short). The system had been initially designed for dictation and portable use, thus the audio quality of early recorders was not well suited for music. Some early models also had unreliable mechanical design. As time went on, various improvements (in particular, the introduction of Dolby noise reduction) resulted in the format being taken seriously for musical use.

Although its use in the West has declined as a result of more advanced technologies, it remains widespread, and is still the dominant medium for listening to music in many third world countries.

In essence, the audio cassette is simply a cassette-based (and smaller) version of the older reel-to-reel tape format. It consists of two miniature reels, between which an oxide-coated plastic tape, or magnetic tape, is passed and wound. These reels (along with some other mechanical parts) are held inside a protective plastic shell.

Four single audio tracks are available on the tape. These are paired to produce two stereophonic tracks – one played when the cassette is inserted with its 'A' side facing up, and the other when it is turned over (with the 'B' side up), thus mimicking gramophone records.

(Source: Wikipedia, right here. Wikipedia Copyright stipulations apply.)

send us your tapes
Have you got some cool audio tapes lying around? Send us a picture then, we'd love to get e-mail from you!

Please take a picture of your tape on white background from straight above without using a flash. The tape should measure about 800x600 pixels on the image. Please try to use as little JPG compression as possible (quality 10 or better when saving from Photoshop) and send the files to tapes@tapedeck.org

Thanks you all so much for the contributions tapedeck.org has already received - without your input this site would be impossible. Thank you very much: Alexandru, Diego, Ahmed, George, Dominik, Marcello, Jouse, Pascal, Niko, Jaromir, Tim, Paul, Luciano, Marc, Andreas, Colin, Alexander, Roland, Maurice, Sven, Radu, Daniel, Scott, Reinhard and Ronny!



hitachi_dl90 audio cassette tape

orig_0028_philips_c90_standard_quality audio cassette tape

orig_0059_fuji_cdfan1_90 audio cassette tape

sony_cdit_90 audio cassette tape

hitachi_dl90 audio cassette tape

studio_60 audio cassette tape

fuji_cdfan1_60 audio cassette tape

tdk_sf90_080417 audio cassette tape

sony_cditii_74 audio cassette tape

fuji_fxi_60 audio cassette tape

memorex_90 audio cassette tape

sony_classic_54 audio cassette tape

socimag_ferro_ls_x_90_081001 audio cassette tape

scotch_dynarange_60_welded_shell audio cassette tape

scotch_bx_c60 audio cassette tape

radio_shack_concertape_90 audio cassette tape

kmart_blue_cassette audio cassette tape

hitachi_dl_60 audio cassette tape

scotch audio cassette tape

scotch_bx audio cassette tape

hitachi_dl_blau_60 audio cassette tape

thats_fx60_111214 audio cassette tape

toshiba_c-60ax audio cassette tape

PROFI C60_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

maxell_LN60_080417 audio cassette tape

OLYMPIC C90_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

SHAPE C90_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

Master audio cassette tape

sony_super_ef_90_081001 audio cassette tape

maxell_udi_60_080417 audio cassette tape

orwo_K60_1_oge_120922 audio cassette tape

orwo_k60_2_oge_120922 audio cassette tape

hitachi_lownoise_c60_b_oge_120922 audio cassette tape

AIWA-C60_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

TEAC_mdx1_100_blue_111227 audio cassette tape

siemens_c60_hifi audio cassette tape

maxell_ln60-1_071201 audio cassette tape

sony_ahf_080417 audio cassette tape

Philips_StudioQuality_C90_111227 audio cassette tape

FUJI_CDFan1_111227 audio cassette tape

AXIA_ps1_74_111227 audio cassette tape

TELEFUNKEN-C60-1-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

UNIVERSUM-C90-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

TDK-SF-90-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

MAGTAPE-C60-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0015-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0012-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0011-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

sony_ef60_071201 audio cassette tape

AGFA-C60-2-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

agfa_lnx90_080417 audio cassette tape

Agfa_Ferrocolor_60%2B6_Albastra audio cassette tape

audio cassette tape

audio cassette tape

audio cassette tape

audio cassette tape


tapedeck.org responsive layout

after changing the ad layout (which only supports the site and does NOT make me rich, by the way) on tapedeck to inline, tape-sized ads i was finally able to make tapedeck even more responsive: sizing your browser now gives you 1, 3, 4, 5 or 6 columns of tapes, depending on the space available. go ahead and try it! a few pics are on facebook

Isolating Tapes 101

[photo album] http://on.fb.me/MX2BHS — isolating this denon tape was a real piece of work. Still, properly isolated tapes make better tees! Remember that. New Stuff coming soon to Tapewear!

Updates first on Facebook

to stay up to date with the tapes we post, be a fan of tapedeck on Facebook — all updates are posted there first, sometimes days before officially appearing on the site! on Facebook, you'll also get updates on the tapes we're going to post in the future: the shape of tapes to come.