MOR22870807: (Unit 4) Cassette History

26/09/23

Unit 4 - Cassette History: A series of fortunate events

Philips compact cassette tape was first shown to the public at the end of August 1963. The project itself likely started in 1960 or 1961.

Prior to the release of the compact cassette, there were already many similar products.

In 1957, EL3581 Philips dictation device. It used three inch reels in a cassette, so it could realistically be considered Philips' first real cassette.

RCA sounds tape cartridge. This product was eagerly awaited as it even launched a promo video. However, despite the promo video being released in 1958, the product only launched in late 1959 and even then it was very much a 'soft' launch. The company itself didn't really back their own product, making its results less than ideal.

The RCA cost approximately 300 dollars, which is 2,700 dollars today. They slowed the tape speed down to 3.75 inches per second while most tape recorders at the time were running at 7.5 inches per second. Despite the changes, the quality was still good, partly due to a company called 3m developing better tape formulations.

The 3m company eventually got 'fed up' of RCA dragging their heels and decided to launch their own product, which was a cartridge system. This was called the 3m reverse cartridge system and it played one and seven eights per second.

When Philips launched their own product, it was a mono format (meaning the tracks were played to both of your ears without there being a difference on the left side, the track contains only one channel of audio.) while 3m's used its tracks for stereo. What made the cassettes possible was 3m creating a newer low-noise format to make the compact cassette possible.

Minifon attaché was shown off in 1959, and then launched in 1960 by the German company Protona, who were known for making spy recorders.

So why isn’t it considered the first compact cassette when it appears so technically similar?

Protona aimed their product at ‘audiophiles’ which ended up being the wrong approach as they already had vinyls and alternate products that were more convenient to use and well-known.

Philips on the other hand, took the approach of aiming their format at the general inexperienced public, allowing them to have a simpler, yet still enjoyable listening experience.

Cassette machine players before Phillips' were incredibly expensive, around $3000 in the US. This appears to be a big reason as to why Phillips was so popular as they made a simpler built system which ultimately made it cheaper at £538 which is approximately $667.

The unique part of the Philips cassette was the moveable heads on the product itself. Other competitors products had ‘static’ heads, meaning Philips took a unique 'moveable' approach. I'd like to learn more about the difference in static versus moveable heads.

In 1963, Philips also launched another dictation tape format with an eighth of an inch tape width. It's rather unusual that they brought out two similar ideas in the same year.

Many different companies were trying to make something similar to the Philips compact cassette such as the Grundig DC_International and the SANYO tape cartridge system. Although there were many tapes being made, these two are perhaps the most similar to Philips, especially the SANYO.

The thing that truly made the compact cassette successful was when Philips talked to Sony in Japan to get them aboard the compact cassette. They asked Sony to sign up and pay 20 Yen for each cassette recorder sold within Japan, Sony refused. Philips lowered their price and asked for 6 Yen and yet Sony still disagreed. This was because despite wanting to work with Philips the most, Sony had other options for sales such as the Grundig DC_International which they would’ve got for free, so ultimately, Philips agreed to not charge a licensing fee at all.

Although Philips started the idea of the compact cassette, it snowballed into many individual developers and companies attempting to create the best cassette possible, creating the cassette boom.

The walkman came around in Japan 1979. Cassette sales then tripled over the next four years due to this.

In late 1980s, cassettes revenue hit it’s peak. From '84 to '92 it was the best-selling pre-recorded music format.

The first time CDs sold more than cassettes in the US was in 1992 beginning the end of the cassettes run.

The compact cassette also had quite a big impact on computers, programming and computer games. Computers primary source of loading and saving games as well as creating them was the compact cassette.