If I'd known...

15+ years ago, if I'd known what I know now, I would rather have spent my hard-saved cash and bought CDs instead of cassettes!  Having to buy replacement CDs is expensive, even if they are so old and 'dated' that they're in the 'budget/sale' section of the online shop!  I suppose in future, we'll feel the same way about having 'wasted' money on CDs, except even though everything is now mp3/digital/electronic/virtual, CDs can still be ripped... a DVD drive reads CDs... nothing reads cassettes anymore! 

I have a double tapedeck, 3CD hifi (wow, ancient even to call it that), and the tapedecks had been all that I'd had left apart from the radio (this was before G and I met, before we hooked up the 'media computer' etc) as the CD player on that thing was a bitch from pretty much the word go and I stopped using it a long time ago.  I don't miss twisted, shredded cassettes though, and misaligned tape heads were the bane of my music enjoyment, but at least the tapedecks still worked.  Now, however, I don't think they do anymore.

Part of the reason I wanted to record the voiceclip (and another tape from my childhood*) was because wherever we go in life, I doubt we'd buy a tapedecked soundsystem again, and it'd be a pity to lose these memories.  So we've been 'ripping' sound from the tapes (only the music/things we can't buy replacements for), and the sound output has been getting worse and worse, as if the music was being submerged into a bowl of water!  I suspect the elastic bands inside the decks are... aged LOL.  We're going to try hook up G's mini-hifi to see if his tapedeck does a better job, and I sincerely hope it does!  We don't have that many tapes we want to preserve, pleeaase, Tapedeck God, smile on us a short while longer...

*   My sis, my 2 younger cousins and I at one stage spent a good time recording a Goon-show style tape.  It's terribly embarrassing listening to it now, but it's such a precious timetunnel to back then as the memories it conjures up are so vivid.  It's also nice to hear the adult family members who are caught on tape in the background of the 'show'.

I might just try to blackmail my cousin/s at a later date though - watch this space *rubs hands together evilly* - as there's some "usable" material of my cousin (probably 2 at the time) singing her version of Achy Breaky Heart!