Expert: Steven L Smith - 7/10/2007

Question
Dear Sir, I collect type 4 metal cassette tapes. The prices they are selling for on ebay are way out of line. Yet the audio tape companies continue to phase them out. Any idea why nobody is making these tapes? Are the people on ebay making too much money?

Answer
Type IV metal cassette tapes, as I'm sure you know, bring the highest possible sound quality out of any of the other types of cassettes, and have always been moderately more expensive than other types, like CrO2.  Now, very few manufacturers make them simply because very few people are buying them. Kind of like Betamax... it's a better format, but it costs more and most people are happy with cheaper formats.  Voice talent applicants at our company used to always provide us with cassette tapes, and they would almost always be Type IV, because that was very similar to the quality you would get with reel-to-reel tape, which was what we used to use to record on.  DAT enjoyed a brief period of popularity, but now virtually everything is either done on CDs or recorded directly into the computer. It's not as good as tape, but it's good enough for most people.

Technical development of the cassette pretty much completely stopped when digital recordable media such as DAT and MiniDisc were introduced in the 1990s. Just a year or two ago, the ONLY company who still made 1/2" reel-to-reel tape stopped making it. Demand for these products just doesn't exist anymore.

People on eBay usually make too much money, regardless of what they're selling.... but you're right. $15 for one blank tape is a little excessive. Unfortunately, that's what the market is supporting right now.  Maybe if you contact recording studios in your area, they might have some unused tapes lying around they would be willing to give or sell to you?  I know that when we order blank media of any kind, we always order too much (for example, we currently have a huge box full of DAT tapes at work).

Hope this helps.