TAPEHEADS- MY TAPE COLLECTION

Here is my tape and tapedeck collection. I'm a big fan of tape in general. I use it for both audio and video, but this page is mainly my audio gear. I belong to the best tape forum on the net- Tapeheads. I started to use tapes in the mid-late 70s. My first cassette player was a Radio Shack portable. Since then I have gotten a few more of their portables. Then in the mid 80s my sisters boyfriend introduced me to recording music onto cassettes. In 1988 I got my own first hifi deck- a Luxman K-112. Then over time I got better and better decks. My Sony TC-K909ES really upped the bar for what a good deck could do. Then to get the best Dolby S deck, I got an Aiwa XK-S9000. And finally I got the best deck ever made- the Tandberg 3014 series. You can see pics of these decks on the left. The Tandberg 910 deck is the best deck period, but belongs to the 3014/ 3014A series. It is known as the "Dragon killer". Below is a better look at my Tandberg 3014 deck. It has a very refined transport.

To the left are my two best decks. The Tandberg TCD-3014 and the Aiwa XK-S9000.

Here are the three tapes I started out with. In the mid 70s I got a Radio Shack Supertape bought for me. That series was made from 1974-78. It came in the silver colored box. Then in around 1980-81, I got again another Supertape, but this time it was the Gold tape. I used it to record space shuttle missions. In the same time period I also got another first- a Sony LNX tape. It too was used for shuttle missions. I also aquired some Concertapes in that time period.

Then when my sister's boyfriend got me into taping music, I graduated to some better tapes. I got some Maxell XL-II tapes, then later the XL-IIS. Then over the years tried out some of many brands, but usually stuck with Maxell tapes. Then when I got back into tapes in the mid 2000s, I started to try those really good tapes I never had a chance to buy before or didn't buy in the heydey of cassettes, The silver colored Maxell XL-I tape below is a very rare tape to find today.

Here is my wall of tape frames. These are some of the collections I've gathered over the last few years. Some of these frames with the tapes in them add up to quite a bit of money in value.

My dad used to play 8 track tapes in the early mid 70s. I remember them playing at times. The last couple of years I decided to find out what 8 tracks were like in terms of sonics, so I got the best 8 tracks I could find. The first 8 track I bought myself was the blue Radio Shack H.O. tape on the right, of which I recorded music on it to play in my 79 Mustang 8 track deck. I still have those 8 tracks today. The two 8 track decks I aquired to play them are the best out there- an Akai CR-81D and Pioneer H-R99.

And who could not get back into tape without getting the ultimate tape format- reel to reel. During my college years we used reel to reel tapes for my class project assignments. I didn't really get my own deck till 2008, which is an Otari MX-5050BIII-2 deck. Probably the last deck still being made today. I have aquired some reel to reel tapes in the past couple years to forseeing myself getting back into reel to reel. The one in the frame was comparable to the one cassette I got in the 70s- same series and years. Then I got the blue H.O. box one after to compare to the 8 tracks I bought in the late 80s. The gold box one in the middle I'm on the lookout for to complete my collection and come full circle. That Supertape Gold r2r tape is very rare, as it was only made in 1980. The tapes below are my better reel to reel tapes, one being my favorite brand- Maxell. And next to them is the only 2 brands being made today- RMGI and ATR. ATR is the ultimate tape today.

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