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Back in the late 70s and 80s I loved tapes to share music and create playlists for the car, but I never bought prerecorded music in tape format, too short-lived, at least in the tropics (Puerto Rico) where heat and humidity would accelerate wear of tapes as I recall.

when we start seeing discarded clumps of it littering the roadside.

On a more positive note, I kinda miss putting together, and listening to, musically and/or thematically related compilations for the car and for friends. It's really not the same when a streaming service tells me what I like.

I still have my Sony Dolby B cassette player, but sadly one of the plastic wheels inside has cracked due to age, (kind of like me), but I always enjoyed taking it along for the ride with a handful of tapes.

The + and - freq response at least is honest. I will check out kickstarter.

I still have about 120 cassettes encoded with dbx noise reduction and the Technics deck to play them, so I hook it up and listen to some of them occasionally. Mostly live stuff and old radio broadcasts that aren't available elsewhere. dbx is a two-ended noise reduction system that never really caught on because the tapes are mostly unlistenable without decoding, unlike Dolby B and C which people listened to all the time without decoding. The dbx tapes are far superior to Dolby although they still have typical cassette weaknesses such as tape stretching and speed variations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbx_(noise_reduction)

What's so funny I just set up an old Technics dual cassette deck,before reading this, and was listening to a Smithsonian History of Jazz tape,then a Yardbirds one. They sound great with all that distortion, noise and extra hiss! I miss my cassette deck in my old Honda van!

Glad I have Mr. Hermann already booked for a refurb of my Nak ZX7.

That piece of crap quit working after only 35 years of flawless service.

Poor Willy will never be able to retire if this revival hits the big time.

How does one contact him? Does he fix Nakamichi decks? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yes, he is a noted and accomplished tech going through the complex Nak decks.

He refurbed my Nak Hi Comm noise reduction probably over a decade ago.

Because of the age of Nak decks he does not do specific repairs but entire overhauls of the decks. He does have a long waiting list and I am in the queue for having my ZX7 refurbished. He has all the jigs and necessary equipment and offers a warranty when finished.

A great tech and you can google and find out more.

Willy Hermann

Good luck and happy spinning

I put in his email but it did not come out in my post.

I guess you are not allowed to put in email addresses?

He is worth searching for if you own a nak.

What a great name.

It's pretty common to find a cassette deck at the Salvation Armani or Goodwill for $10! I have 4. Cheers,Chet

Still have my Teac V 1010 purchased new modified with a removable power cable, problem is there are no gold plated cinch, dolby B&C.
Still have plenty of cassette-tapes (I sold my Revox B77 19/38 more than 20 years ago) recorded by myself (concerts from FM or else) and pre-recorded. Very rarely reissued on digital.

What will happen to the tape decks .?

Perhaps the best tape decks were the Japanese ones, although I remember a Revox, that was very good.

Good to see cassettes showing it’s face in more places again, I have to admit cassette for me never went away. I have a Nakamichi CR-7 in my system at home and Sony Walkman(s) that I use in my daily commute to and from work, when we were still allowed to travel.

I make my own recordings from Vinyl to metal cassettes.

Rough Trade records near me have been stocking pre-recorded cassettes for years, so round these parts it’s nothing new.

Yes TooCool4 (good to see ya) there are a lot who did not abandon various formats, compact cassettes included. I dumped everything I owned in about 1996 but cassettes started taking a back seat for me by the late 1980's. I picked up both music and the equipment again around 2012. It started with vinyl then cassettes in 2016. 100 or so tape decks later..... :-) I also started buying CDs and players again about 2 years ago.

Many of us have learned to self service the wrecks we buy. There are a few well known service pro's. Willy has been around since Nakamichi's were sold new. There is also Nakmandan in Chicagoland and Perry in Richmond, VA. I believe Nacdoc is still doing business in Tennessee. Be prepared, the wait is L O N G !!!!

For all things TAPE, you might give www.tapeheads.net a look see.