Sunday, April 10, 2016

GoldStar Blanks Cassette Tapes: The Best Value for Money Blank Cassette Tapes of the 1990s?


Even though the company has since renamed itself did GoldStar managed to manufacture the best value-for-money blank cassette tapes back in the 1990s?

By: Ringo Bones  

Now known as LG, the South Korea based GoldStar managed to build one of the best value-for-money consumer electronic and data storage media products back in the 1990s. Even my 14-inch GoldStar color TV model CN-14A146 with serial number 60514212 that was bought back in July 1995 still works to this very day. And did you also know that GoldStar managed to manufacture value-for-money blank cassette tapes whose performance were comparable to that of up-market TDK and Maxell blank cassette tapes during the 1990s? 

Even though TDK Type-I ferric blank cassette tapes were the most widely available here in South East Asia during the 1990s, many audiophiles preferred GoldStar’s series of blank cassette tapes because they are on average cost one-fifth as much as equivalent TDKs. TDK’s D series of Type-I normal ferric cassette tapes normally sell for around 1 US dollars each back in the 1990s, GoldStar’s HR series of Type-I normal ferric cassette tapes on average sell for around 20 US cents each – only voices grade cassette tapes destined for phone answering machines were cheaper – but Goldstar’s HR series of cassette tapes like their GoldStar HR60 (60-minute) and GoldStar HR90 (90-minute) cassettes managed performance that’s comparable to TDK’s higher spec normal Type-I ferric tapes like their TDK AD and AR series of  Type-I cassette tapes. 

And during the mid 1990s, GoldStar blank tapes managed to make your cassette tape equipped car stereo and Walkmans sound like the famed Marantz CD 63 SE Ken Ishiwata signature model if you placed a GoldStar HR series of normal blank cassette tapes on an audiophile quality cassette tape deck – these start at around 150 US dollars each brand new back in the mid 1990s – and record from a good value for money CD player like the famed Marantz CD 63 SE KI Signature. And GoldStar also manufactured value-for-money Type-IV metal particle cassette tape like their GoldStar MTX60 and MTX90 series of cassette tapes during the 1990s and they too cost one-fifth as much as comparable TDK metal tapes.      

2 comments:

  1. Goldstar HR60 and Goldstar HR90 blank cassette tapes are still offered on ebay. I tried them back in 1994 and they're very good despite of their cheapness.

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  2. My mom uses GoldStar HR60 Type I blank cassettes when recording from NU-107 FM's Not Radio back in 1993 and it was very notable because the first song they played in the Not Radio Saturday night program was King Missile's Detachable Penis.

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