By the late 1990s, automobiles were offered with entertainment systems that played both cassettes and CDs. By the end of the late 2000s, very few cars were offered with cassette decks. The last vehicle model in the United States that included a factory-installed cassette player was the 2010 Lexus SC 430.
You will no more see the new cars with a cassette player. It's the past. The last car produced with this entertainment feature was 2011 model of Ford Crown Vic.
Although the last vehicle equipped with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) cassette deck rolled off the line years ago, the format isn't completely obsolete. As long as there are people who want them, the aftermarket for car cassette decks will live on.
1984: Compact Discs
This new technology offered a far-better listening experience than any previous option. CDs had vastly superior sound quality and were more durable than cassettes.
Though cassettes were first introduced in 1964, it took at least a decade for them to begin replacing the 8-track in vehicles. The biggest leap came in 1979 when the Sony Walkman was released, which cemented the audio cassette as the standard media of choice.
By the late 1990s, automobiles were offered with entertainment systems that played both cassettes and CDs. By the end of the late 2000s, very few cars were offered with cassette decks. The last vehicle model in the United States that included a factory-installed cassette player was the 2010 Lexus SC 430.
The Compact Cassette really hit its peak in the 1980's, but was quickly surpassed in the 90's by compact disc (CD) sales. By the early 2000's, cassette tapes had become almost nonexistent, with more album releases occurring solely on vinyl or CD.
With the death on May 17 of Greek composer Vangelis, memories came flooding back to music writer TONY MAGEE of the launch in Canberra of the compact disc digital audio format in December, 1982. HOW many CD titles were available when they first launched in 1982? Just two!
the dominance of vinyl records from 1973 to the mid-1980s. the fall of 8-track tape sales starting in the late 1970s as cassette tapes entered the market and overtook LP sales by the mid-1980s and remained the dominant format until 1993.
In 1984, Pioneer debuted the first ever car CD player, the CDX-1. And two years later, Sony introduced the car CD changer, which held 10 CDs and felt like the future.
Cassettes dominated the musical album market in the 1980s and 90s before being knocked off by CDs. In 2012, annual sales of cassettes dropped below 4,000 units. But purchases of the retro format have regained popularity in recent years, with sales growing for a tenth consecutive year in 2022.
Yet cassette tapes are having a moment. According to Luminate, an entertainment industry data collector, U.S. tape sales increased by more than 440 percent between 2015 and 2022. In the past few years, mainstream artists like Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift have all capitalized on the fad.
From Bentley to Rolls-Royce, nearly every car on the market had an 8-track recorder. This popularity grew after Ford Motor Company decided to add 8-track players into factory models in 1965.
The British Motor Corporation (BMC) offered the Morris Minor Traveller (1953–1971) with wood structural components and painted aluminum infill panels—the last true mass-produced woodie.
The oldest car model name still in production today is the Chevrolet Suburban. The first time it reached production was in 1935, meaning that in two years, the Suburban name will officially be 90 years old.
Very few manufacturers are producing new cassette players, so if you are looking for a tape deck for home listening, chances are you'll have to rely on second-hand markets.
“It allows artists of all types to release physical copies at affordable prices, and within a decent delivery time, especially when compared to vinyl wait times of at least 8 months,” Brownlie explains. Of the physical formats for music, cassettes are by far the cheapest to produce and often the cheapest to purchase.
SACD. Super Audio CD or SACDs were developed to be the successor to the CD. They allowed additional playing time – 110 minutes compared to the 80 minutes of a normal CD – and the ability to record up to 6 channels of audio instead of the usual stereo pair of a CD.
Vinyl is in a huge resurgence, of course, with sales growing year-after-year every year since 2005. And CDs, well, you might be surprised that people are actually listening them as well — after being in a steady decline since 2000, CD sales actually grew in 2021 for the first time in nearly two decades.
Having been hit by the rise of filesharing and MP3 players in the early 2000s, CD sales nearly halved between 2000 and 2007, which is when smartphones and the first music streaming services emerged to put the final nail in the compact disc's little round coffin.
The first test CD was Richard Strauss's “Eine Alpensinfonie,” and the first CD actually pressed at a factory was ABBA's “The Visitors,” but that disc wasn't released commercially until later. Mass adoption didn't happen immediately – CDs wouldn't overtake cassette tapes until the late 1980s.
RW discs: RW discs, unlike the other types, can “wear-out.” CD-RW and DVD-RW discs should last for about 1,000 rewrites, and DVD-RAM discs, 100,000 times, before the rewriting capability is lost. The reading functionality of the disc should continue for a limited number of read times after each writing.
In perfect circumstances, cassette tapes will only last about 30 years if properly stored away from heat, humidity, and UV rays. Whereas a CD stored in the same conditions can last over 100 years. Two common factors for cassette tape deterioration are heat and tape recorder malfunctions.
Cassette Tape History
The Dutch company Philips invented the first audio cassette, called a compact cassette. This format was introduced to a European audience in 1963 at the Berlin Radio Show and the following year made its debut in the U.S. market.
When properly cared for, your audio cassette tapes have a lifespan of 30 years. However, many factors can shorten that lifespan considerably. By this time, you've probably done the math. It has been almost 40 years which means your cassette tapes could be at risk!