PREFERRED: The advent of the iPod has revolutionised the music industry

BANGALORE: When Sony brought out its Walkman, it revolutionised the way we listened to music. Cassettes became the best thing since sliced bread. And now the Internet has turned that world upside down. File sharing, downloads, MP3s and the iconic iPod have shaken the music industry. So where does all that leave the good old cassette tapes.

At first glance, here's what the cassette story looks like: Though cassettes have always been cheaper than CDs, people seemed to have favoured the digital counterpart more, as it offers near perfect sound quality and the ability to be "ripped" into audio formats such as MP3 and AAC.

Scientifically CDs offer superior technology to cassettes. Since the music is stored in a data format and is pressed onto CDs, it makes their clarity greater than tapes. The absence of the head makes for clear, glitch-free listening, as long as you do not get it too scratched. And there is the accessibility angle. One can quickly change to a track they wish to hear and even play it on repeat. Shoma Chakravarty, a student, prefers CDs for this very reason.

The current generation has pretty much given up on tapes.

When asked when was the last time she bought a tape, Prathibha Sekar, an 18-year-old and an avid music listener said: "Two years ago, I switched to CDs because of their portability and the fact that they are compact."

But others see buying tapes as a cheaper way of getting their favourite music legally. Phunu Das, an animator with a private studio, prefers old Hindi classics and being an industry insider, is absolutely against piracy.

For many others, the slow death of the cassettes is only a natural transition. "It is just a question of change of technology," explained Vikas, the manager of Calypso, a shop in Jaynagar 4th Block. "First, it was the transfer of portable movies in Video tapes to DVDs. Now, it is changing from audio cassettes to compact discs." It is not only English music genre which has changed from cassettes to CDs. With falling prices of CDs, VCDs and DVDs, there is a widespread shift across languages. The shift has not affected business as well. "We used to sell cassettes before. Now, we sell CDs. It does not really make a difference because we are making the same amount of business," explained Mr. Vikas.

Though cassette sales are plummeting, there are a few who remain faithful to cassettes. Parnika Reys Gamat, a student, prefers tapes because they are low maintenance. "My player does not play all my scratched CDs," she said. Then again we were all acquainted to the sound of a tape recorder before anything else. Some of us still have an old faithful in our cars and enjoy it as much as a CD.

So if you rummage through your father's shelf and may be, just may be, you will find a good old cassette player and his stash of albums from yesteryears. And who knows, today's trash can become tomorrow's treasure.

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