Yeah. I lived on tapes, stuff ripped from radio, other tapes, and CDs. I honestly don't remember thinking tape sound was that bad, worse than CD's sure. Most of the audio gear kids and young people had access to were cheap walkmans & headphones, boom boxes, and crappy all-in-one stereo systems likely made everything sound like shit and we were oblivious. It wasn't until I was older and befriended someone who was into sound production that I put a bit more thought into audio gear.
I used to work for a VHS dub house while working graveyard shift. There was a weekend radio program that would play underground tunes not normally broadcast. It was a multi-hour broadcast longer than cassettes. Instead, I would hook up a tuner to a VHS audio-in, and record the entire broadcast on VHS HiFi tracks. I'd then listen to that tape through out the week. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We all put up with stuff when we have to. We no longer have to. Bringing back formats for nostalgia is fun, but for anything other than cassettes. Hell, my first car had an 8-track in it. My dad had a supply of blank 8-track tapes and an 8-track recorder in the home HiFi setup. I would record modern releases from CD to 8-track and rock it in the car. So yeah, been there done that
> and record the entire broadcast on VHS HiFi tracks.
That's a neat Idea. I once did something along those lines when I was a kid. A friend and I were trying to dub as many albums as we could on to a 160 minute VHS tape in LP or SLP, whatever gave you nearly 6 hours of play time. Was just for fun though.