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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Maxell, once a great brand, now just "made in china" junk!, December 25, 2006
The hay-day of cassette manufacturing was the early 1980's, when all the audio cassette companies had made their products in Japan. In particular Maxell was leading the edge with their epitaxial formula tape. This tape was inserted into their "UD", "XL-I", "XL-II", and "XL-II-S" cassette models.
By 1982, Maxell's audio cassettes had four major advances, which would see the audio cassette technology at its absolute perfection.
1. PX Pure Crystal Gamma
2. Unique Binder (prevented shedding oxide)
3. Dimpled Slip Sheets
4. Square Hubs
1. Maxell was the leader of the pack, as their unique PX Pure Crystal Gamma particle oxide formulation would give a clean stable sound output.
2. An extremely advance binder would keep recorder heads clean, even when several hundred of these tapes were played on a tape deck.
3. Also contributing to the cassettes flawless operation was the concept that the tape spools where sandwiched between to highly dimpled slip-sheets. This gave the tape an ultra smooth travel whether in playing or winding mode, as the force from the dimpling would continuously align the tape into neatly wounded spools. This was possible, as the dimpling would subject the tape to a tight force on both sides. The concept would ultimately give 100% perfect tape to head alignment as the tape would always pass by the head in exactly the same spot to where it was recorded.
A small draw back of the tape dimpling was that it might have made the tape travel a little tight. This would seldom cause the tape to jam, and was really no more or less of a problem, comparative to other brands.
4. The central area of the cassette had square shaped hubs, which would greatly reduce wow and flutter, as the rollers would grip the tape hubs with more precision.
1978 to 1987 was Maxell at its finest hour.
The rot started to set in when the late 80's, early 90's trend, "cost cutting" started to set in like a cancer.
The first thing to go was the backbone to Maxell's flawless cassette operation, the legendary square hubbed cassette shell. This took place about 1988-1989. Instead, new shells were created with an oval window, and the square shaped hubs were replaced with the stock standard rounded hubs.
About the same time, the tightly dimpled cassette slip-sheets that had sandwich the tape spool, was replaced with a flatter, lesser-dimpled slip-sheet. This became obvious, as the tape spool made much less contact to the sheet, when in play and winding modes.
I would assume Maxell did this in reaction of consumers complaining about the noise tapes made when winding, and the jamming caused through the tightness of the sheets. I pretty much look at this change, comparative to consumers complaining about a car engine making too much noise, so the manufacture decides to take the engine out. Can you see the absurdity here? If a tapes performance was perfect during recording and playing modes, who would care less about the noise a tape makes when in a winding mode?
The next thing to change was the binder, which would have taken place about 1994-1995. Tapes I used during this period of time notably left more oxide shedding on my heads. To save on manufacturing costs further, Maxell would have used a cheaper binding substance, which in turn wouldn't have binded the oxide to the tape as tightly, comparative to it's original binder used in the early 80's.
At this point, the cassettes audio output, notably in the 12,000 to 20,000 htz range was starting to become inferior to the early 80's models. Changes in the manufacturing of the slip-sheets, and cheaper binder would have created notable azimuth issues. The slight misalignment would cause the high-end frequencies to dull out.
During 1996 to 1997, Maxell still manufactured reasonable quality UE, UR, XL II, and XL II S cassette models. Unfortunately their UD, UDI, and UDII were starting to lag terribly in quality, and the LN tapes were also in the range of questionable. Many of these tapes would become discontinued by 1999, as CD-R became more popular, but the UR tape was still a fair all round tape.
By 2001, Maxell had discontinued most of their tape lines, leaving the XLII and UR model as their only choices for analog buffs like me who still like the ease of using cassette tapes.
2002 saw the last nail hammered into the audio cassette coffin, when Maxell discontinued it's XL II tape, (no longer available in Australia), and the use of a much cheaper, (and nastier) polyester tape for their "UR" model tape. EBay seems to be swamped with these audio cassettes as nobody wants them, and they are constantly listed with no bids or buyers.
Occasionally, the tapes that Maxell used to be known for back in the 80's can still be found on eBay, but at highly inflated "supply and demand" prices. A box of original "Maxell UD 90" tapes from 1981 went on eBay last week for over US$200 with 17 bids.
This is a situation that the Management of Maxell should take full advantage of. They don't have to manufacture cassettes in the same quantity and variety as they did back in the early 80's, as the market is plainly not there. However it would be fantastic if Maxell could still manufacture at least one or two good quality model tapes, exactly the way they were made during the 1985 period. It would be awesome to see the original UD tapes and XLII tapes, exactly the way they were manufactured in 1985.
Hopefully someone at Maxell will see this review, do a check on eBay, and realise how popular good quality blank cassette still are.
The return of the original "Maxell UD" tape, may come to a shop near you, fingers crossed!
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