technoguy

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, or simply cassette, is the most successful magnetic tape sound recording format. It consists of two miniature reels, between which an oxide-coated plastic tape, or magnetic tape, is passed and wound. These reels and attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. Although originally intended as a medium for dictation, improvements in fidelity led it to supplant reel-to-reel tape recording in most applications. Between the 1970s and early 1990s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, alongside the LP and later the Compact Disc.