Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 27, 2006



The Compact Cassette is a widely used magnetic tape sound recording format. Although originally intended as a medium for dictation, improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant reel-to-reel tape recording in most applications. Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for computers. 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. Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature reels, between which a magnetic tape is passed and wound. These reels and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. Two stereo pairs of tracks (four total) or two monaural audio tracks are available on the tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played when the cassette is inserted with its 'A' side facing up, and the other when it is turned over. (more...)

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