soulbounder

I've never seen this before so I'm just wondering what purpose they serve. Seems like a module that may possibly slide upwards when you press the button?

1985WS6transam

iTrader: (4)

They look to me like a casette holder, i have seen them in many other cars... I could be wrong though...

Karps TA

iTrader: (2)

LMAO

Yes they are cassette holders.

See sonny back in ye olden days we didn't have the fancy Ipod or CD's. We had to listen to music on small plastic covered reel to reel recording devices. We called them cassette tapes. And they were good! Cept for the whole not being able to go directly to a song thing. Well and crappy sound quality.

Friggen kids today.....

Asdfga3

They also randomly got eaten by tape players. My parents still had some when I was a little kid, so remember them.

Vader

Day-um. I recall having a similar discussion with my 17-year old about 8-tracks some time ago...

hmmurdock_00

yeah its kind rare(not sure if it would be called that)/uncommon item on birds. It is a cassette tape holder.

21, I still listen to tapes, and have a 8track player in the garage, doesn't play motor don't work.

Not sure about ya'll, but my 92 camaro had a search feature that if turned on and then press fast foward it skip one song and go to the next, hit reverse it rewind one song back.

Vader

My '86 cassette unit has the same feature, plus the equalizer, loudness, with AM stereo as well as FM stereo. (Remember that AM stereo was an experiment for a while? Any stations still broadcasting that way?) It was the "premium" sound system in the '86 model, since there was no GTA in that year.

83_Camaro_83

Lol watching to much star trek?

haha whats a cassette...sounds like some sort of french food

coolram62

iTrader: (2)

Like everyone has stated those are cassette holders.Vader I bought the same model as your's off of Ebay.There is an AM station in Savannah that broadcasts in stereo.I had all but forgotten about the AM stereo craze during the mid '80s till I got this radio.Works really well just missing one of the EQ slider covers.

bowtienick

iTrader: (1)

i had a factory cd player in my 92 z28, it quit so i got a tape player and it has the search feature. i thought it was really neat.
though i did not know how rare the cd player was and i trashed it!

smokefan

i had that stupid cassette holder in my 91 rs. both are long gone now

NuBird

thanks for making me feel old, I put all my cassetes on cd and some of my Van Halen RECORDS as well. CD players were too high for me to get one when they first started to come out so i still had tapes for a while. I'm 25

Dark Mavis

Cassette? Record? What's that? I bang sticks and rub rocks together to hear my favorite song.

MikeDirntRulez

I wonder when CDs are going to become obsolete.

Then we'll have another thread with a picture of a CD player saying "WTF Is this? A fancy paper holder?"

Jtufts

OMG i am laughing so hard right now

soulbounder

Glad I could bring some humor.

I do know what a cassette is (I'm 22 lol). I've even used them to "GASP!" record things off the radio! Just waiting for DRM to stop that too. Anyway, I've just never seen those in a thirdgen before. The only other car I've seen something similar in was a mid 90s taurus that had a module like that where you would press the button and it would slide out revealing cupholders.

Oh, and for the record, I never watched muched star trek except for some episodes of 'the next generation' and there was never anything like that on the holodeck.

1-MEAN-T/A

I had one of those in my 86.. i needed the room in my center console so now its in my closet. I dont have the car anymore so yea, its kinda just chillin.. if anyone wants it ( dunno why) just PM me with an offer.. anyway.. yea.. cassettes.. good times

-Adam

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

If the HD DVD and Blue Ray guys can get their act together and come out with 1 common format, it would be in 5-10 years. In the more likely scenario that HD DVD adn Blue Ray both continue competing for market share, they'll die a painful death just like SACD and DVD-A are doing, and CD will continue to to be the main format (not including the damned MP3 craze).

MrDude_1

think betamax.
MP3 may not be anywhere near the ideal digital audio format, just like VHS was inferior to the sony....
but one has become the open standard.... and like it or not, digital music is staying around...

i give it another 5 to 10 years before another good digital file format is as popular as MP3s are today.. in the meantime, i just pray the optical disc format of the future is somewhat like MDs... minidiscs kickass... no scratching, long batterylife, and the fuggers actually fit in your pocket.
or better yet, a ideal solution would be a solid state type of standard hardware to replace the CD... coupled with a better digital music file format...

but whatever...
id just be happy if MDs caught on here...

BruceEmbry

What do you mean crappy sound quality. I got cassette tapes that are twenty to thirty years old and they play and sound great. I have always use state of the art equitment to record my own tapes. CDs and those crappy MP3's can not touch the sound quality of my personal recordings. Some of my cassette tapes are DBX-II encoded.

And I still have a cassette player in my 82 Firebird, 100 RMS per channel 0.1%THD amp for the subwoofers, and 50 watt RMS per channel class-A amp 0.02 %THD for the Low-base to high drivers. I have a total of 12 speakers in my Firebird which are 4 8inch Sub-Wooders, 4 base-mid drivers and 4 dome tweeters.

The 4 sub-woofers are in a custom box that has a 12DB gain at 35HZ.

The best thing about the system is its heard and not seen. Thus I don't have to worry about sticky fingers!

hmmurdock_00

Cassettes are cool still to me, one that can be carried in a pocket, no scratches to worry about, good quality of sound (this depends on the orginal recording or recording to the tape, just like a cd). Plus if you eject the tape, it keeps its spot.

Cds are good to, but in way i prefer my unusual platic shaped box with reels in it.

Explains why i try and find radios with cd and cassette on them.

Imagine explaining VHS, paying $100+ for a device to play these big bulky black looking boxes that had movies recorded one them.

They already talking about a better MP3, but its not called MP3, called MPsomething not sure what though.

MD's be good since they are small, but imagine losing one of those in the car

MrDude_1

no big deal... worse thing that could happen is it slips between the seat or under it.... you know, like CDs do.

except the MD doesnt get scratched to hell because of it.

you know, what you said could be applied to them too...
MDs are cool still to me, one that can be carried in a pocket, no scratches to worry about, good quality of sound (this depends on the orginal recording or recording to the tape, just like a cd, except it takes much higher quality sound). Plus if you pause the player, it keeps its spot. and the batterys last longer then CD or tape players.

91rsowner4life

I am 21 also a fue years back my dad had an 8track in his garage and he had it in the trash. I asked him why he was trashing that its so cool. I have my eye out for an eairly third gen with an 8track that would be so cool to find. but Ii probably never find one. has anyone ever seen one?

Frank89IROC

When I purchased my 1994 TA new, it had those in the console, the car came originally equipped with a cassette player (long gone).

Derek The Great

lol i laughed when i saw the picture of the tape holder. i was in a scrap yard last summer and when i saw that i was like GASP!! i snatched it out of there so fast and got it for nothin SWEET! then i loaded it up with tapes from allman brothers band, van halen, ac/dc and a couple of randoms... all i need now is the nice eq tape deck so i can get a scan feature, as my tape player doesnt have that... argh
i am 19 btw and would listen to the records in my closet if i had a record player

Camaroguy18

ahhh digging up old treasures, 8-track, cassette, laser disc.....good times had by all lol.....this thread reminded me of when my parents first brought home a bulky *** vcr......big, heavy, clock never set the right time, and STILL ran 500 bucks hahahahaha

85_ZED28

Thats my guess. Moving parts suck

firebirdjosh

iTrader: (1)

Imagine how much better it'd sound with digital quality music. The whole vinyl vs. digital argument can go on forever, but cassettes are just noisy and sound awful. I love the whole 100hz low roll off and 5K high roll off, .

BruceEmbry

And this is the problem, you kids don't know what I mean by State of the Art. All of my cassette decks have always been Three Head systems with Dual Capstan Drives. Freq response 20 to 18K+HZ, S/N 65 DB with Dolby and 100 DB with DBX-II noise reduction.

The stereo and home theater audio stuff made today is mostly crap. You have to spend thousands of dollers in order to get evern close to the performance of the State of the Art equipment made back in the 70's and early 80's.

My current cassete recorder is 33 years old, its a Nakamechi 700. Tri Tracer. In 1973 it orginaly retailed for about $700. I use a DBX type II for noise reduction.

Biz

After reading this thread and knowing what that is at first glance I suddenly feel very old when I think about it. Dam.-still laughing about it though.

just2quickz28

They need to come out with a car head unit that accepts a USB thumbdrive for mp3 support, plug and play your mp3s no burning discs that can get scratched just load them up and go play in traffic ( lol thats what my old panisonic head unit said when you first turned it on "Go Play in Traffic")

Maverick_82

wuts a...cassette!?! lol

Derek The Great

cassetts are cool man, this thread made me go sort thur some scuzz around the hous and i unearthed a Franki Valli and the Four Seasons tape! i love oldies like this and cant wait to play it in the summer, man this tape has all his hits on it...

qube

Damp kills them though, leave them in your car when it's cold n wet and they soon sound awful.

They don't fair much better in the heat.

SACD in the car, that would be awesome!!

Matthew