Memorex DBS - 1997 - US
"Good quality Ferric" Tony Villa
Side Note: "These are very underrated cassettes which can slug it out with a same generation SA-X!" Tony Villa... Wow! What a statement!
Maybe that was too strong a statement, but Tony Villa proves it in the video below, these are GOOD QUALITY FERRIC tapes! We had them priced BELOW Type "0" Tapes, but that's over now. They are not rare, but much scarcer than any UR tape. Also, today's manufactured 60 Minutes will sell for about $7.00 USD, and many don't hesitate to pay that kind of money. However, here is a 60 or 90 minutes tape for less than $4 that is FAR superior to anything you can buy out there new or old. Stock is dwindling, and although they are far from being rare, they are increasingly harder to find.
These still look so much nicer and have superior quality than anything produced these days... smoothest cut pancakes, smooth and shiny tape, great and heavy clear shells with screws, and a clear plastic membrane manufactured with far superior polymers. These will stay clean and scratch-free, a whole longer than anything produced today. It is unreal how some of these cassette technologies have been lost so quickly. Some manufacturers even have had trouble scaling down the thickness size of the take-up plastic base that holds up the thin magnetic film over it. This is why they could not produce any length larger than 64 minutes, until very recently. However, they are still having trouble coming up with high quality clear polymer membranes over each side of the pancake tape, which is making these membranes go bad fairly fast, as they get all scratched up from the tape being played, FF and REW. See all the pictures of this cassette, right to the end!
Note 1: 60 Minutes: Inventory still holding up at $2.97 (!!) each, but not for long. Very clean wrappers.
Note 2: 90 Minutes: Low inventory, now at $3.57 each. The wrappers on these have a moderate amount of scuffing and may have other small blemishes, but these are not collectible tapes, so... off with the wrappers!
Watch Tony Villa's video review on this and other Memorex tapes! Brilliant!
About Memorex:
Established in 1961 in Silicon Valley, Memorex started by selling computer tapes, then added other media such as disk packs. The company then expanded into disk drives and other peripheral equipment for IBM mainframes. During the 1970s and into the early 1980s Memorex was worldwide one of the largest independent suppliers of disk drives and communications controllers to users of IBM-compatible mainframes, as well as media for computer uses and consumers.
Memorex entered the consumer media business in 1971 and started the ad campaign, first with its "shattering glass" advertisements and then with a series of famous television commercials featuring Ella Fitzgerald. In the commercials she would sing a note that shattered a glass while being recorded to a Memorex audio cassette. The tape was played back and the recording also broke the glass, asking "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" This would become the company slogan which was used in a series of advertisements released through 1970s and 1980s.
Over time the Memorex consumer brand has been owned by Tandy, Handy Holdings, Imation and as of 2016 Digital Products International (DPI)[5]. Today, Memorex is a brand for consumer electronics and accessories such as portable audio players, iPod accessories, flat panel TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, flash drives, CDs and DVDs.
Memorex DBS - 1997 - US