WHat did Audiophiles hear during Tape deck era?

So true. Records were much more common, cars mostly had radios, and if the car had a tape deck it was about as likely 8-track as cassette. Yes the all-time worst format ever, 8-track, was actually pretty common for a while. Probably was a year when there were as many 8-tracks as cassettes, at least in cars.

I never really thought of it as a tape era. It was records. Other formats like tapes were for cars, or making party tapes. Records were for music. As it was then, so shall it ever be.

Records. Mine were dubbed to my 10.5" Pioneer RTR. My roommate did the same with his smaller Sony RTR. Normally I would have reels of whole album dubs, and then make reels of cuts for different styles. This being WSU years there would be tapes for pre-function, party, hangover recovery, etc. As I recall Nakamichi was known for supposedly audiophile quality cassette, but since the impossibility of getting anywhere near RTR quality with tape half as wide moving 1/16 as fast was beyond obvious, no one I know ever bought one. So we audiophiles listened to open reel, and when we wanted the real deal, we played records.