WHat did Audiophiles hear during Tape deck era?

You need to talk to Geoffkait. My understanding from him is  he is still in the “cassette era”.

@noromance  I think I had the same underdash Pioneer - no FM. I had Crickets front and back in a 1970 Firebird w 400. Fun
i enjoy my mostly pirate cassette collection in my garage system - I used to document the recording chain on the label which is to me an interesting record of my system evolution probably the pinnacle for me SOTA Sapphire to Souther to Dynavector Ruby to Ortofon Step up to CJ Premier 3 to Tandberg 3014A.... fun
but my 4 track Dokorder was the high fidelity bomb :-) Eclipsed today by my high speed B-77 half track

Have a NAK today, the 3 series Tanberg notoriously unreliable.. not so the 440

"tape cassette era?"

When did this happen? I purchased records, make a cassette copy for the car, because I thought they performed better than the pre recorded version.

No one informed me of an "era" during this time.

According to Sirius XM and their "classic rewind" channel, the cassette era was the 80,s.
Cannot say as I would disagree

For the hardcore junkie cassettes are pure heroin, everything else is methadone.