Is the Cassette Recorder Dead?

Well, it maybe better than those items. However, it is not better than DAT or CDR. CDR is the replacement for cassette and does provide better performance as well as convenience.
Everyone owns a CD player and the next logical step in consumerism is to buy a CDR for all the obvious reason, as driven by the manufactures, archiving and sound! The king (cassette) is dead! Long live the king (CDR)!

I have an older pick-up that has the metal dash made for shaft style decks. I could cut a big hole in it & install a CD, but I prefer the original look, which limits your choices to radio only, 8-track or cassette. There are a lot of older vehicles still on the road & this is but one reason there is still a market for cassettes. I still make my own tapes & there are plenty of blank tapes for sale just about anywhere you look.

Everything has a fringe or collectable market. And, I suppose if you are looking at fringe and collectable then absolutely nothing is dead. Therefore, excluding this variable, I predict that within 5 years, (+ or -) 2 years, you will be discussing cassettes much like people discuss 8 tracks.

Now, reel to reel.... that's maybe a differant story!

Yes and no! Yes because cassete is less practic than CD, and more expensive. You can buy virgin CDR, cheaper than cassete. You can acess to any track of a CD in one or two seconds... But cassette recorder is yet alive, it sounds better. I make my own records whit a cassete recorder AKAI GX 95, and the result is impressive. It sounds better than CD. You must try...

for $250 at frys and surely other places, a 3head sony with dolby b,c and S are available.
when they break into your car and take the stuff in it, they get 75 cent cassettes, not $16 CDs.
now, dolby s is THE most quiet noise reduction going and came out way too late to save the cassette format BUT--it makes cassette a formidible storage medium with metal tape (if you can find it}.
for the car, tdk d-series tapes are pefectly fine. use the dolby b setting on your cassette player as S and B are comaptible. with no dolby as you find in some car players, you can turn down the treble and it still sounds pretty good.
the S reduces noise clear accross the audible freq band, not just the top half like B+C.
just my 29 cents worth (inflation).
......regards.....tr