I’m only 19 and cassettes are not really from times of my generation, but i’m such a fan of those and i really like your channel and your passion about cassettes. Greetings from Poland.

`86 HF with orange spools.. what a beauty. Sony designers really had it! That retro-synth tune just sparks up nostalgia with it in such a good way!

I have one from the 86. Still works great.

You know, I don't believe many really understand the incredible technology that allows high fidelity to be what is a slow moving 1/8" tape. NORELCO/Philips originally created this as a monaural medium for dictation. Once 1/16" track in either direction became 2 1/32" stereo tracks = 4 tracks. There is an amazing amount of precision to achieve this. All the magic of noise reduction and bias magic came later along with the tough top notch tape base (Mylar) and the seemingly endless oxide formulations.The amount of engineering that went into these high end decks is mind blowing... the cassettes too. Anyone that ever had used reel to reel tape decks with the 1/4" tape and experienced the Acetate base tape knows how to mend a broken tape. Acetate did not stretch at all, it would simply break, snap and there you were mending your tape with a "splicing machine" and fancy tape. Tape decks themselves would often be to blame for the tape breaking. I'll stop typing now LOL.

I have a local radio programme recorded New Years Eve 1989 on one of these! Tommy Boyd (yes, he of Magpie/Wide Awake Club fame!) on Southern Sound FM. Last track played of the 80s was The Final Countdown. First song they played of the nineties was Prince's 1999 followed by... a hip hop remix of Donald Where's Your Troosers!

Great video! The color combination of the '88 matches the Revox :-).

Another great video. I have learned so much about cassettes on this channel. Never was into them much when I was a kid as CDs were taking off when I was a teenager, but now I am enjoying them in my 40s. I have tried a variety of different ferrics to see what they all sound like, and they do have unique sounds but generally all sound great. I'm curious if Tony has ever played around with recording music on Hi-Fi VHS tapes to compare against cassettes, especially against type 2 and metal ones. I have tried that out and been floored by their quality. Would be an interesting video to see comparison between the different cassette types and Hi-Fi VHS.

I wasn't around during that time but the 1986 HF was and still is my favorite of all HF audio cassettes SONY had, you couldn't beat the red, yellow, and white design. They could have kept that design and just changed the colors each year, wouldn't have killed me, only other versions I dug was the CD-IT, Hi-Fi, and UX versions. I was tape collector as a boy, i came in the very last days of tapes, still collect and use as novelty as a grown man but my parents had a lot of these, SONY was well used in our house and at church through portable tape recorders.

Thanks for the nostalgic trip. Cracking open a new tape was always a joy and I envy that you get to do it in 2020.

Great review Tony! I used a lot of them for recording radio and old vinyl in the 80's. My favorite HF's are the 92's, it was almost a super ferric tape and pretty quiet tape compared to the older and newer HF's. The only newer HF's I have had problems with are the Mexican made HF 120's. Because of the cheap shell and thin tape they can jam up eaisly if you Rewind/FF the tape too fast. And the shell is impossible to open up without cracking it.

I think it was the 1991 US versions looked borderline copyright infringing close to Maxell styling. It only lasted a year. They're my favorite tape, just a tiny bit of hiss, but a very good frequency response. Hardly ever use Dolby and I run them up to around +4 to +6dB. I have mostly late 80s to mid 90s tape and they all sound great.

Tony you love cassettes with heart . And i love cassettes more that anything else .When you are talking you speaking with heart .

Great video Tony Their is an old saying if it ain't Broke it don't need fixing Sony nailed them from the start

My first Sony HFs was from Christmas 1988, in a double pack, when I got into Vinyl/CD recordings. Ever since, I purchased a few variations of the HF, as years passed. A couple of Sony EFs also acquired in between the HFs LOL All the ones I own, have been recorded onto and once only ! 😎😳😜

That Sony HF does look good. I never had one, but I vividly remember being given a pack of HF-S 90's when I was really quite young, and my cassette collection was small. They were the 1985 version, with white inlay cards with green highlights, a black shell with a big clear window in them (second from the left in the advert you showed). They were so very cool, but at the time I didn't realise just how good they were (we were generally a TDK AD90 household, so the HF-S was quite exotic). My only gripe with the Sony cassettes is that over the long term the stickers stretch, buckle up, and start to lift off the cassette shell.

Sony HF came in different designs over the years as they were the first to introduce The Transparent see through Cassette Shell even before The 1986 TDK D Range :) I Purchased my first New Sony HF Cassette Pack of 3 in May 1985 & did Music Recordings from the radio in Milan & they still sound Sharp smooth & impressive even today :) HF was Sony's answer to TDK's AD as both can handle loud Energetic Dance Music 🎶:) Great Video & Great Review Tony as always :)

Great video as always. Have been going through my VHS music tapes at the weekend and recorded Level 42 Live At Wembly onto a Cd in real time. For a 33 year old tape it sounded great and Mark Kings bass work was killer. Mind you, my wife was not pleased when i cleared off her shelf to put the VCR on next to my audio. * Long live tape! Take care now.

Thanks for your great video! I learn a lot with you ! dont stop doing it, you program is a ray of light , a rare unique audio diamond! these Hf were really impressive.

Even if the shells got cheaper throughout the 90s, the tape inside stayed quite good. I had one of those red/grey wrapper mid-90s HFs which had a cracked shell right out of the case. Case was cracked, too. The tape itself was not damaged, though. Busted it open, transplanted it with the slip sheets to a early 2Ks "cheap-as-chips" brand shell that had screws. The tape sounds GOOD, and I'm glad I saved it by transplanting it. As much as I love my Maxell URs, it's very difficult to beat a Sony HF, any of them.

I love the 1985 HF! I have a box of them, they sound great!

Guess what I'm doing right now? I'm recording a mixtape on a brand new vintage Sony HF 👍😉 The HF, along with TDK D, was my best buy back in the day and I feel really nostalgic with this cassettes.

back in the day i had sony hf90's 1985 and 86 versions, always did well for me, i have still got 4 1986 ones left and about 10 spare inlay cards unused as i used ones from wh smith back then. i gave all the others away years ago when i went minidisc, i had a hitachi hi fi thing back in the mid 80's and went to seperates in 89/90, the tape deck i bought then was a tc rx55 auto reverse jobby, bet none of you would entertain that nowadays.

Hi Tony. Present in my vintage cassette collection but in 60 minutes. Greetings from CHILE.

In my collection 90% of all my tapes are sony hf (especially the 2000 one), tdk d and maxell ur's So to complete this trilogy I think the next one should be about maxell ur range

Well this video sent me on an excursion through a bunch of tapes. I used a ton of these new back in the day and never bought anything but the 85's, I've never seen the orange wheels here, maybe they sent a ton of 85's here to the states and they sold for years or maybe I bough them all in '85. Now amongst ones I've picked up here and there I found a bunch of '85's, an open and a sealed '88, one of those intermediate 90's ones with the write on labels that someone wrote on in (I think) Japanese, multiple sealed late Mexican made ones, and even an HF-S black shell with green lettering. I also found an '85 with a red leader. I noticed some of the leader leaders (whatever that is called) were blue and others pink. Thanks for the video!

Funny thing, I just googled "fake Sony HF tapes" and found a NY Times article from May 3rd, 1981 addressing rampant counterfeiting of blank tapes. Although the article focuses mainly on Sony, it mentions that TDK has been trying to confiscate knock-offs for years.. which bodes well for Tony's recent "True Mechanism" exposé 🕵️ *edit- the confiscation part is more implied, it basically says that knock-offs are a problem for TDK too

Great Video as always Tony! I love your work :) And while I'm a TDK guy at heart when it comes to Type I's it was still a great video man

Hi Tony. I remember once in 1985 I splurged and bought a CHF C-60 to record a Dennis Coffey LP (it was a big deal to me because I always liked him a lot, and it was probably the first one I bought myself.) I bought some type 1's in 1997*, and CD-IT type 2's in 1999 which I liked a lot. *- I think I bought according to what my local non-chain shop was carrying at the moment. I think the seller bought whatever he could get a deal on, like a closeout place.

I remember recording my first air check at my first radio DJ job, in 1988-on an AM station (now defunct) called KCSY-on a 1986 Sony HF. Great memories! 👍🏻 By the way, I love how you select retro style music to demo the cassettes. Really gives an authentic feel to the whole video.

Added a 1985 Sony HF30 to my collection today. Not easy to come by in 30 minutes.

There are a lot of variations of the HF. Checking my box of cassettes I see I have three unopened "Canadian" HF (assembled in Mexico from components made in Japan and USA) that are a different package than all the ones in this video.

Excellent as always Tony,The stickers never stuck on the old HFs,probably had swaety palms 💪💪💪

The 85 s were the first cassettes I bought back then. Still favour Sony tapes above TDK, just a feeling. Great video!

You can still score the last version HF in the red wrapper with huge golden HF letters Made in Mexico or the Maxell UR - each for under 2 € per cassette, if you buy NOS in gross.

Great tape. Just always worked. I liked them. I think Sony was holding back and not enough versions of the HF. :D

SP Mechanism has been an exclusively Sony design for the tape hubs and consist in a small "shoulder" on both sides (around half millimeter tall) which offer unmatched precision and silent rolling even on hi-speed FF or REW. It is not about the shell. If you open a genuine Sony cassette and you'll have a profile look of the hub, you'll see the "shoulder" I'm talking about. Initially only Sony produced that type of SP hubs, but after the early 90s a lot of knock-offs had mold that type of hubs. Some of the original Sony hubs has been made from an advanced polymer which gave it a ceramic look-like and texture. "Hi Robert, thank you Robert" "You welcome Tony" 😜😜

My favorite tapes in the HF line are the ‘86-87(?) HF-S and up. The pointless 80s text on them is just the best. The blue-on-white “Single Crystal Gamma” on the HF-PRO is great.

You manage to find the most precious gems and I mean not only the cassettes but also the most beautiful0 80s style music pieces in the KZfaq library. I wonder, how it's still possible, that KZfaq give'em for free.

Oh yes. That '86 version, that's HF for me. I was more a TDK boy, but if I used something else I'd use those HFs. Although I must say, the hubs of the 90s version look better. But still, the 86 versions, that as HF as they come for me 😁. BTW, that was quite an expensive video, with all the unwrappings. Maybe not as bad as the metal tapes, but still. Thanks for sharing this with all of us. Great video again. The graphs are very informative. Although given the narrow vertical scale I'd say they are almost identical. Perhaps it'd be interesting to zoom in on the right part, to see where the tapes drop off to 0. Also a graph of the base hiss on recorded silence would be interesting. There's probably more difference there than on the frequency response. Especially when you're using a deck that calibrates to every tape separately, making the frequency response flatter on all of them.

In the mid 80s Sonys multipacks could often be found in large baskets doted around Comet stores for very little money, you couldn't really go wrong with TDK,Sony and Maxell in them days it was unappreciated quality all day long....And another great video Tony,thank you.

Great video as usual Tony. I have quite a few of these here both from my original cassette days four decades ago and some new ones I've purchased recently. I agree completely with your observations here. The only thing, if I may be so bold as to nitpick, is the last KZfaq track doesn't really show off anything in the high frequencies. Again though, I'm being super critical here and overall, I really enjoyed this.

Thanks Tony for this video!!I think all the Sony HF , even with their differences in style of shells, rollers, and hubs,etc all of them performs excellent. I must say that the older models looks pritier to me, but when hearing the new ones, even if they have wellded shells, they all sound eccellent AND I think Is due to the quality of tape itself(something similar to what happened with TDK D last models that sounded great even ir they had welded shells.I agree with You in the fact that if a brand puts its name in a cassette, is because there is Quality guaranted involved.As always I'm very grateful four your videos.It's a place to learn AND sharing experieces, so a big step forward in this World of cassettes.Thanks a lot Tony!!.God bless you!Best regards!Rafael

I think you missed one version of them from after 1988 to early 90's because a I have lot of HF cassettes using the original shell but with black rollers and "HF" printed in a classic font of sort. Any how, I love using the hf and is my go to cassette since I have so many of them.

Bought a few 1980s and 1990 variant of HF back in Spain for around 1 euro per tape. They were pretty good.

it is worth adding that there were several fake HFs on the market. At least one looked good enough to make a mistake ...

1980 with the HF I had a music center with personal stereos . I used to enjoy looking at these tapes in operation when we recorded from the radio back in the day . Aiwa decks was perfect for Sony tapes , I am not to sure what YAMAHA is tuned for , the 2 head decks I mean . The only way we can really recover from this damed scare is to stop watching that TV !!! Its Mind Contral , take note .

Hi, Tony! As for 1980s 9 rouble cassette era in Russia, Sony HF wasn't a part of it. There were first the CHF exactly as shown in the beginning of this video, and later it was the EF. So, I have several of 1994 version I bought recently new old stock sealed in one of Russian stores. It was 400 roubles a piece. I really like it for nice shell design and awesome tape quality for the entry level tape.

Got a sealed 7 pack of the 90 min Mexicans at a thrift store for 5.99 recently. I dunno if they are really good or OK or what but the price is nice. I got a Sony deck to use them with anyway. I keep the heads clean and demag.

I was more of a UCX man myself……..in fact, the first cassettes I bought were UCXs. I liked the later design with the full width window and purple text!

Hi Tony, I remember those 1988 hf Sony tape it was my first one of Sony tapes and I love the smell of them as well lol 😁. It smell like sweet chemical smell to them

Picked up an '86, '88 and an '90 today. Nice.

Awesome video! I will get a early Sony HF to my collection soon :) motivated me much more to buy one (hard to find)

Wow, I still have a few HFs in my collection

Nice video and measurements again tony! I like to see the measurements. Not that this is the most important part, the whole physical expierience is what cassettes makes wonderful also for me, but the nice thing is with the right measurements you can explain what you hear and experience and thats great! The response you got is pretty nice! mostly within 1-1.5dB before dropping of around 17/18kHz whats on orginal spec so the deck is in good shape! Only the big dip at 50Hz is interesting . . I am much more a TDK D type of person, so not much expierience with the HF in real life. My HF's are all the three hols hubs, not bad at all but no D performance. Also liked the style of the D more :)

i bought a stock of those you said were made in mexico (the new gen) cause they are the cheap good quality tapes i feed my walkman/decks with after discovering these. not bad hf response, background hiss is stuck in head anyway so it doesnt bother me xD i was a bit sad the moment chrome tapes stopped being produced, and kinda avoided these type Is but a thing is for sure: a good deck is what makes cheap tapes sound good (with some exceptions where the cassette shell is responsible for wowflutter or R&L channel differences, or tdk sa which shits white dust). its like the prince in cinderella movies where he rubs the dirt of her and then all of a sudden all the boys in the hood want to date her. sony hf is amazing for the $$$

That magazine remained me about one day a woman came into the supermarked where im working, and was dressed up in a skin colored tight thin sweater which made from a distance looks like she forgot to put any cloths on, which kinda startled me for a sec, even if my subconscious knew instantly it was a strange colored cloth. sorry for sharing something so off-topic, i dont know way :-P

looks great sounds great and great value,and still available! its all good!!!!

It's a good tape , my dad has some of them and they sound great!

I was surprised by the last one, it sounded good and - aside from the text - it looked quality with the hubs and guide rollers spinning away.

I used to own a lot of that blank cassettes and I loved every one of them! Great upload. What is up with a advertisement?

I can remember many people using Sony FX in the 1990's. I believe it to be similar to TDK's FE.

I have a 1985 HF 90 that i am currently listening to recorded in late 80's by my Grandma on my 1995 Panasonic Rx-DT75 (Cobra top) right now .

Never brought sony cassettes apart from the sony whats up version (the yellow one)and recorded on it once and never really used it again but i will have to dig it out a and have a go with it but the mid 80's and early 90's ones for me do look pleasing to the eye and for me that matters. it is one manufacture i dont have many in my collection They all seemed to perform very well but that last of the range one you used looked like a type zero one to me with the crooked font on the tape and off centre between the hubs. As for the graph it means nowt to me but is very useful when you learn how to read it. It's like the saying the proof is in the pudding just record on the dahm thing and enjoy cant wait until the next one

Do you have a video with the EF in many versions?

Thank you, Tony.

SONY HF - not bad tape. I like it.

I love them ! Period!

My favourite HF is the 1990

Yeah, love the HF 60 and 90s

Aaaah Tony, always forgetting your Bic, and now you dazzle us with a double tape wind!

Hey Tony, we’re taking all this good video in. Hope all is well with you and yours! Got a B215 in Friday. DOA, not happy. Hoping for a happy ending. Time to toss a few!😊👍🏻😁

I have all this cassette. Thanks.

Amazing sound quality from these tapes. Slightly hissy, though some Dolby C will reduce the hiss dramatically. Find a good recording level and these tapes offer superb sound quality for a type 1 and will rival TDK type 2 any day!

The colour of the tape more darker, it means the sound quality is pretty good

I have an unopened Sony HF90 (the second 1990 version at 1:46)

MY ALBUM OF THE 2019: SIDE A 1. LE FLEX - LOVE 2 U (4:23) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rtuBdJidvZjeaZ8.html 2. OLLIE WRIDE - BACK TO LIFE (4:48) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ipmqeLCClpi9kWQ.html 3. NINA - AUTOMATIC CALL (5:11) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bdhzrayo0b6cdJs.html 4. ROBERT PARKER & MISS K - MAKE LOVE (5:10) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jd-qo6uHnbvFZJs.html 5. LE FLEX - CLOUDS ACROSS THE MOON (4:21) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q5eTiJBkv9LLfWQ.html SIDE B 6. FM'84 & OLLIE WRIDE - NEVER STOP (4:46) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aZuJo7lonNqrnWQ.html 7. FM'84 & OLLIE WRIDE - RUNNING IN THE NIGHT (4:31) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ityKps6U1sq9k3k.html 8. ROBERT PARKER - 85'AGAIN (3:25) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/kJefdZV2qduZiHU.html 9. TOMMY'86 & SALLY SHAPIRO - WHY DID I SAY GOODBYE (6:16) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bteRedVqsb2dmnU.html 10.BEN MACKLIN & EMMA BRAMMER - DARE (4:34) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hJqgms6Crs2XpZc.html EXTRA TRACK: 11.NATALIA MOSKAL - BETTER MAN (3:20) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/kKp0g7Jh39GbXWg.html TOTAL: 50:45

Would like to see more on some of the predecessors, BHF, CHF etc. since they go back nearer the early days of the D. I'm not sure I've seen you mention the BHF yet!

I got some Sony blank cassette tapes back in December of 1987 and the tapes were real defective!

I don’t think we need the graphs every time, but from time to time they are interesting

Please try, also with graphic bandwidth, the the magnificent "Super Cobalt Crystal" of HF-ES... PS: the Mexican versions are without screws and simply, for American jail compatibility (like transparent player, TV, etc) Today the cassette tape is used for listen music on American jail

My third favorite Normal Bias tape...In fact,my first ever tape was the 1988 model of the HF.

thx Tony!!

very good line of HF tapes. But what about Sony HD-F (1990) ? What place do they take in this line?

You have to smell the tape right after you open it. Sony tapes smell good!

The '86 version of the HF I got in Hungary was problematic because playback level was >10dB lower than the record level. Something was wrong with these. All other HF earlier and later were fine.

What made the Sony "Hi Fi" any different from the HF? The shell itself seems to be a totally different design. One makes a cameo on my channel and its basically the only Sony tape I have. Despite having tons of Sony video tapes (both VHS and Betamax), their cassettes weren't nearly as popular with my household for some reason. Its mostly Maxell URs, TDK Ds, and Memorex in the cassette carriers.

I like the old Sonys, the newer ones to.

i do have 2 1985 sony HF from japan and the Hi-Fi from the us mid 90's model

I didn’t see the gold, black, and red packaging HF in your video but are those decent? I picked up a case of them a year or so ago and they are made in Japan. Haven’t had problems with them but again don’t know much about then either.

If you go for HF, always chase a one made in France - they were the best. MOL around +5dB! The ones from Mexico/USA are definitely not as good.

Those are some KICK ASS tapes, even the new ones, I have a gang of them, and imho, they can EASILY rival with the best type IIs. They have a high saturation level! 👍

How about making a video of south american market cassettes?

I have two tapes for you to review which i have in front of me right now. The Maxell MS 90 Studio tape, and the Ampex 472 C-45's

Great video...you made me bring out all my HF tapes to see what I had. What happened to your disposable watches KZfaq channel? I really enjoyed it.

..and the HF-S ❤

I think I had that same panzoid intro template saved somewhere lol

86 is my birth year it my favourite as well

I had U2 and Queen at Live Aid recorded from Radio One one of the grey hubbed Sony HF60s for years. They seemed relatively mundane tapes to me at the time. Who'd have ever thought I'd ever be nostalgic for them and crying out for a cassette as good to be available new? A shame. I must admit I hated the ones towards the end that didn't even have stickers and you had to write straight onto the shell, but that sounded great. In a local second hand shop, the sort absolutely no one will be looking for old blank tapes in, in the corner of the window tucked away and forgotten, there's a box (the original Sony HF box) of 10 Sony HF90s plus a couple more all still sealed. They've been there for at least two years and probably will be cheap. Would you like me to find out how much they are and pick them up for you when and if it reopens Tony? If they're the nice early 90s ones I might keep a few for myself, but I won't need 12 or so.

what about CHF/BHF/AHV by SONY?

La semana pasada compré un Deck TEAC lo trajo un importador 500 unidades el modelo es el W-1200 doble cassettera los vendió todos y traera una segunda partida por lo visto el cassette tiene para rato dicen que Maxell volverá a fabricar