[anjan_c2007]

Since the 1980s, prior to car AC's becoming common in India, almost every other car was fitted with a radio cassette deck. Very few Indian makes were available then, Philips being common among these. BPL and a few other companies joined by the mid to late 1980s.

Many buyers preferred the smuggled ones from the grey market. These were available in almost all major cities. Pioneer, Panasonic, Kenwood, Sanyo, and Clarion were the most preferred by buyers. But the grey market purchases had flaws that are discussed in the next paras.

Apart from repair problems, the grey market purchases would have no invoices or receipts. Repairs would rarely have to be undertaken, as these were very reliable. Only able technical hands were able to do good repair jobs.

Next comes thefts of the radio cassette decks. One neighbour who owned an Ambassador would park the car outside his residence. One fine morning, he found the Pioneer deck fitted therein stolen. He wanted to report the matter to the police but the police demanded a purchase receipt for the deck. We know the average, dismal rates of theft detections, but still, no FIR could be lodged.

Radio cassette deck thefts were very common in the 1980s, 90's and even in the 00' decade. These were the easiest to steal after car-breaking (gaining entry) and easy to carry and resell by thieves. The cars (Premier and Ambassador) of those times had a pair of quarter glasses on the front windows that even trainee thieves would be able to break open and access the door handle. Even thieves mastered the art of entry into Maruti 800's by dismantling the third window between the C and D pillars. Opening its door lock by propping up the black plastic knob was also easy. Some say that Premier Automobiles Ltd did away with front quarter glasses in late 1987 to check audio deck thefts. Some others say that the discontinuance was to cut costs.

About a decade ago, another neighbour had given his 2007 Maruti Swift VDI for servicing to the ASC. The car's Pioneer deck's front panel was detachable. Someone in the ASC filched this front panel during servicing and he was not even compensated. The poor gentleman had to replace the deck.

I have a 1998 Sony shortwave radio cassette deck fitted on my 1987 Maruti 800 that is doing well there. The front panel is detachable. This is where I can still play the old cassettes. The older Clarion was replaced in 1998 as it developed snags.

We would be happy to hear your experiences and anecdotes about radio/cassette/radio cassette decks.

[sumeethaldankar]

I remember the early days of our 1984 of our Premier Padmini, we had no sound system in same. It was only towards the end of the car's life with us was one fitted in the glove compartment. It was some Pioneer make I believe. It was a secure fit as the glove box had a lock and key.

Fast forward to our 1997 800, it had a completely detachable Pioneer knock off installed by the dealer. The sound was pooh pooh but it did it's job. I remember it had slots to hold the cassette boxes beneath the fitting. When it conked off several years later I got a JVC CD player.

With a eye on audio theft I kept the audio system detachable only it was not by design but by choice. I did not allow the fitter to screw the audio system inside the car and post parking the car I would simply remove the entire head unit by unplugging the wires. At times where I had to park in unsafe areas what I would do was to remove the system and place in under the seat. The drawback of this was since the unit was unplugged every day it would lose the settings for the clock, radio etc daily.

[TorqueMonster]

The only vehicle in my family to have a removable cassette deck was the 800 which was with my family till 2009. But it was never stolen, nor there was any danger for it, as the car was bought in the early 2000s, at the height of CD's being popular. So the removable cassette player on my car was not a target to any stealers.

My Dzire came with a stock Audio Player and 4 basic speakers, and 2 months ago, I have switched to a Touchscreen Infotainment System.

[Sanidhya mukund]

Cassette players, just like CD players, eventually went extinct in cars, thanks to the advent of touch screen systems, USB, AUX, onboard WiFi etc.

However, I still have fond memories of cassette players in my older cars. It was a bit of a custom to keep a set of cassettes in your glove box before every road trip. My Ford Ikon came with a factory fitted cassette player. I even have the original instruction manual for that particular head unit:



However, by the mid-2000s, these had gone out of fashion, so we threw the OEM one out and got a
6 CD changer fitted in the boot.

Even my now defunct Tata Estate has its OEM cassette player head unit still attached. I plan to let it stay in place if I ever get the car up and running again:



I also have an Esteem from 1995 that has an aftermarket cassette player. I am currently in the process of reviving this car. When I put a new battery in, I was shocked to see that the cassette player was still working! When I pushed the eject button, it promptly served up a ‘carpenters’ cassette that had probably been in there for the past decade or so! I do not have a picture of the head unit in particular, but it is visible in this picture:

[GTO]

Music might have gone digital today and we have the entire world's library of songs on our smartphones, but the youngsters shouldn't get the wrong impression of the older days. We thoroughly enjoyed the 15 - 20 songs on each cassette, rewinding & forwarding as needed. I used to roam around with a case that held about a dozen cassettes, all neatly marked "rock", "fast songs" etc.

It was a fun time. In fact, we heard more of the same song over & over again, unlike today where we probably listen to 1 song once a month.

They say that you enjoy a 3-item meal of your favourites more than a buffet of 100 items. Somewhat relevant here.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

The front panel is detachable.

The memories I have are of only the front panels that would get stolen - back then, you would get a box (like a pencil box that kids would take to school) to detach and store the front panel. We would park the car, remove the front panel and carry it with us in the the box. Have had the unfortunate experience of getting the front panel stolen (with the back section remaining as it is) once and then heading off to the grey market to buy another panel to replace the stolen part.

Having owned the first car when car music players were transitioning from cassette deck players to CD and then MP3 players and then finally having USB and auxiliary inputs, was an interesting time. More than quality of music, IIRC music players would be compared and priced to what sources of input it can take.

[anjan_c2007]

A few images of the AM/FM radio cassette decks of the 1980's that formed the heart and soul of the cars of that era !



A Pioneer deck advertisement



1986 Radioshack advertisement



Early 1980's Philips cassette deck



Clarion P795S deck



Clarion 6300 R deck- My Maruti 800 was fitted with this aftermarket deck. It had auto reverse wherein the cassette after playing side A would switch over to side B. That was a luxury feature as one would be driving and would not need to bother about reversing the cassette after one side was over. It had a FM and AM radio. FM was yet to arrive in most cities in India till it served me (1998). The AM radio would play MW stations.
(the above image is downloaded as I had not clicked any image of the deck then)



The Sony XR-3757 currently fitted to my Maruti since 1998. It has features to skip a song at the touch of a button, repeat a song as many times as needed, SW 1 and SW 2 apart from MW and FM radio stations. The shortwave stations would be heard only with the antenna upped. It also memorises the user's favourite radio stations if programmed to do so. We hardly have any good MW and SW stations to be heard these days.

[normaltusker]

This brings back fond memories of when Dad and us kids used to first extensively use the cassette in the car and then it would be lying in a corner in the house for us to listen when in mood for it. I do not recall the model type but Dad was definitely a fan of Pioneer and I believe that is what must have been in our Omni High roof in the 80s and Maruti 800 in the 90s!

An interesting anecdote about the security and safety of the cars that I am reminded of. Back in 80s when I was still a kid, one fine morning the entire street woke up to see that their car cassette players had been promptly stolen by thieves! The thieves had very carefully opened the front windscreen to get into the car and remove the deck. All that was ever found was few screws on the front passenger seat!

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

Very less Indian makes were available then, Philips being common among these. BPL and a few other companies joined by the mid to late 1980's.

Many buyers preferred the smuggled ones from the grey market. These were available in almost all major cities. Pioneer, Panasonic, Kenwood, Sanyo and Clarion were the most preferred by buyers.

Don’t forget Blaupunkt too for the music connoisseur. They had some high end systems too.

Some aspects of this era that I recall:
- Removable face unit so you could take it with you when you left the car parked.
- When CDs came in the features it was a bit about single CD vs 5 / 6/ 10 CD (wow, you got a 10 cd changer phenomena!) changer.
- Then came the time when many cars came with fairly sophisticated in dash installed music systems. Heck, even my 2009 Civic came with a single CD slot in its in-dash system. Buyers would choose to retain this now for most part although some would still want compatible aftermarket systems with integrated reverse cameras and what not.
- I recall my 2005 Swift being pampered with an aftermarket blaupunkt CD system and many of my Marutis in the early 2000s having either Sony or similar branded systems. The civic was my first car that already had a decent in dash integrated system that I chose not to tinker with.
- Next stage was cars getting a USB drive for music rendering the CD port redundant.
- You’d keep your “burnt CD” collection for the car as well with MP3s written on the CD to maximise the no of songs to CD ratio.
- Related accessories included arm rests that could hold tapes or CDs; accessories on the sun visor which could hold CDs etc.

[jkrishnakj]

My first 800 and my Esteem had casette players. I think it was the ‘Pioneer’ head unit.

I clearly remember that the night before the trip was busy not just in packing, but in making sure that the different members of the family have their cassette songs of choice. I used to have a small plastic box that could hold up to 30 cassettes.

There was once that I had to do a Pune-Ahmednagar-Pune round trip in the day. I had done a full cleaning of the car and had somehow left the box behind at home. Only when I started driving did I discover this and I was super happy when I found just one cassette in the back seat pocket. Unfortunately that had only one song recorded and throughout this journey, I listened to just this one song. Even today, I know each of the lyrics to heart.

Though I never had an issue of theft, what did irritate me was when friends and family will borrow a cassette and somehow never return back. The process of remembering song names, buying an empty cassette and recording the songs of choose used to take a lot of effort.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

We would be happy to hear your experiences and anecdotes about radio/cassette/radio cassette decks.

Interesting topic that brought back lot of old memories.

My memories of old cassette decks in cars is not in India, but actually in the US. My first car was a a typical "student car" (an old beater car) that I had purchased when I was a graduate student in the US. That was an old Honda Accord, and it had that typical 1990s cassette deck. I used to carry my favorite cassettes on each drive, and it was a lot of fun. I did plenty of cross-country, interstate and even cross-country solo drives across the US, in my old beater student car, listening to a collection of my favorite "Ghazals", over and over again. Those were some of the best times. I enjoyed some of the classical Ghazals a thousand times through those drives.

That time I had a good collection of cassettes too. Later came the CD player, and my first new car, a 2001 Audi A4 had a CD player. That was quite a big deal for me that time. I converted all my music from cassettes to CDs, and started listening to CDs then. I still have all those CDs well packed in a box, but have not actually listened to a CD in maybe more than 8 years now. Funny how times change.

Originally Posted by GTO

They say that you enjoy a 3-item meal of your favourites more than a buffet of 100 items. Somewhat relevant here.

Very well said. I listened to my "driving music" lot more back in the days when all I had was a few hand-picked cassettes of my choice. Now, with unlimited streaming music, I often get bored and witch off the music after 10-15 minutes of driving. It is quite a pain to find that perfect song for your mood from the streaming music. But with a specific "curated" cassette in the player, I always had that specific favorite music and loved that again and again.

In fact, this discussion is making me wonder if I should try not using steaming music but go back to my old fashioned way of carrying a specific CD and listen to it all over again and again in a drive. My car still has a CD player, that I have not even once used! This will be a funny experiment for sure :-)

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

I clearly remember that the night before the trip was busy not just in packing, but in making sure that the different members of the family have their cassette songs of choice. I used to have a small plastic box that could hold up to 30 cassettes.

Very interesting memories, and I have similar ones. I did several road trips with my university mates in my old car, and all of us had our favorite music in our own cassettes. We would to discuss and debate which cassettes to take on our drives, and eventually end up with a glove box full of cassettes. Choosing the right cassettes for each trip was a big part of the ritual of getting ready for the trip.

Though I never had an issue of theft, what did irritate me was when friends and family will borrow a cassette and somehow never return back. The process of remembering song names, buying an empty cassette and recording the songs of choose used to take a lot of effort.

Totally agree. I have lost many cassettes and even CDs to my friends. This was also true with books. I have lost count of how many books my friends borrowed and never returned. All that changed in last 10 years when both cassettes and printed books became equally rare :-)

[Blow Horn Ok]

Back then having favourite and popular songs in collection was a luxury and I remember making lists of songs for dubbing in a blank tape. Playing required flipping sides and ejecting cassettes and constant reversing and forwarding. Even then I listened and enjoyed the music more than today, when I can hear anything, anytime streamed wirelessly.

We had a pioneer (I guess it was not an original) in our omni which had series of blinking lights for left and right channels (sort of spectrum analyser) and it was an ultimate experience for me to watch it dance on the music.

When the mounted speakers stopped working, I added a big speaker box which was at home and kept the system running. The van was anyways not in short of boot space

[navin]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

We would be happy to hear your experiences and anecdotes about radio/cassette/radio cassette decks.

Originally Posted by GTO

We thoroughly enjoyed the 15 - 20 songs on each cassette, rewinding & forwarding as needed.

Stand in line you young men, how many of you even tried to retrofit a turntable into a Padmini. While I do not have pictures of my embarrassing attempt (circa 1976-77) I found out (via a Popular Mechanics I pried from the hands of the neighbourhood "raddiwalla") that Chrysler had already beat me to that idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKYz4yVDQm8

Do you guys remember that "parcel shelf" that was under the dash of the Padmini? I managed to shoe-horn a portable mono cassette player (see image below) into that shelf. An EP to RCA cable carried the signal to a homemade 8W chip amplifier (LM 1877) and a pair of Philips full-range speakers in the front doors (I fashioned my own grills using grill plate - GTO will remember as I made a 12" one for TBHP's first office). I ran this in "dual mono" mode till one day I chanced upon a "stereo head" and opened up the cassette player, replaced the mono head with a stereo head and replaced the mono preamplifier with a homemade stereo preamplifier (The cassette head signal is pretty small - of the order of 2-3mV - so it requires a special purpose low-noise preamplifier using a chip like the LM 1897).





Fast-forward to 1987 and 1988 and I managed to retrofit a D10 in my Nissan Sentra (in NY) and a D15 in my Hindustan Motors Contessa (in Mumbai). The D10 and D15 were much the same models (see video below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23YyFU0kOz8

The Discman sat on a shock-absorbing plate on my dash (image below)



Later Sony themselves produced several full kits (example D160 and D822) that included a Discman, shock-absorbing plate, remote control, and cassette adapter (image below).





Another view with the D160 sitting on its mounting plate





Enough audio-porn for one day, if someones want to raise the bar, be my guest, I still have a few tricks left. Never count an old man out.

[sandeepmohan]

I loved these old car cassette players. Mostly a Japanese dominant market. I believe Sony were the first to make their products official in India. They could not hold a candle to the Pioneers and Kenwood's of the time. Maruti Suzuki had a tie going with Kenwood back in the day and the Esteem VX came factory fitted with one. It was an excellent cassette player fitted with lousy speakers though.

I still remember a beautiful 1din Pioneer radio cassette player with electric tape loading. It would load and eject the tape with precision, unlike, how the tape would fly out with some of those overloaded spring eject units. Those tiny little lights made them look beautiful at night.

Those days, the first step to showing off was to have your own car in college. To raise the bar, your car needed to be kitted out with the latest or best stereo or head unit. If that head unit did not shine or did not make your ride rock, you and your car lost all its bragging rights.

[racer_ash]

Oh! The good old cassette Deck. I had a pact with my dad that whenever I scored well in Maths, he would buy me a new cassette that we could play in the unbranded deck of our M800. Amasses a wonderful collection of cassettes ranging from Meat Loaf to Foreigner, REM and some great local music. My favourite cassette however was the one that had ABBA on side A and Beegees on side B.

I also remember a time when I we bought a Boney M cassette. The excitement was short lived as this particular cassette was slightly wider than normal and this got stuck in the deck. Had to tinker around with the deck head ( it wasn't removable like some of the other ones) to finally eject it.

In college, I used to record songs in such a way that once my favourite song finishes in side A, I just need to flip over so the next favourite song plays. What joy!!!