"Cassettes" Natural Recordings by Native Speakers
Cassettes are a type of analog music recording format that consists of a plastic container, typically rectangular in shape, with two spools of thin plastic film (known as ferric oxide-coated plastic or ferrooxide) that are wound together in a spiral shape. The film is coated with a magnetizable substance that allows the audio information to be stored and retrieved through a process called magnetic induction. Cassettes contain two channels, left and right, with a maximum playback time of approximately 90 minutes per side. They were widely used from the 1960s to the 1990s, especially for home music listening, car stereos, and portable audio players, before being gradually replaced by compact discs (CDs), digital audio tapes (DATs), and eventually digital music files.