Cassette Phone Recorder Disadvantages Over Digital
You probably don’t want to buy a phone recorder that uses cassettes if this is your first recorder and you’re not tied to legacy equipment in your office. If you are tied to what you’ve used before, of course you’ll need to buy something compatible with your current system.
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Assuming you’re free to buy whatever you want, you will probably do better with a digital telephone recorder, for several reasons.
First, cassette recorders have very limited storage capacity. The largest capacity tapes will only hold sixty minutes per side, which used to be a lot, but is miniscule compared to digital recording devices that can hold dozens or even hundreds of hours of conversations.
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One of the problems with the limited storage on tapes is that if you need to archive them, you have to store the physical tapes. When you record with a digital telephone recorder, all you have to store is small audio files. You can store them on your computer or CD, and catalog them according to whatever system you choose.
Digital files are extremely durable. You can copy them repeatedly with no quality loss, and they don’t degrade with use. With a cassette, you’ll need to keep the master to make copies, and each time it’s played it will lose a small amount of quality.
Digital recorders are also, in general, easier to use. You don’t have to keep tapes around, they require less fussing with, no turning over of tapes or rewinding, and they’re generally less hassle than cassette recorders.
So, to answer the original question, unless you have a very good reason for choosing a cassette phone recorder over digital, the answer is, no, you probably shouldn’t go with a cassette device. Digital recording devices offer so many advantages that it is hard to justify buying a cassette recorder these days.
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